Lara's Theme

Those in the West who have been following events in Egypt were outraged to learn about the vicious beating and sexual assault of CBS news correspondent Lara Logan in the heart of Tahrir Square in the midst of the jubilation surrounding the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. No doubt, many in the Middle East were outraged as well. The Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights published a survey three years ago that showed that 83% of Egyptian women and 98% of foreign women in Egypt had been exposed to some form of sexual harassment, including groping, verbal abuse, stalking and indecent exposure. Egyptian director Mohamed Diab’s recent film “678” takes direct aim at the fact that sexual harassment and sexual assault are commonplace everyday occurrences in Egypt. That would be reason enough to point out this incident.

Many were also appalled to find out that as they attacked and assaulted her, the mob screamed “Jew!” “Jew!” at her. Anti-Semitism has been taught not only among the brethren of the Al Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood), but also, despite official peace, by the institutions and state run media of Hosni Mubarak. As the majority of Egyptians  were born and/or grew up in his Egypt, their expression of Jew hatred as either an excuse for or a rationale for brutality and rape is a sad, but unsurprising commentary on the mindset of too many in revolutionary Egypt. That would be reason enough to point out this incident too.

Some commentators, like conservative Debbie Schlussel, have made the rather obscene observation of “sow the wind, reap the whirlwind”, surmising that gung ho reporters like Logan should know better, or that she should have expected no less from those she chose to report on. This seems to me to be a shallow attempt to chastise the mainstream media on the back of a horrible experience. There are more obvious and way more appropriate avenues to  point out the media’s shortcomings.

What truly stands out about this incident beyond the disgusting crime committed is the knowledge we all have now that even in the midst of Tahrir Square, where the pro democracy forces held sway; even at the moment of greatest joy in Egypt in 30 years; even with the army managing access to the area;  and even with the no doubt earnest and serious best efforts of the April 6^th movement which had guided the revolution, dozens of Egyptian men  - not one criminal, or even a small group, but dozens – were able to perpetrate such a heinous offense, and were not stopped for a half hour. When they were stopped, by a group of women and a few soldiers they managed to find, no one was arrested. I

’ll ask the question I haven’t seen asked anywhere else:

If the forces of democracy are so weak and disorganized, with so many taking advantage of the freedoms they dearly bought with blood, and helpless or at worst careless in the one place at the one time where they were truly strong, how on earth do they expect to influence a massive nation of 82 million? How do they expect to be taken seriously elsewhere? Perhaps most importantly, how will they impart a commitment to democracy, human rights, women's rights, religious freedom, tolerance and civility before the Al Ikhwan imparts their own “wisdom”, and an iron veil descends on Egypt?

Domino Dancing

Back in the bad old days, when the West was facing down an expanding Soviet empire (which turned out to be slowly rotting from the inside), American politicians of all persuasions warned of the domino theory of communist influence. They perceived the march of totalitarian rule in Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America as a threat to world peace and democratic principles. The key to the theory was that if communism went unchecked, countries would fall to its influence like dominoes lined up and tipped, one following the next. China led to North Korea, which led to Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam. Insurgencies in the Congo led to more in Angola, Namibia, and Mozambique.

The solution, they felt, was to counter its influence with economic, military, and cultural aid, even if that meant dealing with dictators. We know now that the final defeat of communism was due to the economic effect of trying to outspend capitalist military spending, and to mismanagement and corruption in command economies more than anything else. The domino theory, and the response to it, did not, in the long run, make the strategic difference in the defeat of communism.

One legacy of the Western, and specifically the American, response to Soviet influence was its determination to engage Arab countries which had fallen out with their Soviet patrons. The prime example of this trend was Egypt. After Egyptian President Anwar Sadat kicked out the Soviets in 1972, an unnamed Israeli diplomat told Time Magazine "Russian dominoes are falling all over the Middle East, and Egypt is the biggest one yet."

Even after Egypt attacked Israel in 1973, the Americans continued to develop their relationship. They solidified it with the Camp David Accords, and began economic and military cooperation with Egypt which saw yearly “Bright Star” exercises and powerful American equipment strengthen the Egyptian military. Egyptian forces participated in the First Gulf War, and have been a powerful ally to the west since 9/11.

The thing about dominoes, though, is that they can be knocked both ways. President Obama’s June 2009 peregrination to Cairo to address the grievances of the Arab and Muslim world indicated a new paradigm for engagement. The problem was that despite the fresh approach, the challenges of regional instability, radical Islam, and the disenfranchised and underemployed generation of youth in Egypt and elsewhere represented the same ticking time bomb that existed before Obama took office. Two years on, the US administration is finding out that it is simpler to talk about change than to implement it in foreign policy. American interests are understandably best served by stability, even if it has come through the means of dictatorship. America’s democratic ideals, on the other hand, demand support for the people in Tahrir Square. The mixed message coming out of Washington is not making any friends among the protesters or among those watching events across the region.

Falling dominoes in the Arab world are now being anticipated by most observers. It is no surprise that Jordan’s King Abdullah has just fired his entire government, trying to get ahead of growing protests in his country.

What has not been perceived, I think, is the peril this tide of protest presents to Europe’s democracies. The disenfranchised youth of North Africa have cousins in the banlieues of France and throughout the EU. In  late 2005, riots and unrest among predominantly Arab youth led to almost 3000 arrests, almost 9000 burned vehicles, a number of deaths, over 100 wounded police and firemen, gutted buildings, and over 200 million Euros of property damage. What incited it? The deaths of two teens who electrocuted themselves while hiding from police.

If such a tide of outrage can come from a small, albeit tragic event, imagine the galvanizing power of the images from Tunisia and Egypt on both those with legitimate grievances in Europe, as well as those whose agenda includes the destabilization of Western democracies. The Muslim Brotherhood, as well as its various offshoots and affiliates may not have started this gathering storm, but they are well placed to take advantage of it. In Egypt, that could mean stepping into a power vacuum. In other places, it could lead to more direct action as it has in the past. In Europe, it could mean violence, unrest, and chaos on a scale beyond 2005.

Christopher Hitchens, in a stunningly insightful piece in Slate (The Shame Factor, Jan 31, 2011), revealed what might be the single most important reason why these protests are happening now. He described the shame of a young son of an Arab dictator at the fact that the tiny, weak state of Albania has had free elections, and his country, among others in the Arab world, has not. Egyptians, Hitchens writes, will take their humiliation by their leader no longer.

Themes of shame and humiliation have huge currency in the Arab and Muslim world, and have been the subject of scholarly debate and popular literature for decades. The facts of the last decades under mostly authoritarian rule have borne out some of the sources of that humiliation. 

From a military point of view, though their totalitarian leaders demanded and initiated campaign after campaign, Arab armies have rarely tasted victory. Even the 1973 war, which ended with Israeli tanks poised unchallenged on the road to Cairo and with the entire Egyptian Third Army surrounded, is celebrated as a victory because the reality of another defeat  after initial surprise and success was too humiliating to contemplate. The crushing defeat of Hamas in the  2008/2009 Cast Lead operation is celebrated because the leadership survived, even though hundreds of Hamas fighters were killed, and their rain of rockets on Israeli towns brought a response that wreaked havoc on Gaza's population. Even the most ineptly fought Israeli war in history, the 2006 Second Lebanon War, ended with a dramatically weakened Hezbollah and a leader still afraid to come out in the sunlight. 

The First Gulf War wrecked the strongest army in the Arab world. After the Second Gulf War, even those Arabs who opposed Saddam Hussein were appalled by the defeat and dismantlement of the Iraqi army, the fracturing of Iraq's body politic, and the horrific images from Abu Ghraib.

From  an economic and cultural point of view, the harsh reality was no better. The UN led Arab Human Development Reports of 2003-2005 demonstrated an acute lack of opportunity, of intellectual freedom, of cultural sensitivity, of human security, of gender equality, and of scientific output. According to the report, Spain, for example, published more Spanish translations (about 100,000) of foreign titles in one year (2002) than the total number of books translated into Arabic in the past 900 years. With ongoing repression from their leaders, watching a world of technological, commercial, and cultural progress pass them by, young Arabs are justifiably angry and humiliated. The only surprise here is that it took this long for the explosion to happen. What will galvanized Arab populations do to restore their honor? How far will they go?

The Genie is out of the Lamp. Who will put it back in?

Shooting the Messenger

Yesterday, Rabbi Ahron Hoch, Rabbi of the Village Shul in Toronto, received a letter from York University threatening legal action for casting aspersions on its President, and encouraging non students to participate in a rally against the appearance of the infamous George Galloway at York, funded by student fees. I have the honour to have known Rabbi Hoch for about 20 years. He is a gentle, humorous, extraordinarily welcoming individual, someone who respects all of God’s creations. If Rabbi Hoch felt moved to motivate others to stand up and be counted at York, it is because he, like me, has been listening to Jewish students at York describing the increasingly hostile environment for far too long. It is not only Rabbi Hoch who has been moved by this growing problem.

This fall, the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced its intention to more strictly enforce the provisions of an important policy benefiting Jewish students in elementary, secondary and post-secondary schools. In a letter issued on October 26, OCR declared that it will enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect Jewish students from harassment, intimidation and discrimination at federally funded schools.

In Canada, the federal government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made its position clear, even though education is regulated at the provincial rather than the federal level. When it has had the opportunity to be involved, including in funding decisions, it has acted decisively. In a recent speech, Prime Minister Harper stated:

“Anti-Semitism has gained a place at our universities, where at times it is not the mob who are removed, but the Jewish students under attack (This is a direct reference to events at York University last year)… There are, after all, a lot more votes, a lot more, in being anti-Israeli than in taking a stand. But, as long as I am Prime Minister…Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost. Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows us, and the ideology of the anti-Israeli mob tells us all too well, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are, in the longer term, a threat to all of us.”

Jewish York University students have been testifying for years that the environment created on their campus - by anti-Israel activists; by anti-Israel student governments; by University administrators who are at best bewildered, possibly intimidated or at the very least ambivalent  - is a noxious, hate filled, poisoned environment. The standards of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Commission protecting individuals from a poisoned environment in the workplace or at school are simply not being met. 

The responsibility for enforcing those standards lies with the institution, and ultimately with President Shoukri himself. Now, I don’t presume to know President Shoukri’s conscience. I don’t assume he is an anti-Semite. He may even have an earnest desire to work with the Jewish community, especially considering how much of York’s fund-raising comes from within it. Nonetheless, I know that he and his predecessor Lorna Marsden (with whom I sat along with colleagues discussing similar problems more than seven years ago) have utterly failed to protect Jewish students as is their responsibility under the Charter. Graffiti, physical attacks, verbal attacks (Hillel @ York reported shouted comments such as ““Die Jew,” “Get the hell off campus,” “Go back to Israel,” and “F---ing Jew,”), blockades in rooms, disrupted events, even allegations (with signed affidavits) that Mr. Shoukri engaged in supportive discourse with Hammam Farah, an anti-Israel activist with SAIA – these all evidence a fundamental disregard for the Charter rights of thousands of York students.

As the former Director of Israel Affairs for National Jewish Campus Life, and the former Campus Coordinator for B’nai Brith Canada, I have spent countless hours working with students, student groups, Jewish professional staff, security, and even York administrators to solve and confront these problems. I have stood in the Vari Link and debated anti-Israel activists, and with more wise experience I have helped organize and execute campaigns aimed at creating a better climate through engaging the 90% who do not have an interest in the conflict in a positive way. My experience tells me that there must be a point at which the Jewish community stands up and says “Enough!” as Rabbi Hoch has done. And I would go further than that.

There are two avenues for Jewish students and the Jewish community to take that they have not yet done as effectively as they might.

• Students have a right to redress under York’s Code of Conduct, as well as through the Ontario Charter of Rights. Not one, not ten, but HUNDREDS of students should avail themselves of these avenues as often and as loudly as necessary, and the legal talent of the Jewish community must be harnessed to support them.  The York Federation of Students, SAIA, and the York administration must be held to account using their own rules and procedures, if necessary to the point of paralyzing their administrative and legal resources unless they address the issues.
• York University is the beneficiary of millions of dollars every year from donors within the Jewish community, and the choice of thousands of Jewish families for the education of their children. Many of these have been increasingly dismayed by events at York, and some of them have withdrawn their support. Students, donors, and community professionals should draw up a campaign to finally use the leverage they have been accused of holding for years by the likes of Professor David Noble. The consequences of inaction should be spelled out to York’s administration. The potential withdrawal of thousands of students and millions of dollars will send a message that is hard to ignore.

Rabbi Hoch, you have the esteem of the entire community, as well as that of concerned Canadians from sea to sea. You are in good company. Prime Minister Harper agrees with you. The US government agrees with you. Thousands of Jewish students at York University and across the country agree with you. The administration at York University has countenanced actions which create a poisoned environment for far too long. The obscenity of hosting George Galloway at York follows from a long series of events, and a long history of ineffective “leadership” on the issue by York University senior administrators. This crisis has been a decade in the making. It is past time to ensure the security, safety and the peace of mind of thousands of Jewish students at York and around the country.

Credit Where Credit is Due

In a recent column, the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer delivered a rare note of praise to President Obama. Instead of lambasting him over the expense of the recent Presidential trip to India, Krauthammer explained that India’s key role in counterbalancing China’s expansionist agenda in South Asia was an excellent reason to foster better relations and to advocate for India’s inclusion as a sixth permanent member of the UN Security Council.

The sinecure of Security Council membership is no great shakes in and of itself. Take note of the fact that two Security Council members, Great Britain and France, have descended to sharing aircraft carriers and command structures as cost saving measures, and compare that with India’s projection of military and naval power in its region, and one determines that India already has the power and influence of the seat without holding it. No. Calling for India’s accession is a demonstration of respect for its growing influence.

India’s importance, though, goes much farther. As early as 1992, when Israel’s relationship with Turkey was still growing and positive, geopolitical observers were noting the growing convergence of interests between Israel, India, and Turkey, and the vise-like geographic grip they placed on nascent fundamentalism in the Islamic world. Ilan Berman, writing in the Middle East Quarterly (Fall 2002) reflected on the practical implications of this in the post 9/11 world. Berman argued that the roots of this alignment lay in the end of the Cold War, and the shifting of alliances therein. I believe that Berman was only right as far as the impetus, but mistaken about the glue. What would hold this alliance together, or tear it apart, would be the responses of its constituents to the geopolitics of identity and the demographic realities of a Near East filled with undereducated, underemployed, and grievance filled young men in countries from Pakistan to Jordan, and places in between.

Turkey proved to be the weak link. As its fear of the Soviets receded, some of the rationale for backing an army-dominated government evaporated. Into the vacuum came the resurgent Islamists, culminating in the current Islamist government. Disappointed with Europe’s intransigence on its accession to the EU, and unhappy with the Americans for not speaking up on its behalf, Turkey has withdrawn into petulance and recrimination. These emotions suit an alliance with the aggrieved Islamists of Iran and its proxies perfectly. With most opposition leaders in jail or under close watch, no changes can be expected in Turkey’s   political environment. As such, neither India nor Israel will see any part of the cooperation that was so evident in the late 90’s and early 00’s.

