On the Question of One-Sided Boycotts
Read a letter exchange between Robert Pollin, co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, and Naomi on the question of one-sided boycotts.
Robert Pollin:
I strongly oppose Naomi Klein’s proposal to begin boycotts and divestment initiatives against Israel, similar to the approach used against South Africa in the apartheid era [“Lookout,” Jan. 26]. Klein anticipates four objections to her proposal and offers responses. But her list ignores the most important and obvious objection: it is entirely one-sided both in blaming Israel for the horrible cycle of violence in the region and in meting out punishment.
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Naomi Klein Replies:
Robert Pollin believes that the biggest problem with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) strategy is that it targets only one side in the conflict. For Pollin, this is a conflict between equally guilty parties deserving of equal punishment. It is not. Israel is the party that displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, annexed more of their land in 1967 and continues to occupy the land today. Occupiers and occupied people do not share the same responsibilities, which is why the duties and responsibilities of an occupying power are laid out in the Geneva Conventions—laws Israel violates with impunity.
Even if I were to accept Pollin’s argument that any sanction should punish both sides equally, we face a rather large problem. How does Professor Pollin propose that we punish Gazans more than they are being punished already? In case he has failed to notice, there is already a fierce campaign of boycotts and sanctions under way, and it is completely one-sided. I am referring, of course, to Israel’s brutal eighteen-month siege of Gaza, launched to teach Gazans a lesson for voting for Hamas in US-backed elections. As a direct result of this siege, Gazans have been deprived of lifesaving medicines, cooking fuel and paper—not to mention food. This is far more than a mere boycott; it’s “collective punishment,” as described by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. By contrast, the kind of legal boycott being called for by the BDS campaign would deprive Tel Aviv of some international concerts and, if it really got going, would cost Israel some foreign investment. It would not starve and sicken an entire people. In this context of actual one-sided punishment inflicted on Palestinians, sanctioned by the so-called civilized world, to complain of one-sided boycotts against Israel is, frankly, obscene.
Robert Pollin:
I strongly oppose Naomi Klein’s proposal to begin boycotts and divestment initiatives against Israel, similar to the approach used against South Africa in the apartheid era [“Lookout,” Jan. 26]. Klein anticipates four objections to her proposal and offers responses. But her list ignores the most important and obvious objection: it is entirely one-sided both in blaming Israel for the horrible cycle of violence in the region and in meting out punishment.
******
Naomi Klein Replies:
Robert Pollin believes that the biggest problem with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) strategy is that it targets only one side in the conflict. For Pollin, this is a conflict between equally guilty parties deserving of equal punishment. It is not. Israel is the party that displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, annexed more of their land in 1967 and continues to occupy the land today. Occupiers and occupied people do not share the same responsibilities, which is why the duties and responsibilities of an occupying power are laid out in the Geneva Conventions—laws Israel violates with impunity.
Even if I were to accept Pollin’s argument that any sanction should punish both sides equally, we face a rather large problem. How does Professor Pollin propose that we punish Gazans more than they are being punished already? In case he has failed to notice, there is already a fierce campaign of boycotts and sanctions under way, and it is completely one-sided. I am referring, of course, to Israel’s brutal eighteen-month siege of Gaza, launched to teach Gazans a lesson for voting for Hamas in US-backed elections. As a direct result of this siege, Gazans have been deprived of lifesaving medicines, cooking fuel and paper—not to mention food. This is far more than a mere boycott; it’s “collective punishment,” as described by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. By contrast, the kind of legal boycott being called for by the BDS campaign would deprive Tel Aviv of some international concerts and, if it really got going, would cost Israel some foreign investment. It would not starve and sicken an entire people. In this context of actual one-sided punishment inflicted on Palestinians, sanctioned by the so-called civilized world, to complain of one-sided boycotts against Israel is, frankly, obscene.
Etiquetas: Gaza, Israel, Naomi Klein
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