[Peace-discuss] Interview with Norman Finkelstein on Israel, etc.

[C. G. Estabrook]

Wayne, you're a walking and (Chinese-)talking example of Norman's point:

"...people are getting a little too cult-like about BDS.  You always know a 
movement is growing insular when it starts using these in-group abbreviations 
('BDS').  In my day it was 'DOP' --  'Dictatorship of the Proletariat'.  You 
have these little abbreviations to show that you're part of the 'in-group' and 
you're cool and you know what's going on..."

Thanks to your researches, we're kewl again.  Regards, CGE


On 7/14/10 9:43 AM, E.Wayne Johnson wrote:
> Well my first thought was that it meant Battered Day Saints but decided that
> was either half-baked or just plain fried.
>
> Then I thought about BS and what the D might mean and realized that what is
> affectionately called BS in the USA has a canine equivalent in China implying
> a similar lack of respect in the veracity measure. But when you put Bull with Dog
> it seems to lose some effect, and the Chinese hooligan patois generally
> includes "chou" (stinking) which is not a clarifier for "gou" (dog) but
> for "goushi", the familiar contemptible objet of pedestrian art and artifice.
>
> Nonplussed by this exercise as you might imagine I tried "Dumb" instead of "Dog"
> but got nothing useful. Finally I consulted Google which turned up Bush
> Derangement Syndrome (who cares), the British Deer Society, Blower Drive
> Service, and an outfit in Guangzhou that makes heavy duty drill presses.
>
> Then I found that there is a Global BDS Movement and I imagined telethons for some
> horrid connective tissue disease but read closely enough to find that it stands
> for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions for Palestine. I suppose I could lay off
> Matzos for awhile. I am sure Kissinger would be anguished if he knew about it. I
> thought maybe falafel was from Israel but I wasnt sure I could spell it right
> and googling it might take me circumnavigating back to the Blower Drive
> Service...that actually could explain the news item "Palestinian Queers Call for
> BDS" http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/741.
>
> It seems to me that the solidarity of consumer revolt wouldnt do much, and it
> seems to take the focus off of the question "what is the US government's role in
> all this mess?" and "why cant we seem to do anything about that?".
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu>
> To: "peace discuss" <Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 9:37 PM
> Subject: [Peace-discuss] Interview with Norman Finkelstein on Israel, etc.
>
>
>> ...What are your views on the BDS movement...?
>>
>> [FINKELSTEIN:] First of all, people are getting a little too cult-like about
>> BDS. You always know a movement is growing insular when it starts using these
>> in-group abbreviations ('BDS'). In my day it was 'DOP' -- 'Dictatorship of the
>> Proletariat'. You have these little abbreviations to show that you're part of
>> the 'in-group' and you're cool and you know what's going on. So we should
>> really steer away from that, because this is not about our egos, which are
>> sometimes oversized. It's about trying to achieve an important, humane goal.
>>
>> There are now basically three strands, as I see it, of resistance to what
>> Israel is doing. One strand is the legal one: trying to hold Israel
>> accountable according to international law. That took its most salient form in
>> the Goldstone Report, but there have been a lot of initiatives around it, like
>> the use of universal jurisdiction in the UK to threaten lawsuits against
>> Israeli officials and personnel who come to the country. That to me is an
>> extremely valuable tool in trying to organise people in the sense of leaning
>> on the law to say that what we're demanding is simply what the law is
>> demanding. But in terms of application it's very elitist, because it's just a
>> very narrow group of lawyers who can ever really bring to bear the force of law.
>>
>> Another strand is the nonviolent civil resistance, which includes what goes on
>> in places like Bil'in, the internationalists who go over there, and also
>> things like the flotilla. Those are all part of the nonviolent civil
>> resistance component -- I won't say 'strategy' because I don't think any of
>> these different approaches are in conflict -- of opposition to the occupation.
>>
>> The third component is BDS. This has, I think, two aspects to it: one aspect
>> that targets Israel globally, saying anything and everything that has to do
>> with Israel has to be boycotted, and a second that says we should focus on
>> those aspects of what Israel does that are illegal under international law. So
>> for example, what the Methodist Church in Britain just did: it did not pass a
>> resolution saying we should boycott all Israeli products, even though there
>> were some people pushing for that. It passed a resolution saying we should
>> boycott Israeli goods that come from the settlements, because the settlements
>> are illegal under international law. And then there are the initiatives of,
>> say, Amnesty International that call for a comprehensive arms embargo on
>> Israel because the transfer of weapons to persistent human rights abusers is
>> illegal under international law. Then there's the targeting of Caterpillar
>> because Caterpillar is involved in demolition of homes, which is illegal under
>> international law, and so on.
>>
>> So there's one subset of BDS that focuses not on Israel globally but on
>> aspects of Israeli policy that violate international law. There's another
>> subset that says everything having to do with Israel should be boycotted --
>> its academic institutions, all of its products, and so on and so forth.
>> Personally, I think that the first subset -- namely targeting those aspects of
>> Israeli policy that violate international law -- has a much better chance of
>> success because people understand international law. When you start targeting
>> everything having to do with Israel it begins to pose questions of motive --
>> 'OK, now, what exactly are we opposed to here? Are we opposed to the
>> occupation or are we opposed to Israel completely?' And the global targeting
>> is, I think, deliberately obfuscatory on that issue...
>>
>> Full article (part one of an interview) at
>> http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/sw130710.html
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>