The Charlotte Jewish News - June-July 2012 - Page 27
The Cp-Ed Eases
“Boycott Israel,” the Movie - Starring Emma Thompson
By Ben Cohen,
JointMedia News Service
If Hollywood ever
makes a movie about the
movement to boyeott
Israel, I ean think of no
one better suited to the
starring role than Emma
Thompson.
I imagine Thompson’s
eharaeter as a sehool-
teaeher or a librarian, dowdy look
ing with just a hint of prettiness.
She lives alone in a eozy apartment
filled with potted plants and books
on personal growth, third-world
polities, and vegetarian eookery.
Her signifieant other is a fluffy eat
that nestles in her lap every night
as she sits in front of her eomputer
reading the latest dispatehes from
oeeupied “Palestine,” her faee
etehed with righteous disbelief
She doesn’t have time for a
boyfriend, but that won’t stop her
would-be suitor, an equally self-
righteous, mildly kooky Jewish
writer—think Peter Beinart—from
trying to win her heart.
By the time we’re halfway
through the film, Emma will have
deeided that she simply must visit
the West Bank, despite the enor
mous dangers posed by the Israeli
oeeupation forees. She eomes to
this awareness while attending a
Passover Seder hosted by her
aspiring boyfriend, during whieh
he pulls out a fading photograph of
his great-grandmother who was
Ben Cohen
murdered during the
Holoeaust.
Fighting baek the
tears, he eonfides that, “If
she eould see what Israel
has beeome, she’d die all
over again from the
shame.” The two fall into
eaeh other’s arms, wak
ing the next morning to a
breakfast of matzo brei—
as Emma tries to pronounee the
name of the dish she’s eating, we
giggle through the obligatory
moment of light relief—before
she’s whisked away in a taxi to the
airport, and then to the beautiful-
yet-tragie land of Palestine.
In the West Bank, she eavorts
with eute little kids—“just like the
ones I teaeh baek home”—drinks
mint tea with effusive women who
bear the daily humiliation of oeeu
pation with a smile and a shrug,
and admires the steely-eyed men
who stand up to the nasty Israelis
with all the eonvietion of a Gandhi
or a Martin Luther King.
Emma embraees their anger but
eoneludes that violenee is not the
answer. Just before she leaves the
Palestinian village that now feels
like home, she regales the enthusi-
astieally nodding villagers with a
speeeh—tearful, of eourse—
expounding on the importanee of
non-violenee. “Don’t use bombs,”
she exhorts. “Use boyeotts.” Their
applause ean be heard all the way
to the adjaeent Israeli army base.
where the eommander is suddenly
struek by the realization that the
Palestinian aspiration for freedom
ean never be erushed.
Roll the eredits. And don’t eall
it a ehiek fliek.
With a movie like this one, art
would be imitating life—to be pre-
eise, Emma Thompson’s life.
Reeently, the Osear-winning
aetress joined with other darlings
of stage and sereen to protest the
partieipation of Tel Aviv’s venera
ble Habimah Theater in a London
festival that is performing the
plays of William Shakespeare in
37 different languages.
In a letter published by The
Guardian—a liberal newspaper
with a long traek reeord of publish
ing anti-Semitie material—
Thompson and her eohorts
slammed “Habima” [sie] for its
“shameful reeord of involvement
with illegal Israeli settlements in
Oeeupied Palestinian Territory.”
They ended with a demand to
exelude the theater from the festi
val. No sueh objeetions were
voieed eoneeming the partieipa
tion of a Palestinian theater troupe,
nor the involvement of the
National Theater of China, whieh
is direetly funded by one of the
world’s most repressive regimes.
In faet, there are many good rea
sons to diteh politieal objeetions
and keep the festival open to all—
whieh its organizers, to their ered-
it, have done, in spite of
Thompson’s fulminations. To per
form Shakespeare is in itself a eel-
ebration of artistie freedom.
Habimah’s version of “The
Merehant of Veniee,” the play that
gave us the figure of Shyloek, the
Jewish moneylender who embod
ies anti-Semitie eanards even as he
ehallenges them, is sure to be
entieing. And I would genuinely
love to see how aetors from eom-
munist China interpret the story of
“Riehard III.”
