This commentary is by Marc Estrin, who is a novelist and cellist, living in Burlington.
Watching the Burlington City Council meeting on Monday night, Sept. 13, was like watching a baseball game played on a football field, and with simulcasting announcers from both sports.
At play was a proposed resolution to support the Palestinian people in their call for BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) to pressure the Israeli government to stop its military assaults on civilians, and grant them fundamental human rights.
Yet half the people in the audience seemed to be addressing some imagined resolution to destroy the state of Israel, leading to the destruction of Jews worldwide. Never again!
It is possible that the folks taking that position had never actually read the resolution they were so fiercely protesting, but were speaking, angrily, out of a generally reflexive instinct whenever the word “Palestine” comes into play.
Let me compare the actual language of the proposition with that of the antagonists.
The petition itself begins, as many official petitions do, with a list of “Whereas” clauses, explaining the reason for submitting such a petition.
The whereases note that Palestinians, under military siege, are suffering daily occupation, regular air and military attacks, Israeli settlements illegal under international law, and denial of the right to self-determination, equality, property, an adequate standard of living, water rights, personal dignity, security, and freedom of movement — all under a criminal system of apartheid, internationally noted.
These are the facts asserted, and easily researched.
The petitioners were asking the Burlington City Council to express solidarity with the Palestinian people in their demands to end the criminality above, to endorse BDS , and to condemn the anti-boycott legislation being considered in many (now 35) state legislatures.
So what is the BDS movement asking for? What is so frightening to half the council audience? An end to the military occupation, dismantling of the separation Wall, recognition of fundamental Palestinian rights to full equality, and respect for the Right of Return.
Is BDS calling for the destruction of Israel or the re-annihilation of the Jews? No.
Yet many self-identified Jewish voices at the city council meeting raised the following arguments for councilors to vote no:
— The proposition is “one-sided.”
— People do not understand “the discrimination Jewish residents [of Burlington] face.”
— There is so much suffering around the world — why are you focusing on Israel?
— The city council is in no position to opine on complex world affairs.
— The city council must bring our people together, not be divisive.
— The proposition is anti-Semitic, and should never have been an agenda item.
— The city council should be about finding common ground.
— Considering a proposition like this, now or again in the future, is prolonging the anxiety and pain of Burlington’s Jewish residents.
— Passing the proposition can only bring pain
— The city council must recognize rising anti-Semitism in the country.
— BDS is tantamount to the “dissolution of Israel.”
— The question of timing — why bring this up during the Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? To distract Jews from the worship of the highest holy days?
— You don’t understand the complexity of Palestine/Israel conflict.
— This proposal is put forth to divide our community.
— It will increase polarization.
— It seeks to weaken and delegitimize the democratic state of Israel.
— It is not appropriate for the Burlington City Council to consider this.
— Its real intent is to bring harm to Israel and the Jewish community.
— This hateful inititative targets Israel alone for failure of the peace process.
What has this mass of opinion to do with the proposition under consideration?
None of the assertions above are in either the city council proposal, or in the founding BDS document. How is it that so many people can be quickly assembled to falsely characterize a city council proposition, with language and ideas entirely unrelated to that proposition?
The Holocaust, of course, cannot go unmentioned. There is an urgency in “Never Again!” for which one or two exclamation points are never enough. But does this have anything to do with the existence or demands of BDS? It is not just the Holocaust that brings middle-aged and older Jews so passionately to the table, but a hovering, baked-in sense of the centuries of oppression behind it.
Still, there has been a certain amount of gaslighting, most intensely modeled by the Israeli government, that has placed the slightest hint of possible anti-Semitism (actual or not) as one step short of Auschwitz. Ben & Jerry’s decides to discontinue sales in the occupied Palestinian territories, and the Israeli government at the highest levels goes into fits of denunciation, demanding that U.S. states punish Unilever offenders. C’mon, guys, it’s ice cream. No, it’s not just ice cream. It’s saying those territories are not a legitimate part of Israel. It’s delegitimizing, it threatens the existence of the Jewish state. Jews will have no safe haven. Etc. etc. What if other companies also…?
This modeling of hyperbolic hysteria certainly has filtered beyond Israel, likely via right-wing congregations, their rabbis, their fundraising chairs, and through their congregants to the general population. Supporting “Israel” is basic even to evangelical Christians.
What is alarming to me is the basic irrationality of that night’s antiphonal choir. They came with a text other than the one under consideration, and insisted it prevail. A strange debating technique. Ninth inning, third down, on the Palestinian 13-yard line. Runner on second. Will there be a steal?
