Supporting both sides
Simon Gray argues that we should sometimes question more rigorously when invited to support a cause
Meeting for Sufferings has discussed the possibility of a boycott of Israeli goods and businesses – or rather, more specifically, a boycott of goods produced in the illegally occupied territories.
The meeting was not in unity over the proposal. That it was even raised for discussion in the first place – by Quaker Peace & Social Witness, no less – I find appalling.
While appreciating that the power imbalances in the region lead to greater and lesser injustices being committed, the fact is that injustices are committed, and have been, to both sides in the conflict. Terrorist atrocities are also committed by both sides. I don’t believe it to be a simple case that we should not be seen to be taking sides. We should not even be contemplating the notion that we might consider the terrorism of one side to be acceptable. Five Israelis killed by a suicide bomber is equally objectionable to five Palestinians killed by a helicopter gunship.
The qualifier of ‘goods produced in the illegally occupied territories’ amounts to weasel words; when one sees a jar of olives on the supermarket shelf, it says ‘product of Israel’, it does not say ‘product of East Jerusalem’. One might as well ask your local supermarket worker whether the potatoes in the basket were grown in Herefordshire or in Worcestershire.
That the compromise decision of Meeting for Sufferings had been to ask our Local and Area Meetings to discuss on which terrorist atrocities we wish to focus our opposition, only serves to compound the appalling nature of the suggestion, not mitigate it.
I would have thought that the more appropriate suggestion to have emanated from Quaker Peace & Social Witness would have been to offer active support to organisations such as Neve ShalomWahat al-Salaam who are dedicated to promoting peace and justice, rather than inviting us to choose which side to support – and consequentially, which side to oppose.
The region does not need our support for one side over the other, but rather our vehement support to both sides in achieving a just and peaceful settlement for all citizens of the region.
This, together with the previous month’s brushing aside of the very real concerns of individuals and Meetings over the unsavoury groups and characters who are holding meetings and speaking at Friends House, I hope represents only a blip of errors of judgement rather than a disturbing trend within our central organisation.
Comments
The trouble with even-handedness (so-called) is that one ends up being identified with the oppressor. Should one have been even-handed between the Nazis and the Jews or between the South Africam apartheid regime and the black majority? I think not. The Israeli state is terribly well armed - with nuclear weapons, tanks, helicopters, warships. The state was founded on terrorism against the British in the 1940s. Settlers have been confiscating land increasingly. The homes of Palestinians are demolished and families evicted. Now Palestinian Christians have asked us for help - they ask us for bread and we offer them a stone. Palestinian Christians have been notable for their nonviolence. Quakers, wearing all sorts of hats, support Israeli and Palestinian peace groups.
By DavidH on 17th February 2011 - 11:57
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