India has both a pragmatic and ideological rationale for partnership with Israel and the US. As the US’s more reliable ally in the sub-continent, it will benefit from American restraints on its increasingly more volatile adversary and neighbor, Pakistan. It is one of Israel’s largest customers for military hardware, but more importantly it has developed very close intelligence sharing protocols with both the Israelis and the Americans. As a country isolated by religion and looked upon as heathen by many of its neighbors, it shares an ideological position with Israel and the West in opposition to radical Islam of both the Wahabi and Shia varieties.

What should also be recognized are the economic relationships India shares with the West. Challenged by its massive population, India has developed a growing information based sector in its economy, a growing entrepreneurial “class”, and a nascent replacement of the societal caste structure with a meritocracy.

Finally, there is the shared experience of terrorism, on a large scale, in the streets of its largest cities. The Mumbai attacks reflected the experience of 9/11, of the London Subway bombings, and of the suicide bombings of Israel’s Al Aksa War. Whereas India’s experience with Sikh or Tamil extremist terror was perceived as a local phenomenon, its encounter with Islamist annihilationist terror is part and parcel of a global phenomenon.  It is for these, but especially this last reason that President Obama made such a powerful gesture to India.

If the UN is to recover any of its shattered credibility, it is through the actions of a revitalized Security Council prepared to confront the greatest threat to the ideals upon which the UN was founded six decades ago – Islamist terror and its quest for a global Caliphate.

Back To the Future

In a speech today lamenting Canada’s failure to achieve a seat on the UN Security Council, Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff set out his vision for Canada’s foreign policy direction. John Ibbitson of the Globe and Mail described Ignatieff’s plan as “turning back the clock”. Ignatieff’s suggestions look alarmingly like the policies of Jean Chretien, Prime Minister from 1993 to 2005. Here are the back to the future policies as Ibbitson described them, and the flawed, morally bankrupt ways in which the Chretien government and subsequent Liberal leadership has handled them.

·         A renewed commitment to peacekeeping operations, which Canada largely abandoned to concentrate on the war in Afghanistan. 

Canada’s departure from the peacekeeping scene occurred largely on the watch of the Chretien government. Canadian peacekeepers in Bosnia and Croatia during the Balkan wars were repeatedly handcuffed by idiotic rules of engagement and often under fire from all sides, watching helplessly sometimes as ethnic cleansing played out over years. Peacekeeping missions in Somalia – begun under a Conservative government - ended in utter failure for the “human security” agenda, as well as disgrace for the Parachute regiment given a mission with no chance of success. The final disgrace to the idea of peacekeeping as it was practiced on the Liberal watch was the murder of a million Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, as a powerless Canadian commander of UN forces looked on, as Belgian peacekeepers were gunned down, and as the UN Secretariat under Kofi Annan sat on its hands. The concept has been discredited, and trying to revivify it will not change the new security environment, the threat of terrorism that the Conservative government has tried to address. 

·         Spearheading efforts to ban cluster bombs 

The most dangerous thing about cluster munitions is their capacity for inflicting harm – after the battle – on civilian populations. It is a fair and civilized notion to seek their reduction or elimination. But an even more ethical approach is to call out and criticize countries and non-state actors like Hezbollah in South Lebanon who operate from and hide within civilian neighborhoods, and who launched thousands of rockets at the one million plus people of the northern Galilee from these areas, drawing defensive fire using these and other munitions on the launch sites. The Conservative approach was to do just that, while some Liberals were marching in demonstrations under Hezbollah flags, and Mr. Ignatieff himself (though he later apologized) was describing Israel’s response as a “war crime”.

·         Repudiating the Conservative government’s refusal to repatriate Omar Khadr from his Guantanamo prison. 

It has now become clear that Mr. Khadr was indeed the individual who threw the grenade that killed a US army medic; that he was involved in the placement of IED’s; that he was still reveling in his accomplishment well into his incarceration; and that his presence on the battlefield was at least as much a result of volition as of indoctrination. Notwithstanding the question of his status as a combatant, he is now an admitted murderer, and as such, as Minister Cannon’s spokesperson has said, he will have to engage in a process with no guarantees of repatriation as any other murderer might do. Like it or not, that is in keeping with existing jurisprudence. Mr. Ignatieff might do better than to adjudicate from the commons, as it were.

