On a website called muslim wakeup.com, Adam Hanieh, Hazem Jamjoum, and Rafeef Ziadah -- who are described as being

‘active in a variety of groups in Toronto, Canada, including Al Awda (Toronto), Sumoud Political Prisoners Group, the Arab Students Collective (University of Toronto), and the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid’

-- furnish a telling insight into the aims and strategy of the Palestinians to bring about the destruction of Israel. They gloat at the astonishing success of the strategy of associating Israel with apartheid:

The Palestinian solidarity movement has made significant gains since the onset of the Second Palestinian Intifada in September 2000. Over the last five years, a new generation of Palestinian solidarity activists has mobilized in the streets, campuses, and schools across North America. Among the left and progressive movements, there is broad acceptance of the proposition that US foreign policy in the Middle East is based on support for Israel as a ‘colonial-settler’ state, to draw upon the title of Maxime Rodinson’s classic work. Every major mobilization against the war in Iraq has seen the Palestinian struggle placed up front in opposing the US war machine, and most activists new to the movement are introduced to the Palestinian struggle and history through an anti-Zionist perspective. This is an unprecedented achievement. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, radical and progressive movements in the advanced capitalist countries generally refused to take an unequivocal stance in support of Palestinian liberation. Zionist organizations were active in the movements against the Vietnam War, South African apartheid, and other progressive causes. Palestinian solidarity was marginal to the large mass struggles that took place in the latter half of the 20th century, and the left commonly countenanced a supposedly ‘progressive Zionist’ stance.

An unprecedented achievement indeed, to demonise Jews for merely defending themselves against annihilation and successfully smear them throughout the western hemisphere by means of one of the biggest and most disgusting lies in history. Israel was not, of course, the ‘colonial, settler state’ they claim it to be. Israel is the ancient homeland of the Jewish nation, which was itself colonised by Romans, Arabs, Ottomans and the British before being eventually restored to the Jews by the world in belated recognition of the overwhelming justice and dire necessity of their cause.

What is more interesting, however, is that flushed with this diabolical success in turning justice and truth on their heads, these authors feel confident enough to let the mask slip. The election of Hamas, they say, means that the Palestinians must now drop the concept of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza -- an aspiration which had been allowed to ‘narrow’ the Palestinian question -- and aim for the destruction of Israel instead. The Jewish state must not be allowed to exist because the concept of a Jewish state itself amounts to ‘apartheid’.

Leave aside for the moment the little matter of the actual nature of apartheid, which a moment’s informed thought will reveal bears no relation whatsoever to the democratic state of Israel in which Israeli Arabs have full civil rights. What these writers are saying is that Jewish national self-determination is illegitimate. For why? Because:

The Israeli state defines itself as a Jewish state and, therefore, cannot be a state for all its citizens.

This from people who themselves want a state that is defined as a Palestinian state – and which would have no place for the Jews, who are targeted for extermination in the genocidal rhetoric of Hamas, in a region from which Jews were ethnically cleansed during the last century. Grotesque as all this is, the authors can barely contain their excitement that this might be brought to pass by the concerted delegitimisation of Israel that is now under way:

There is a powerful momentum building around the world for a boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign. On July 9, 2005 a call was made by over 170 Palestinian organizations to launch a global BDS campaign. Churches in North America have begun to investigate the possibility of divestment. In Norway, the first provincial council to have adopted a boycott of South African apartheid recently did the same in regards to Israel. Twenty Quebec organizations, including the Fédération des Femmes du Québec (FFQ) and the provincial union of CEGEP teachers, have endorsed a new campaign to boycott Israeli products and companies supporting Israeli apartheid...

A boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign based upon an apartheid analysis can provide an overarching framework for our other Palestine work. It doesn’t replace the need for outreach, education, and action around the myriad of issues connected to Palestine such as refugees, the apartheid wall, or prisoners. Rather, a BDS campaign can answer the question: what to do next? It provides a concrete strategic focus that raises consciousness around Palestine as we carry it out. Pushing a divestment motion through a union requires sustained work to convince the membership of Israel’s apartheid character. Recent successes show that these demands are winnable and can provide tangible gains...

The important steps made in the last five years towards strengthening popular solidarity for the Palestinian struggle lay the groundwork for future victories. The possibility of building a successful campaign to isolate and end Israeli apartheid is probably more likely today than at any other time since the establishment of the Israeli state.

This makes it clear beyond doubt. The boycott and divestment campaigns, built upon lies and libels disseminated by western intellectuals who demonise Israel for defending itself against mass slaughter, are themselves the forward arm of a strategy not to remedy ‘injustices’ but to exterminate a nation – not because of anything it has done, but because its very existence as a Jewish state is not to be permitted. Those promoting these campaigns, in the universities, the churches, the NGOs and -- God help us -- ‘human rights' organisations, are thus doing the work of the genocidal fascists of Hamas and Iran.

The Church of England has now pulled back from the brink of its own divestment deringolade. Its Ethical Investment Advisory Group has decided not to disinvest from Caterpillar Inc. But the reasons it has given in its statement do nothing to begin to restore the Church’s shattered moral integrity:

•The purpose of the ethical investment policy of the Church of England is to avoid profiting from enterprises engaged in activities which are either wrong or so controversial among Christians as to undermine the credibility and unity of the Church’s witness. The EIAG decision was taken in the specific context that there are no current or projected sales of Caterpillar equipment for use by the Israeli government; Caterpillar sold its equipment to a US Government body and had no direct sales to the Israeli Government; and the EIAG could find no compelling evidence that Caterpillar is or has been complicit in human rights abuses.

•The purpose of the ethical investment policy is not to engage in punitive action or to make public gestures, however much individuals might in other contexts support such actions.

•Disinvestment is by definition a last resort action, ending the possibility of engagement with the company. While engagement carries risks – not least a charge that engagement is only for show – the EIAG concluded that the engagement we have had with this company is productive, and justifies the intensive effort that has been, and will continue to be, expended. In particular, the company is very well aware that if sales were to resume the matter would immediately have to be brought back to the Group for very active reconsideration, and that the risks to the company’s reputation are real.

•The EIAG will continue to reach its own conclusions on whether the Church of England is profiting from continuing sales of equipment for purposes contrary to our general ethical investment policy and whether therefore to recommend disinvestment at some future date.

So the only reason why the Church is not disinvesting in Caterpillar is that Caterpillar may not be being used by the Israelis at all and therefore divestment would be pointless grandstanding – and if Caterpillar does sell equipment to the Israelis again, the threat remains that divestment will march smartly back onto the agenda. So the reason why disinvestment was such a disgusting course of action for the Church to take not only remains unaddressed but has even been reinforced. That reason is the Church’s obsessional hatred of Israel, its wholesale acceptance of the lies told about it and the moral inversion that frames them, and its condemnation of a country under existential threat simply because it takes action to defend itself. Indeed, the divestment agenda is all about translating that existential threat into a hideous reality.

Ethical investment policy? This remains persistent moral bankruptcy in a church that has totally lost its way.

Posted by melanie at March 7, 2006