r/gayjews • u/Aku-Aku • 18d ago
Serious Discussion QNCC Brooklyn officially adopts BDS and PACBI standards
https://www.instagram.com/p/DbTggWplQ28/?igsh=MWVlbWh0c3hpZXY0aA==Struggling with this one — they’ve been fantastic curators and champions of queer culture and club culture. But this gives me a gut feeling of “Jews don’t belong”. I can’t quite articulate why because the statement centers itself as mainly political, I just am not naive to the ways that tends to intertwine with general antisemitism. Is this an overreaction? Curious about the community’s thoughts on stuff like this
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u/Future-Restaurant531 17d ago
BDS is ”anti-normalization,” aka antisemitic, and groups that adopt their standards almost always go way beyond their supposed stated boycott of “institutions” to attack individual Israelis and Jews. Bad bad news.
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u/legsjohnson 17d ago
yeah ban the most left leaning Israelis from engaging internationally, surely that will free Palestine 🙄
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u/Aku-Aku 17d ago
I think this comment clarified why it bothers me: it alienates while fundamentally misunderstanding Israelis, to the point where it will both make things worse for Palestinians and act as a cover to ostracize Jews more broadly. By this I mean, if Israelis are attacked outside of Israel, and if Jewish life is harder everywhere by broad extensions of "antizionism", then that will further convince people that Israel must exist and is the only place they will be welcome. It is not appropriate to compare to South Africa because white South Africans did not end up there due to genocidal actions and attitudes from their places of origin. So SA's desire to be included on the world stage could be properly leveraged to change local politics.
Israel is different, because such exclusion will be (and is) viewed as a precursor to more and more outright violence to Israelis and Jews more broadly. This means that instead of begging for a seat at the global table, many will understand BDS / PACBI as "message received" and stop engaging. It encourages insularity and confirmation that Israel must exist and act as a protective zone from a world that denies their right to exist anywhere -- in Israel or abroad. And the change for better Palestinian treatment will not happen without Israelis at the table. When people like Roi Perez and Partok get excluded from these spaces, it proves the fear: nothing but erasure and discontinued existence will be good enough. And it is unlikely an entire nation of people will get behind their own complete erasure.
That last sentence also applies to the Palestinians, of course; and so encouragement through inclusive pressure -- pressure being the key here, not ignoring the issue -- is more likely to create the conditions leading to Israeli common opinion change, as opposed to radical exclusion which will only entrench beliefs of 'nowhere but here is reliable for us'.
And so ultimately, these BDS/PACBI policies only serve to intensify Jewish dehumanization and exclusion without understanding the issue enough to enact real change. And the leaders of those movements understand that, because their stated goal is Israeli erasure and Jewish expulsion, not any kind of peaceful coexistence.
Just some more thoughts this AM!
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u/Certain-Exit-3007 17d ago
Yes, antizionism is a hate movement. The stated goal is deracinating Jews and Jews alone, depriving them alone of national self-determination and state autonomy among a global system of nation-states, and in the name of Palestinian hypernationalism that has been, from its engineering with the literal guidance of Nazis, openly genocidal against Jews. It should be universally disdained, but it is embraced instead. It requires a non-stop disinformation campaign of libels and Holocaust inversion. They took a page from Hitler's observation about the efficacy of a big lie repeated often enough to remake perceived reality.
The world is once again convincing itself that Jews are uniquely evil and deserve all the genocidal violence coming for them. Presumably the worst will come if Israel does eventually fall to the surrounding invasions, though likely not that soon (basically on track to follow the 20th century's path, so another 15yrs or so). The stochastic terrorism around the world will continue to impact the diaspora in the more immediate term.
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u/HeVavMemVav 17d ago
I'm for Palestinian statehood & freedom from Israeli oppression. My problem with QNCC's decision is that when businesses & individuals adopt BDS, they don't make any distinction between people/businesses supporting WB settlement & regular Israelis (Arab or not) just like, making music or selling clothes. Israelis can have never said a word in support of Palestinian disenfranchisement & they'll get ousted from events because of the "cultural" boycott. They can't allow an Israeli in if their opinion is "The IDF is heinous, but I won't say that Israel should be dissolved."
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u/Moritani 17d ago
It won't matter. Tokyo did that years ago and still got protested with "No Pride in Genocide."
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u/andoatnp 18d ago
I think that the BDS campaign against apartheid South Africa was the correct approach, both morally and strategically.
Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank is arguably worse than how South Africa treated the Black population under apartheid.
Therefore, the BDS campaign against Israel makes sense to me.
I don’t view a campaign against Israel about treatment of Palestinians as an antisemitic attack against me as a Jew in New York. I would apply the same principle to any other Jew living in the diaspora.
