Boycott to and fro: be careful what you ban

GEOFF SIFRIN

From the 1960s until almost the end of apartheid, the trade, cultural, sports, academic, and other sanctions against South Africa were intended to force the white regime to abandon its racist policies and suppression of the black majority.

Historians will forever argue over how much the sanctions were responsible for apartheid’s demise, compared to other factors such as the collapse of the Soviet Union that changed the political environment. Nevertheless, being cut off from the world was painful; even travelling overseas on a South African passport was uncomfortable.

The anti-apartheid movement’s first major victory, in 1961, forced South Africa to leave the Commonwealth. In 1962, the United Nations General Assembly asked member states to impose a trade boycott. In 1963, the UN Security Council called for a partial arms ban.

Expecting South Africa to capitulate, there was one effect the boycotters didn’t adequately foresee. Among certain sectors of the population, particularly conservative Afrikaners who wielded power, the boycotts induced a stubborn, creative camaraderie. They developed a determination to hold things together and flourish despite sanctions – the opposite of the demoralisation the boycotters wanted.

It was the midst of the Cold War, and politicians rallied conservative white groups by labelling liberal anti-apartheid protestors “communists” – a damning indictment in the Cold War mindset. So, South Africa continued stubbornly, for decades, to endure while the world was busy with the Cold War.

There is much talk today about partial or full boycotts of Israel. Anti-Israel movements use the South African boycotts as their model. But it is misguided. Africa is not the Middle East, and despite its flaws, Israel is not implementing apartheid. Internationally, a major destabilising factor today is the complex conflict between the Islamic and Western worlds. And, boycotts can have the opposite effect to what is intended.

The Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement makes a lot of noise, but achieving a full boycott of Israel is highly unlikely. It can only be symbolic. Israel stands on the highway of the world, and is as strong as it has ever been.

Most participants in boycott groups know this. So, one wonders why Israel bothered to detain Lara Alqasem, the 22-year-old American student who arrived on 2 October on a study visa, at Ben Gurion airport.

It was absurd when security officials who blocked her cited her membership of a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida, and her alleged support for BDS. All it did was raise the boycotters’ profile. It had no practical effect. And by coming to Israel to study, Alqasem gave up any claim to represent the boycott movement.

Pressurising Israel to change policies towards the Palestinians is necessary. Its occupation of the West Bank will, if unchecked, foreclose any possibility of a two-state solution.

But, contrary to their intentions, the supporters of boycotts are giving the current government and its prime minister only more ammunition to tell Israelis that, once again, “the whole world is against the Jewish state”.

He will elevate BDS to the level of an existential threat, and rally Israelis behind him as if they were fighting yet another mortal, anti-Semitic enemy.

South African sanctions had a huge effect on the country. But BDS will ultimately fail. Opposition to Israeli policies must come from within the Israeli and Jewish world. The question is how much damage, through overreacting, the prime minister will allow it to do to Israel’s image in the meantime