Festival of light: boycott was justifiable to support Palestinians

Feb 8, 2022
Palestine protest
(Image: Unsplash)

Opponents of the boycott have mounted some surprisingly weak objections,
when there are more serious questions to be asked.

The pro-Palestinian boycott by artists of the recent Sydney Festival was a
vibrant example of engaged citizens taking foreign policy into their own
hands.

The boycott was remarkably successful compared to previous efforts
in Australia and overseas, including in the US where 33 states have anti-boycott laws.

Perhaps 35 per cent of the Festival’s participants withdrew, objecting to Israel’s

$20,000 sponsorship of an Israeli dance ensemble. Over 1000 artists also signed

a letter supporting the boycott.

The heat on Israel follows alleged war crimes in last year’s Gaza war,
accusations of apartheid by Human Rights Watch, evictions and home
demolitions in East Jerusalem, and the ever-expanding colonial settlements
in the West Bank.

The boycott caused uproar. The conservative federal, and New South Wales
state, arts ministers condemned it, as did a conservative former Australian
ambassador to Israel, conservative Australian Jewish groups, and some
artists. Israel was apoplectic.

Caught like a deer in headlights, the festival organisers belatedly
acknowledged the moral objections of artists by pledging to review their
policy on donations by foreign governments, but refused to return Israel’s
money. The Israeli dancers still danced, to rapturous reviews.

Opponents of the boycott have mounted some surprisingly weak objections,
when there are more serious questions to be asked.

They say it censors art for political reasons. This ignores that artists themselves

chose not to perform, persuaded, in the free marketplace of ideas, by boycott
campaigners. Artists who still wished to perform were free to do so, and
audiences were free to attend. There were no union-style pickets. This was
a relatively ‘smart’ boycott.
As the European Court of Human Rights, ruling over 47 European countries,
found in 2020, advocacy of boycotting Israel is protected free speech – the
opposite of censorship. Democracies only function if citizens are free to
voice their opinions, hoping to convince others.

It is absurd for government ministers to condemn such advocacy as censorship.

It also patronises artists as unqualified to make up their own minds.
Opponents also say it politicises art. Yet political critique has long been a
function of art and artists, from Shakespeare to Atwood’s The Handmaid’s
Tale. Art is not just elevator music.

The same arguments are often made not
to politicise sport. Yet Australia is willing to diplomatically boycott the
Beijing Winter Olympics, but dismisses a citizen boycott of Israel.

Critics further argue that Israel is anti-Semitically singled out for a boycott
when other states have worse human rights records. But it is not the
responsibility of campaigners for Palestine to crusade for victims in every
other bad country.

It is to their credit that they have mobilised an effective
boycott, which campaigners elsewhere might learn from.

It is not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel for violating international

law or to take peaceful action to urge it to stop.

Opponents claim that Israel is a democracy, as if that self-evidently defeats
the call for a boycott. Yet democracies violate rights too and should not be
immune from sanctions.
In any case, Israel is not a democracy for 5 million Palestinians living
under Israeli military control. They have not been allowed to vote in
Israeli elections for over 50 years. For them, Israel is a military dictatorship
and, through its settlements, a coloniser.

Opponents warn that Hamas has endorsed the boycott, as if invoking the
spectre of terrorism automatically discredits it. Hamas supports Covid
vaccines too, which hardly makes them a bad thing. Smearing boycotters by
association with Hamas is pitifully cheap.

Critics also claim that struggling artists need to perform because their
incomes plummeted during Covid. Again, the artists themselves chose to
boycott. They know better than arts ministers whether they are willing to
forgo income to stand up for human rights.

There are three genuine questions that should be asked of any boycott. Are
the offender’s violations serious enough to justify it? Is the collateral
damage to innocents, if any, proportionate? Could the boycott potentially
improve the wrongdoer’s behaviour?
First, Israeli violations of international law have been exhaustively
documented. It denies Palestinians their rights to self-determination and
statehood, has committed war crimes and human rights violations, and
denies justice to victims.

Its sponsorship of illegal Israeli settlements proves its agenda is to

colonise Palestine, not free it or bring it peace. It has
constantly defied the international community, including the Security
Council and the International Court. Palestinian violations do not excuse
Israel’s violations.

That other countries may be worse does not diminish the case of a boycott
of Israel, but draws attention to the need to boycott others as well.

Second, the boycott has caused limited collateral damage. It certainly
targeted Israeli support for blameless Israeli dancers, and inconvenienced
audiences. The calculus of the boycott is that these are small sacrifices if
stigmatising co-operation with Israel may pressure it to change.

Sanctions imposed by governments and the UN routinely inflict far greater harm, as
the dire humanitarian situation in Afghanistan currently shows.

Third, a boycott inflicts pointless vengeance if it has no prospect of
success. Critics cry that shunning a tiny amount of Israeli money for a
harmless dance troupe in faraway Sydney will hardly bring peace to the
Middle East, when decades of violence and diplomacy have not.

Yet, Israel is hyper sensitive about its perception by Western allies,
particularly those such as Australia, which often shields Israel from legitimate
criticism in the UN votes. The spread of sympathy to the Palestinian cause
among the Australian community has rattled Israel’s cage, and increases its
international isolation.

Citizen boycotts are growing precisely because Western governments such as
Australia and the US have so spectacularly failed to hold Israel to account
for systematic violations over half a century. We should not only apply our
new Magnitsky Act human rights sanctions to security adversaries such as
Russia or China, but also to our “friends” when they badly misbehave.

We know that China will not stop its repression of Uyghurs just because
Australia doesn’t send officials to watch the Olympics, but we boycott
anyway, to stigmatise terrible behaviour. Who knows what might happen
when the butterfly of citizen boycotts flaps its wings in the desert of Middle
Eastern politics? There is so little left to lose, and so much to gain.

Australians must exercise their own conscience about different types of
boycotts. But the case for boycotts is plausible and should be taken seriously
– not sledged by specious or misleading criticisms.

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