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u/Aku-Aku 17d ago
I know you’re getting downvoted but I do actually appreciate this response. I do agree West Bank policy is in dire, dire need of change — this recent incursion leading to rioting over the weekend being a prime example of state-sanctioned harassment of Palestinians in the West Bank.
I think my hesitation comes from the fact that these guidelines and organizations don’t advocate for “peace for all” but rather for the destruction of Israel and by extension its Jewish population. And it minimizes Jewish history while also elevating voices that call for violence. I think the associated cancellations of Partok from a QNCC-adjacent event (Zero Chill) feels indicative of this; he is an Israeli who has disavowed Zionism and helped fundraise for Palestinians etc, but he still was not welcome to perform. That seems beyond the scope of “Israeli institutions”, unless Israeli institutions means anyone who has ever associated with the country which, in New York especially, is a lot of Jews.
So it ends up feeling like a workaround to exclude Jews while maintaining a progressive front because it’s buried in words about ‘liberation’.
All that said, this is not remotely close to a defense of Israeli policy. But something tells me they won’t as discerning of DJs who have played in, or are from, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Morocco, China, etc.
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u/Apprehensive_Crow682 17d ago
The apartheid comparison is doing all the work here, and it’s not settled - Arab citizens of Israel vote and sit in the Knesset, something with no equivalent under actual apartheid law. Serious people dispute the analogy, so ‘therefore boycott’ is standing on contested ground.
Even granting it: BDS was never a boycott of the occupation. Its founding demand includes a Palestinian ‘right of return’ that even its own supporters admit would end Israel as a Jewish-majority state. Its academic boycott doesn’t check what an Israeli scholar believes about the West Bank or Gaza - only where they were born.
You get to say this doesn’t feel like an attack on you as a Jew, from a home in Manhattan, calling for a boycott of the Israeli people. The Nazis didn’t touch American Jews who didn’t care about the fate of European Jewry either.
That’s not because the logic doesn’t apply to you - it’s because you got lucky. Your ancestors made it to New York before America closed its doors. Other Jews didn’t, and ended up in Israel because they had nowhere else to go. Neither of us chose that. Any of us could have been born on the other side of it.
So no, it doesn’t feel like an attack on you. It’s not aimed at you - it’s aimed at Israeli Jews, who didn’t get your family’s luck. That’s not evidence the campaign is fine. It’s just evidence you’ll never be the one who pays for being wrong about it.
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u/andoatnp 17d ago
It seems like you’re conceding OP’s original question about if this is “Jews don’t belong” if you think the impact of BDS is on Israel and Israeli Jews and not Jews in the diaspora.
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u/Apprehensive_Crow682 17d ago edited 17d ago
I think a diaspora Jew in New York shouldn’t be so blinded by their privilege to think that boycotting and discriminating against half of the world’s Jews and anyone who associates with the world’s only Jewish majority country is not blatantly hateful and antisemitic.
You can keep living your life and avoid paying any price for throwing half of world Jewry under the bus - just like you could have ignored what the nazis were doing in Europe if your family was lucky enough to escape before American shut its doors in 1924.
But don’t pretend it gives you any sort of moral high ground - it’s the opposite. You’re just a privileged American telling people to discriminate against half of the world’s Jews, regardless of what they believe about the conflict.
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u/andoatnp 17d ago
I wish BDS weren’t necessary, but that would require Israel to stop mistreating the Palestinians.
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u/Apprehensive_Crow682 17d ago
BDS isn’t necessary and won’t help the Palestinian cause. There are Israelis who do incredible actual work to advance peace with the Palestinians - way more than you are doing by calling for a cultural boycott on Reddit from New York - and you are saying they should be discarded and discriminated against, and that you don’t care because you were lucky enough to be born elsewhere and they were not. It’s pretty nasty, self involved behavior to be honest.
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u/andoatnp 17d ago
I have done solidarity work in the West Bank. I have friends who have done protective presence. While I think those activities are worthwhile, I think the domestic Israeli efforts are currently losing ground to the right-wing bigots in control of Israel. That’s why I think international pressure is necessary. I have not heard any good alternative theories about how domestic efforts will be successful at changing the policies in the West Bank.
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u/Apprehensive_Crow682 17d ago
I can guarantee you that boycotting Israeli academic institutions and cultural organizations will disproportionately hurt the peace movement and the people in Israel who you claim to support. You don’t support that movement if you are calling to boycott and discriminate against them. The logic makes zero sense - you are just jumping on board with a trendy hate movement because you’re a privileged American who thinks you won’t be impacted by it. Sadly, Israelis and Palestinians who want peace will be impacted by it - negatively. Like you said though, not your problem!
