Editor’s note: This is in response to the column “Nonviolent tactics can still shape our world,” published in Thursday’s Daily Lobo, in which Will Thomson discussed the ways in which nonviolent methods of conflict resolution are effectively being used.
Editor,
Specifically, this letter is a response to Will Thomson’s recent column, but apropos of Omar Barghouti’s talk here on campus I would like to comment on the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement more generally. Any rational observer will agree that the “holy land” will either be divided within our lifetimes, or a catastrophe of some sort will ensue from Israel’s occupation.
Yet it sometimes seems as though many Palestinians and their supporters would rather enjoy the vindication of seeing Israel’s fascist tendencies consume it entirely, regardless of the cost to both peoples, than live to witness a peaceful resolution. It may serve as a way to affirm political, religious or ethnic identity, but this attitude is inherently cynical. I say so as a Hebrew-speaker who has a deep, personal affinity for Israel.
This doesn’t make me a by-default proponent or opponent of any particular political platform, and shouldn’t serve to prejudice anyone against me before they’ve gotten to know me. Nevertheless, I often find myself concealing this aspect of my background when I make the acquaintance of fellow students. This requires a small but noteworthy effort, as I am a linguistics major and am often asked what languages I speak, or where I learned the smattering of Arabic and Russian I’ve picked up — in Israel.
The point is, my reticence results as much from a nasty public image that is of Israel’s own making as it does from more disdainful attitudes toward Israel that defy all rationality. BDS, while laudable for being a nonviolent tactic, at the same time expresses these attitudes succinctly. A number of inventions have emerged from Israel — irrigation technology, hard drive components, software systems, medicines and medical devices — that would be entirely impossible to boycott without eschewing participation in the life of the 21st century.
Besides, to do so would be like throwing out the baby with the bath water; an innovation that singularly reshapes the quality of human life for the better should not be viewed in terms of the national provenance of its designer. Any notion to the contrary is as disconnected from reality as the febrile imaginings of those Israelis who would blame their situation entirely on the Arabs, and see the occupation continue indefinitely.
Aaron Cress
UNM student
