boycott as violence

Gershom Gorenberg writes, in a larger piece about Palestinian non-violence (which is, so far, nascent and not really non-violence yet):

Many Israelis believe both that continued rule over the Palestinians is untenable - and that there’s no chance of making peace with the Palestinians. The challenge of effective Palestinian political action is to make Israelis pay more attention to their misgivings about the occupation - while alleviating their fears that peace is just the prelude to the next attack.

I'm going to keep thinking about some of the stuff in the post for a while. I have an attraction to, or at least a willingness to tolerate, some 'revolutionary' violence. Or maybe it's better to say I have an attachment to ridiculing some of the more idiotic (and half-hearted) versions of pacifism. But in the end, there's emotion there that I have to dig up and examine. Violence is surely sometimes necessary, but Gorenberg skewers the attachment many 'radicals' have to violence. It ceases to be a tool and becomes an aesthetic - as surely on the Left as on the Right.

But I wanted to highlight the above quote and put boycotts in that context. Boycotters often claim boycotts are nonviolent, but they are, by their very nature, coercive. They are about power and demonstrating power. I wish more boycotters would accept that as the obvious truth it is.

And boycotts will fail on the two tests Gorenberg offers to measure the effectiveness of violence. It will make Israelis more fearful and they will background their concerns about the occupation. And then the boycott will fail. What then?

Hate Crime in Brooklyn

A Brooklyn rabbi said Tuesday that he was beaten by two men screaming "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) after a third man snatched his kippa off his head in a New York City subway station, CBS news reported.

According to various news sources, the one who stole the Rabbi's yarmulke was hit by a car while running away. Police have arrested him and charged him with hate crimes. The other two, who beat the Rabbi, have not been arrested.

Also, Deborah Lipstadt has a post on a wretched analogy by a deputy director for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The museum owns a painting which an Austrian woman is laying claim to. The painting was sold during the Holocaust, and the woman claims it was "under duress." The director makes the analogy to the Depression to suggest that the sale was made freely, minimizing to the extent of denying the experience of Jews trying to escape Nazi genocide. Lipstadt writes:

I would suggest that MFA Deputy Director Getchell learn a bit more about history before she makes any more such far fetched, if not, absurd analogies.

Meanwhile, Norm Geras recently noted another wretched analogy. Journalist Brian Keenan compared the destruction in Lebanon to the Holocuast. While the destruction in Lebanon was tragic, it hardly compares in any sense to the Nazi attempt to systematically destroy an entire people.

Why do I include these links in a post about an antisemitic assault in Brooklyn? Like any ideas that have been around so long, antisemitism and racism are deeply embedded in our society. Yet it isn't the case that stereotypes about Jews show up in crime dramas the way that stereotypes about blacks as criminals does. I think because of that, people have a hard time getting a handle on antisemitism. A lot of people, in fact, think it's a thing of the past. But it is deeply ingrained. Here are two examples of how Jewish history is misremembered and manipulated.

Firebombs thrown at Hillel staffer's house

Near Brown University.

In an attack early Saturday morning, improvised explosives were hurled at the off-campus apartment of Yossi Knafo, an emissary from the Jewish Agency for Israel employed by Brown/RISD Hillel. Knafo was home at the time but unharmed by the attack.

Police aren't yet saying that it was a hatecrime, but they are investigating it as a potential hatecrime. The Jewish Agency is apparently trying to push a reading of this as a terrorist act. I think it looks very much like a terrorist act and a hatecrime.

This article from the Brown Daily Herald, from which I took the headline, is filled with details. Thanks to Gilbert who mentioned it in comments at Engage.

More news of violence

via Bintel Blog, this story about a rise in antisemitic hate crimes in Brooklyn.

law enforcement officials acknowledge that there has been a 25 percent spike in bias crimes in the city since September, Crown Heights community activists claim the figures would be higher if not for a police cover-up.

And, yes, they include violence.

The press conference and Kelly’s meeting were triggered by the attack Friday night by five teenagers on Shmuel Balkany, 16, as he walked to a friend’s house on the Jewish side of Crown Heights.
“I was viciously beaten and clobbered all over my body,” he said, adding that the attack lasted between three to five minutes and left him with a deep gash in his head.
Balkany said the teens yelled, “F— Jew. It’s our neighborhood. We’re going to kill you.”
“I didn’t understand what was happening, and once I did I yelled for help but no one was around,” he added. “I had nothing in my pockets and I think they knew that.”