·         Renewing Canada’s commitment to limit global warming to within 2 degrees C.

The limitation of global warming will start and finish with the conversion of emerging massive economies like China, Brazil and India from dirty carbon-based fuels and energy production to cleaner alternatives like hydro-electric and nuclear energy. Canada’s commitment, while admirable, will be meaningless if these countries don’t stop building coal fired plants at the rate of 2 or 3 every week. Any representation Ignatieff makes that ignores these realities is disingenuous. It speaks to the inaction of former Liberal leader Stephane Dion, who as Environment Minister ignored the Kyoto protocols until it was too late, exclaiming “It is not Fair!” and then trying to blame his successors when the Liberal governments of Chretien and martin left them with a legacy of doing nothing.

·         Increasing the number of African countries receiving aid.

Most international endeavours in providing aid to Africa have encountered gross mismanagement, corruption, delay, and failure in the past five decades. UN agencies have proven inept and unaccountable. Hunger, disease, civil strife, war, and social disintegration still plague many parts of Africa. In Congo alone, over five million people have died in the fighting in the last fifteen years. In Darfur, the international partners Mr. Ignatieff would like to return to have refused to describe the horrors perpetrated by the Sudanese government as genocide. In Zimbabwe, Mr. Mugabe’s government continues to slowly strangle the country, without relinquishing an iota of control over the distribution of aid. The Liberals have fallen prey to the oldest of mistakes – doing things the same way and expecting different results.  

·         Rebalancing the emphasis on the Middle East to focus less on defending the rights of Israel and more on promoting the rights of Palestinians.

Looking around the world, the Palestinians do not suffer from a lack of advocates for their cause. Indeed, Mr. Ignatieff, both in personal conversation with me last November and in public statements has insisted that there is no daylight between Conservative and Liberal support for Israel. And yet, with the exception of one autumn under Paul Martin,  recent Liberal governments have voted with grave inconsistency on Israel in the UN General Assembly. Their MPs, from Colleen Beaumier to Carolyn Parrish, from Borys Wrzesnewskyj to Denis Coderre have used many opportunities to not only advocate FOR Palestinian and Arab causes – which is entirely legitimate, but to advocate AGAINST Israel and its defensive actions. In 2002, Liberal MP and Foreign Minister Bill Graham berated hundreds of Jewish leaders in an Ottawa speech for their support for Israeli intransigence and disproportionality at a time when Palestinian terrorists were lynching lost reservists, blowing up buses and gunning down families. If that is the kind of rebalancing Mr. Ignatieff is interested in, Canadians with conscience, fortitude, and perspective will say no thank you.

I have no doubt that Mr. Ignatieff is a man of goodwill, good intentions, unquestionable intelligence, and great erudition. He has the rare quality of focusing all of his attention and his formidable gaze on the individual he is conversing with, and in the conversation I was part of, his words were well considered and precise. He is, however, anchored to a bankrupt mindset which supports a broken international system focused on a corrupt and hypocritical world organization known as the United Nations. It is time for a Liberal reevaluation of the realities of the international system and Canada’s place within it. The Conservatives have already made that evaluation, and found that principle once again has primacy of place in making foreign policy.

Poker Face

Former Israeli UN Ambassador and Foreign Minister Abba Eban famously chastised the Palestinians for ‘Never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Well, times seem to have changed. Responding to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer to extend the settlement freeze by 60 days in return for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, Yasser Abed Rabbo, one of the most senior politicians within the PLO and the PA, stated that the PA would recognize Israel as “whatever it wants” – if Israel would recognize a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, including East Jerusalem.

