Two weeks ago, at the end of February, US President Barack Obama signed a bill into law designed to protect Israel against economic boycotts. The law explicitly states that its provisions apply solely not only to Israel, but also to territories under its control. This was ostensibly a great victory for all those in Israel who have made the struggle against the boycott a worthy tool for advancing their political careers and a way of promoting the current government's agenda.
The fact that Obama signed the bill was not highlighted in Israel. Two weeks have passed since the bill became law, and the event has become portrayed in the local media as marginal and insignificant just another Congressional law in support of the Israeli right. The US President's signature, however, less than a year before he leaves office, was not a mere ceremonial event. Obama attached to his signature a signed declaration stating that US foreign policy distinguishes between Israel within the Green Line and the West Bank.
This in effect eliminates the biggest achievement of Israeli foreign policy relating to possession of the territories - the letter by President George Bush recognizing the concept of large groups of Jewish communities over the Green Line. In a few lines attached to his signature on a bill, Obama retracted this commitment.
The entire affair highlights the substance of the struggle by the Israeli government and its allies in the US against the "boycott." BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movement is the announced spearhead of the boycott movement. This movement rejects Israel's occupation of territories over the Green Line, the Jewish communities there, and the existence of Israel itself. In addition to leftists, the movement includes numerous Islamic extremists, classic anti-Semites, and quite a few innocents. Its achievements are limited to culture and academics.
From the perspective of most of Israel's political establishment, the boycott movement is like a gift - an easy target for attack that facilitates unity behind the government among both Israelis and Jews in the US. As if that were not enough, turning BDS into the latest ultimate enemy is enabling the Israeli establishment to ignore a much more concrete threat to the project of annexing the West Bank: the distinction between Israel within the Green Line and everything beyond that line, with the emphasis on the word "everything," without exceptions, footnotes, or blocs of Jewish communities. This distinction has been the official position of the European Union for several years, and was made effective in November 2015 with the publication of the instruction to label goods from the trans-Green Line Jewish communities, and in effect to exclude them from the provisions of Israel-EU trade and cooperative agreements. Obama's declaration is important, because it is designed to conform to the EU position. From now on, US foreign policy can be better coordinated with the EU.
For the Israeli government, this development is much more challenging than demonstrations by a few hundred UK students in front of London supermarkets selling Israeli dates. The political situation can lead to a final definition of trans-Green Line Jewish communities as "illegal" in the legal systems of various countries. Most of the boycott against the trans-Green Line Jewish communities, and in effect against Israel, is neither public, nor from public institutions. It is a quiet boycott by commercial entities choosing to sever their connection with Israeli entities when it does not harm their business interests. They are doing this quietly, without arousing protests. The legal definition of trans-Green Line Jewish communities as "illegal" will merely make this behavior a norm.
This is the real boycott movement, against which the Israeli government and a thousand laws by the US Congress are helpless. The legislation signed by Obama is therefore largely meaningless, but his declaration is not. What demonstrates more than anything else the Israeli government's helplessness against this growing phenomenon is the fact that for several years, Israeli governments, including those led by Benjamin Netanyahu, have had to recognize the distinction between Israel and the territories.
When Israel joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), it recognized that organization's right to distinguish between two entities. The government of Ehud Olmert recognized the EU's right to impose customs duties on goods produced in the trans-Green Line Jewish communities, and the Netanyahu government signed a scientific and technological agreement with the EU in November 2013 that included a commitment by Israel that EU funds would not reach those Jewish communities.
None of this, of course, had any effect on initiatives against the boycott movement.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 15, 2016
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2016