On Monday, November 25, Omar Shakir, the director for Israel and Palestine issues for Human Rights Watch, was deported from Israel. Israel’s Supreme Court upheld the Netanyahu government’s refusal to renew the work visa of Shakir, who is an American citizen. Shakir, who is a lawyer, a graduate of Stanford and Georgetown Universities, a Muslim, and of Iraqi decent, is accused of being a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Israeli law permits the government to ban foreigners who call for a boycott of Israel.
In 2018, Israel's Strategic Affairs Ministry published a list of organizations whose members were barred from entering the country. The list includes the American Friends Service Committee and Jewish Voice for Peace. In August 2019, Israel announced it would block two U.S. Congressional Representatives, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, from entering the country because of their opposition to Israeli policies.
I am a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and I support the boycott of Israel until it ends the occupation of the West Bank, withdraws Israeli settlers from the area, cancels its blockade of Gaza, returns to its internationally recognized 1967 borders, and finally recognizes a Palestinian state. As long as the occupation of the West Bank continues, Israel is an apartheid state denying rights to people living under its authority and should be condemned by the international community for human rights violations.
I believe Israeli policies towards Palestinians, those on the West Bank, those in Gaza, and those who live as citizens in Israel proper, are a clear violation of its own 1948 independence decree which is part of its basic law that serve as the Constitution of the State of Israel. According to the decree, “THE STATE OF ISRAEL . . . will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
Until now I have not endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement because of its demand that Palestinians displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war have the right to return to ancestral homes in what is now Israel proper. They base their position on United Nations Resolution 194 passed by the General Assembly in 1948. Abiding by that outdated resolution would now mean the displacement of Israelis who have lived in those locations for decades. One injustice does not justify another. I believe a legitimate peace settlement should recognize the rights of the displaced and provide financial restitution for their loses.
In response to the ban on Tlaib and Omar and the deportation of Shakir, I have decided to endorse BDS despite my disagreements. If they have not done so already, Israel can add me to their boycott list; but I was not coming anyway.
I say these things with some sadness because as a teacher, a historian, and as a Jew I would like to explore Israel and get to know its people, both Muslims and Jews, many of whom disagree with their government and some of whom are relatives I have never met. When Israel ends its policies towards Palestinians and its ban on people like me, I promise to visit. I also want to see the trees in the Negev I helped to plant when I was in Hebrew school as a young boy and with my Bar Mitzvah dollars.
We have a family tradition at Hanukah. For each candle that is lit, one of us makes a wish for the coming year. My wish, once again, will be for the end of the occupation and a democratic state of Israel.
Follow Alan Singer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReecesPieces8