[Peace-discuss] Biss, BDS, etc.

[C G Estabrook]

Yes, indeed - "more of a decisive defeat than people are willing to admit.”


> On Jan 21, 2018, at 2:32 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> 
> There aren't structures in place to mobilize much of a response, as far as I can tell. I suppose we all have to accept some responsibility for that. Perhaps the Salaita affair was the high point of the willingness of the community to respond to this issue. However one looks at it, that was I think more of a decisive defeat than people are willing to admit.
> On ‎Sunday‎, ‎January‎ ‎21‎, ‎2018‎ ‎01‎:‎40‎:‎14‎ ‎PM‎ ‎CST, Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> Where one, politician or not, stands with respect to the Israel/Palestinian conflict reveals much about their general thinking. Biss’ stand against BDS makes him a less attractive person/candidate, but yes, what are the alternatives …?
> 
> Your last sentence is revealing; were the organizations cited (SJP, JVP) aware of what was going on?
> 
> —mkb
> 
> 
>> On Jan 21, 2018, at 12:36 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Thanks to David Johnson's and Joel Reinstein's interview with Daniel Biss and yesterday's World Labor Hour.
>> 
>> Biss is an appealing candidate for obvious reasons to those reading this list, and I will likely vote for him.
>> 
>> I appreciated Joel raising the issue of BDS, including the Illinois bill that Biss voted for (and that nobody opposed). Biss's analogy regarding using state investment to both move beyond dirty energy and oppose BDS made little or no sense. Just a bit of political hocus pocus, now you see it now you don't.
>> 
>> Nevertheless, I wouldn't care if Biss opposed BDS, which I think is mostly over-rated as a tactic, and actually supported a two-state solution seriously promoted by USFP. But he gives no indication that he has ever lifted a finger to do so.  When I drive through Skokie on my way to Evanston (Dempster Ave.) there are synagogues with "We Stand with Israel" signs displayed. If Biss was interested in confronting the obstacles to two states, he might start there. That's his district. But clearly his political calculation is to play it "safe" with Jewish voters.
>> 
>> If he doesn't understand that the primary obstacles to a two-state solution are the U.S. government and the Israel Lobby, then he is quite naïve or quite in denial.
>> 
>> In addition, Joel's statement regarding support for Palestine as an aspect of "intersectional feminism" is also not my cup of tea. I'm not sure why the right of Palestinians to govern themselves should be put in those relatively narrow terms, and I don't see Jewish feminists who still identify as Zionists responding to that; nor do I see the "intersectional" movement as having much interest in Palestine, to be honest. There needs to be a more fundamental case made regarding Palestinian rights, and Israel's wholesale movement to the right as the result of the occupation.
>> 
>> Joel asserted that Palestinians (in Palestine) support BDS, and that's well and good. But the Palestinians will need a much stronger resistance movement, otherwise there is no way BDS is going to contribute to their liberation. As the atheist Norman Finkelstein asserts in this context, "God only helps those who help themselves."
>> 
>> One might argue that this discourse shouldn't be part of the gubernatorial race, and indeed there's no reason to place too much significance on it relative to those issues for which the governor is obviously most accountable for. Nevertheless, Illinois, including its "public" universities, does business with Israel (and its universities) in ways that should be opposed. I believe that Quinn and Rauner both went to Israel; is Biss willing to say he won't go--or at least not in order to strike deals with the apartheid state? That might have been a better line of questioning.
>> 
>> On the other hand, if candidates at any level want to promote themselves as clean-living, family-devoted, etc., which have next to nothing to do with their political views, then perhaps they should at least deign to take a stand on war, foreign policy, etc., including I/P, which is pretty big issue in this state. I'm more interested in that than how pretty their children are, or even their track record as "community organizers."
>> 
>> But then again, when Rauner/Killeen cut their deal with Israeli universities, where was Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, etc.? This just went down without any organized response whatsoever. 
>> 
>> DG
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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