Given current intensity of ‘security’ forces activities, there is cause to be afeared that this outcome might be realised. Or worse.
Palestinians participate in the funeral of two-year-old Muhammad Tamimi
A protective ring around Israel
There are but few actions that UK civil society can take to influence government and business policy towards Israel. One key way, is to support BDS, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign. But the UK government appears determined to block that avenue.
Whereas the British Government’s proper response to Israel’s daily wounding and killing of Palestinians – child, woman, man – along with destruction of their homes and the confiscation of their land, should be strenuous protest, support of UN condemnatory resolutions, and terminating, or at least curtailing, trade and military ties. Instead, it consistently chooses to throw a protective ring around that country, now in the shape of legislation just tabled, to ban public bodies from boycotting Israeli products.
The rationale for such legislation – named the ‘Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) bill’ tabled today (19 June 2023) – such as it is, revolves around the notion that, in the words of Michael Gove, minister for local government, ‘These campaigns not only undermine the UK’s foreign policy but lead to appalling antisemitic rhetoric and abuse.’
The minister is right of course, at least in his implied fear that a successful boycott campaign would counter current British foreign policy in respect of Palestine/Israel. That is, after all, one of its objectives.
But a state’s foreign policy does not exist in a hermetically-sealed zone, immune to civil society’s attempts to influence it. The proposed legislation is targeted at public authorities, those, in other words, that are democratically elected; and if pension funds are also to be targeted, their assets are ultimately in the control of pension fund members. It is not for government to direct its investment profile. Thus, Gove’s Bill not only protects the morally-barren Israeli state, it also assaults UK civil society. Yet another instance of this government’s assault on protest and civil liberties.
Gove also claims to believe, in his words, that boycotts of Israel ‘lead to appalling antisemitic rhetoric and abuse.’ It’s not clear that the minister has attempted to evidence this assertion. However, one can speculate that the IHRA definition of antisemitism, in particular some of its somewhat elastic working examples that conflate Israel-critical words and actions with antisemitism plays, at the very least, a surreptitious role in his thinking.
In other words, Gove, and the government he represents, have succumbed, perhaps eagerly succumbed, to the Israel lobby and its active, well-funded supporters. That lobby fears, above all, light being thrown on the nature and actions of the Israeli state. Thus, under the cover of a notional concern about antisemitism, the UK government lines up with those that deny Palestinians a voice and justice; and shields a violent Israeli state from any consequence. For these reasons alone, the right to support the non-violent, civil society BDS – Boycott, Divestment Sanctions –campaign must be protected.
Bernard Spiegal 
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