For those who follow the give and take of Mideast diplomacy, Abed Rabbo’s gambit is a non-starter on many levels. Firstly, from a purely political perspective, no Israeli Prime Minister has made concessions on Jerusalem since its reunification, and none interested in maintaining power will do so. Further, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s conditions set out in his Bar-Ilan speech last year also include the total demilitarization of a nascent Palestinian state, and the solution of the Palestinian refugee issue outside of Israel’s borders. These are predicates that no Palestinian leader interested in maintaining power (or even staying among the living) could ever countenance.

Notwithstanding the posturing, a number of remarkable things are happening in this conversation. Though they have determined not to continue direct talks for the moment, the Palestinians are, in fact, negotiating in the court of public opinion. Positions are responded to, and new positions taken. These may ultimately lead nowhere, but the fact that this discussion is occurring at all represents a give-and-take that hasn’t been seen in years.

Another remarkable element of the conversation is the fact that the Palestinian leadership has seemingly outmaneuvered Prime Minister Netanyahu. In this high stakes poker game, the Palestinians have seen the Prime Minister’s “Jewish state” and raised him “1967 borders”. As the Palestinians know, Israel has over the past 15 years frittered away its leverage. Gaza is gone, roadblocks are reduced, settlements restrained, if not still frozen. It has received precious little in return, except perhaps some time, which has now run out. A 60 day settlement freeze was a transparent and far too limited offer to be taken seriously, if that was its intent. If it was simply a PR bone thrown to the Americans, it has been chewed up and thrown back.

It might seem that Israel is in tough, but the PA is in no less of a difficult spot. Its recent prosperity depends on Israeli cooperation (one last bit of leverage left), it continues to be an economic supplicant to the Arab League, the EU, and the UN, it can’t maintain credibility even when it is refusing concessions, and its President Mahmoud Abbas is constantly looking over his shoulder at Hamas and Iran.

No amount of American pressure will force either Netanyahu or Abbas to commit political suicide, so little progress can be expected, even if the conversation continues. Abba Eban also famously said “Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives.” If there is an alternative to be found, perhaps there is some hope in the fact that both Israelis and Palestinians are approaching the point of exhaustion.

The BDS Harvard Blues

Many supporters of peace and democracy in the Middle East woke up on Monday morning and were dismayed to find a widely disseminated report that Harvard University had sold off its shares in Israeli companies and was divesting from Israel in support of the International Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS). It was, frankly, a disturbing and flabbergasting prospect. One of America’s largest and oldest University endowments falling in line with the perilous notion of boycotting Israel would be an enormous victory for the so far inept and entirely unsuccessful BDS movement, and a body blow to supporters of Israel. Harvard was uncharacteristically silent for some time on the issue. When it did finally clarify the issue, what became clear was that once again, the BDS movement exposed itself as an opportunistic, dishonest, and frankly second rate political movement, further burnishing its credentials of rank hypocrisy and utter failure.

Harvard spokesman John Longbrake told reporters clearly “The University has not divested from Israel.” In fact, the sales of shares in Israeli companies took place primarily because of Israel’s success and maturation from an emerging to a developed market. Israel’s sustained leadership in high tech and software development, its unique venture capital environment, its highly educated workforce, and its economic resilience during two wars and a global recession put it squarely among countries and regions not represented in Harvard’s emerging markets portfolio. Taking, for example five Israeli companies – pharmaceutical giant Teva, Checkpoint software, Nice Systems, Partner Communications and Cellcom Israel, institutional investors with a six month to six year horizon would have realized significant returns by selling these stocks at this time, even though some of them have underperformed in recent months. Israel’s recent accession to the OECD – The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, cemented its position as a developed economy.

Longbrake also indicated that Harvard also has “…holdings in developed markets, including Israel, through outside managers in commingled accounts and indexes.” Indeed, Israeli companies account for the largest number of NASDAQ listings after the US, having recently surpassed Canada. These holdings represent in excess of $100 billion, most of which is held institutionally and privately outside of Israel.

Harvard has come a long way since the days of quotas; in any case, dollar signs have always meant more to the Boston Brahmins who run Harvard than have protest movements. Intellectual and technological progress have meant more to them as well. From its summer school in Ashkelon, to the proud support of Israel rendered by former Law School Deans Alan Dershowitz and Supreme Court Justice Elaine Kagan, to the dozens of Israeli researchers, visiting scholars, and guest speakers at Harvard, divestment from Israel is as far and foreign an idea as could be imagined on the banks of the Charles River.

To what end, then, did the BDS movement publicize this falsehood? One answer, it seems, is desperation. Over the past three years every BDS campaign aimed at retailers has provoked a frenzy of purchasing of Israeli products, backfiring on BDS campaigners in Baltimore, Toronto, New York, and elsewhere. There has, to my knowledge, not been one single successful divestment campaign at any American University or college. Not even at the People’s Republic of Berkeley (UC Berkeley) or at Montreal’s Concordia University, site of the infamous 2002 riot, has there been a successful campaign. An attempt to boycott the Toronto Film Festival last fall created a groundswell of anger and disdain against the BDS instigators, even prompting Jane Fonda (!!) to reverse her original support.



Yes, there have been a number of artists and musicians who have cancelled appearances; a number of trade unions around the world who have predictably joined the chorus; and indeed some Christian denominations in the US who have followed suit – apparently not content with traditional Replacement Theology, they would seem to have graduated to the Elimination Theology that the BDS movement clearly states that it adheres to. The mainstream has rejected the call. Investment, celebration, dialogue, and innovation continue to be sought out by the world in Israel at an amazing rate. Beset by failure and blowback on all sides, it fell to intrepid researchers to find these details in Harvard’s 13-F filings for the second quarter 2010. BDS campaigners at that point faced a choice. They could ask Harvard if there had been a policy change (as any responsible journalist, advocate, or Harvard alumnus would do) or they could simply flood the media with a wildly inaccurate story, knowing that the initial story would play far wider than any subsequent clarification. Lacking any substantive successes in a years long campaign, the BDS decision makers did not disappoint. What a predictable shame that they took the liar’s route.

Abject failure does sometimes have a nobility of its own, and thus if the BDS cause was only a simple plaintive cry on behalf of those Palestinians who have suffered in the conflict, it might be able to generate more sympathy. The cause goes well beyond a plaintive cry, though. BDS leaders Diana Buttu, Ali Abunimah, Omar Barghouti (who is redefining the meaning of hypocrisy by pursuing studies at Tel Aviv University) and others are very clear that they will accept no solution other than a single bi-national state with an Arab majority – no solution other than the elimination of Israel. So, in fact, a boycott is not enough, and those who may support it but would perhaps balk at the elimination of Israel are being hoodwinked. The hypocrisy goes well beyond Barghouti, though. Ali Abunimah’s Electronic Intifada spearheaded the online campaign ten years ago. The technologies powering his computer then, and those powering PCs now were developed in Israel. A number of years ago I led a group of Jewish students to Israel. We had planned to meet with Buttu, in the interest of hearing the Palestinian narrative. She was not able to come, and we left her a voice mail to see if she could reschedule. She was, then as now, perfectly comfortable using voice mail (and her cell phone, for that matter) even though these technologies were developed in Israel.

If there are any lessons to be drawn from the Harvard non-divestment episode, they are these:

The BDS movement can not be trusted to tell the truth about events close to home. How can it be believed to accurately portray events and disputes halfway around the world?

Israel’s successful economy, as well as its immense contributions to science, academia, culture, and innovation has demonstrated the value of a modern democratic state to its partners, investors, tourists, and the beneficiaries of its contributions. The people of disaster wracked Haiti, the children of Save A Child’s Heart, those around the world who make better lives for their families using Israeli inventions like drip irrigation, even the forgetful people who welcomed Israeli rescuers to Turkey a decade ago – they know that they owe their lives to a country Omar Barghouti wants to boycott and ultimately eradicate. This episode most emphatically underlines the fact that it’s time the rest of the world knows too.