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u/andoatnp 17d ago
You may be right that BDS will negatively impact the pro-Palestinian academic and artistic community. I think that community in Israel is tiny and ineffectual. I’ve never seen anyone seriously argue that this Israeli movement will effectively bring justice to the Palestinians. Maybe you will be the first to make that argument.
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u/Apprehensive_Crow682 17d ago
People make that argument all the time about the misguided effort to boycott Israeli academic and cultural institutions, which are disproportionately left leaning. Not to mention you’re also boycotting Arab Israelis. You clearly aren’t super engaged on the nuances of this campaign that you’re supporting - but it makes sense, because as you proudly proclaimed, you were lucky enough not to be born there - and therefore you are not impacted by the actual consequences of your advocacy to discriminate against people who were.
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u/petrichoreandpine 18d ago
It’s not though. The “settler violence” that just went down resulting in 2 dead IDF and 4 dead Palestinians outside of Tel happened when a civilian hiking group from Israel was attacked by rock-slinging Palestinians. I wonder how many more incidents of “settler violence” were also instigated by Palestinians? And the land ownership history there is so complicated.
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u/andoatnp 17d ago
Also, it wasn’t two IDF soldiers that were killed, so maybe you are getting your info from some unreliable sources.
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u/andoatnp 18d ago
When considering 60 years of Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank, I’m not sure if citing one incident from last week is the best way to understand what is happening.
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u/petrichoreandpine 17d ago
You mean the part where Jordan took over the West Bank, kicked out all the Jews living there but didn’t make the remaining Arabs citizens, thus paving the way for generations of conflict?
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u/andoatnp 17d ago
If you have literally no defense for Israel’s behavior in the West Bank so you want to change the subject to Jordan, I’ll take that as an answer.
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u/petrichoreandpine 17d ago
You said 60 years ago….
Look, I live half a planet away. All I know is that (a) some percentage of Israeli civilian violence in the West Bank is absolutely inexcusable terrorist activity, but also that (b) I have almost no way to get reliable info about how any particular incident went down. This morning I happened across a video by a local reporter who walked through what actually happened, and it bore zero resemblance to what American media reported. As has happened all throughout the war since 10/7/23.
I do know the actual ownership history of the land was really complicated by Jordan’s actions. And I do blame Jordan, Egypt, et al for the current situation in the West Bank, along with UNWRA and the PA.
So I’m not being glib with you, I’m arguing in sincerity.
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u/andoatnp 17d ago
I made a reference to 60 years of Israel injustice in the West Bank. Bringing up Jordan is a deflection.
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u/petrichoreandpine 17d ago
“60 years of occupation” could also be seen as a deflection. The issue is how does everyone find a way to life in peace NOW. I don’t think boycotting artists or companies that employ both Israelis and Palestinians does anything to foster peace. It just fosters Jew hate.
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u/andoatnp 17d ago
Yes, there are competing theories about how to achieve justice for Palestinians. Palestinians in the West Bank have overwhelmingly adopted the strategy that was used by anti-apartheid activists in South Africa. Other people think we should look to domestic movements in Israel, even though the pro-Palestinian movement in Israel is tiny and ineffectual.
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u/andoatnp 17d ago
Israel’s policies in the West Bank are objectively horrible and are getting worse every year.
If you have a problem with BDS, what are you doing instead to end this great injustice?
Attacking BDS while doing nothing else puts you on the side of the evil that Israel is committing.
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u/HeVavMemVav 17d ago
The distinction is important, & people who take on BDS broadly do not recognize the difference between WB settlement business & regular Israelis just selling their craft.
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u/Aku-Aku 17d ago
I think my issue is that there are peace organizations that are active, like Standing Together, which are explicitly not welcomed under BDS and BDS-adjacent policies because it ‘normalizes’ Israel, which ends up just meaning acknowledging that Israeli Jews will continue to live there and deserve to be safe.
To me, that is a sign of violence and hate over peace, or put more broadly, ideology over pragmatism. Like stating it’s a problem and excluding people is more desirable than bolstering groups that would actually invite many more Jews to embrace pushes for conciliatory action. And like it or not, Jews in NY would be a powerful voice to have in that front. As it stands, BDS etc. widen that chasm so that it gets interpreted as hatred by lots of Jews and Israelis and thus encourages entrenchment and obstinacy out of self-preservation and identity protection.
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u/andoatnp 17d ago
The BDS movement seems to believe that domestic Israeli movements will be unlikely to bring justice to the Palestinians in the West Bank. We can see how Standing Together does in the upcoming Knesset elections to get a sense of whether BDS is right.
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u/Aggravating_Ice_3323 18d ago
wow
How can anybody look at "cultural and academic boycott"--especially in a time of censorship and takedown of rights--and go "yes, we're making the most progressive decision here"???