For those like Emma
Thompson, though, boyeotts are
predieated on supposedly univer
sal prineiples and then applied to
only one target—Israel. To under
stand the strategy here, it’s worth
reealling the eampaign in the UK
for a boyeott of Israeli aeademie
institutions. Ten years ago, an arti-
ele in The Guardian noted that
Israel’s universities are vietims of
their own sueeess: “The nature of
Israel’s aeademie pre-eminenee,”
the artiele explained, “makes it
vulnerable to a boyeott.”
The same logie applies to the
flourishing arts seene in Israel. The
exeellenee of a theater like
Habimah, along with its enthusi
asm to perform outside Israel’s
borders, renders it a sitting duek
for boyeott eampaigners. In their
warped view of the world,
Palestinian freedom ean only be
aehieved by quarantining Israelis
on the basis of their nationality.
Thus do apparently free-spirited
artists eeho the raeist polieies of
the Arab League, whieh began its
boyeott of the Jewish eommunity
in Eretz Israel in 1945, three years
before the state of Israel was bom.
What, then, is the appropriate
response to Emma Thompson and
those like her? Certainly not to
make the movie I deseribed earlier.
Instead, they should be given a
taste of their own medieine.
We are often told that Jews ran
Hollywood—the same Hollywood
that earried on easting Vanessa
Redgrave, Emma Thompson’s fel
low Brit, in leading roles after she
denouneed so-ealled “Zionist
hoodlums” in an Osear aeeeptanee
speeeh in 1978. Will the studio
moguls eontinue to indulge
Thompson as they indulged
Redgrave? Or will they show some
gumption, and tell her that, for as
long as she seeks to diseriminate
against Israeli artists, she will be
banished from our sereens?
I think I know, sadly, what the
answer is. But I’d love to be
proved wrong. ^
Ben Cohen is a senior columnist
for JointMedia News Service. The
New York Post, Fox News, PJ
Media and other prominent media
outlets have also published his
commentaries on international
politics. Cohen is president of The
Ladder Group, a communications
consultancy based in New York
City.
What Do Jewish Students Need Most? Courage
By Jonathan S.
Tobin,
JointMedia News
Service
The last shot
fired in the nasty
eombat being ear
ried out on our
nation’s eampus-
es took plaee at
Florida Atlantie
University, where
a pro-Palestinian
moek “evietion”
Jonathan S.
Tobin
group posted
notiees on dorm
room doors that eontained a laun
dry list of anti-Israel propaganda
points. Their stated intent was to
make students identify with the
plight of displaeed Palestinian
Arabs and denied that Jewish stu
dents were partieularly targeted for
“evietion,” a point that defenders
of the aetion highlighted after the
faet when the university was
foreed to apologize for approving
the stunt.
But there’s little doubt this inei-
dent, like many others that have
taken plaee in other venues around
the eountry, sought to both throw
down a ehallenge and to intimidate
pro-Israel students. As is often the
ease on eampuses, the anti-Israel
forees are louder and generally
more willing to engage in eon-
frontations. They also often have
the baeking of the faeulty and
Middle East Studies departments.
Though Ameriea remains a
plaee where support for the Jewish
state euts aeross almost all politi-
eal, religious, and soeial bound
aries, and aeademia is the exeep-
tion to the rale. In the elassrooms.
Jewish students are sometimes
foreed to faee off against not just
other students but teaehers. On
eampus eommon areas where
“Israel is apartheid” exhibits are
set up, they are subjeeted to other
forms of harassment.
While some stand up and fight
baek, others keep quiet. Still oth
ers take up the eudgels for the
Palestinians seeking to distanee
themselves from an unpopular
and, more to the point, unfashion
able eause.
What is to be done?
Some hope to foster the ereation
of departments, eourses and pro
fessors who are not ideologieal
hostile to Israel. More Jewish edu-
eation in whieh young Jews will be
reinforeed with the faets they need
to defend their position in the
rough and tumble of eampus
debate is almost eertainly a far bet
ter bet. Even more important is the
task of getting as many young
Jews to visit Israel as possible via
the sueeessful Birthright Israel
projeet.
But there is another faetor that
is more erueial and not just a mat
ter of funding or programming.
That element is eourage.
It is that quality above all that
Jews must eultivate in their leaders
as well as in their ehildren. Jews
must teaeh their ehildren not mere
ly the faets about Israel, but also
not to be afraid of standing out
when they speak up on its behalf.
They must leam to have faith in
the justiee of this eause and to
ignore the eatealls of those who
elaim they are out of step with the
liberal intelleetual eulture of the
day.
That is, admittedly, not an easy
thing to ask of anyone. It is diffi-
eult to swim against the stream or
to talk baek to teaehers. But that is
what we must ask of them.
Anti-Zionism is merely the lat
est variant of an old and persistent
virus: anti-Semitism. Anyone who
would deny the Jews and their
state the same rights and protee-
tions they readily grant any other
eountry and who judge it by stan
dards they never apply to others
are simply praetieing bias that we
must not refrain from ealling by its
right name: Jew hatred.
The youth of this era must re
learn what previous generations
eame to understand in past strag
gles for Jewish rights: that those
who will not stand up for the Jews
will inevitably be asked some day
why they did nothing. They must
do so not in the name of a mythieal
perfeet Israel as its opponents
elaim, but on behalf of a living
breathing imperfeet and at times
infuriating eountry that is judged
by a double standard not applied to
any other eountry. They must do so
not beeause they neeessarily like
its polities or its leaders, but
beeause it has the same right to
exist in freedom and seeurity as
any other nation.
Without the eourage to speak up
against this virus of hate, all the
knowledge and funding will go for
naught. Above all what is needed
is a new generation of Jewish stu
dents who are not prepared to
stand silent while the mob of
appeasers and liars howl for
Israel’s blood. ^
JNS Columnist Jonathan S.
Tobin is senior online editor of
COMMENTARY magazine and
chief political blogger at
www.commentarymagazine.com.
Pie can be reached via e-mail
at: jtobin@commentary-
magazine.com. Follow him on
Twitter at https.V/twitter.com/#!/
TobinCommentary.
Hate Crimes
(Continued from previous page)
a founding member, promised in
2003 in Vienna to start gathering
data on hate erimes, ineluding
anti-Semitie ones. Today, nearly a
deeade later, a meager five of
those states submitted data on
anti-Semitie ineidents, aeeording
to the latest OSCE report. The
United States was not one of them.
To be sure, this refleets the sit
uation in Ameriea, as noted in a
report by the Anti-Defamation
League: “Eighty of the largest
eities in the United States either
did not report data to the FBI in
2010 or affirmatively reported
zero hate erimes to the FBI in
2010.”
This means that organizations
sueh as the ADL do not have eon-
sistent usable data on hate erimes.
ineluding anti-Semitie ones.
Consistent, eomparable, year-on-
year, disaggregated data ean only
eome from law enforeement and
the judieiary. As long as our poliee
forees and our departments of jus
tiee do not eomply with their own
promises and eommitments, we
do not know whether the trends
are up or down.
We eannot know whether
Ameriea is beeoming more or less
tolerant — not only in attitude, but
also in aetion - toward LGBT peo
ple, toward Muslims. We eannot
know whether life is safer for
Jews around the globe.
So in praetiee, we eannot know
whether sueh exeellent programs
as CEJI’s Belieforama or the
ADL’s A World of Differenee
Institute aetually have the impaet
they are intended to have. Without
knowing whether there is less or
more anti-Semitism today than a
year ago, we eannot know how
worried we should be about our
future — for worry we will.
Just as businesses measure their
sueeess by eolleeting data on how
many hamburgers or sneakers
they have sold, by eomparing this
year’s data to last year’s and their
sales to those of their eompetitors,
so too should hate erimes be prop
erly monitored. The U.S. govern
ment, with its 55 partners in the
OSCE, has eommitted itself to
doing this. We must press our gov
ernments to keep their promises.^
(Gidon van Emden is a consult
ant in the fields of human rights,
international affairs and anti-
Semitism.)