Where is Israeli Legitimacy Going?

"Israel is facing a dramatic assault on the very legitimacy of its existence as a Jewish and democratic state," says the report. The researchers at the institute succeeded to identify even the trigger of that new wave of de-legitimacy: "Operation Cast lead in Gaza." What an insight!



"The aim [of the campaign] is to internationally isolate Israel and ultimately turn it into a pariah state through demonizing the country, promoting a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and waging a legal struggle against the state and its citizens."

BDS is the central concern of the Reut Institute report:

"Attempts to demonize Israel provide the ideological and rhetorical platform for pursuing a policy of BDS in the fields of academia, economy, culture, sport, and security.

Despite the BDS movement including several academics, trade unions, and church groups, it has enjoyed limited practical success so far. However, efforts have been highly successful in generating publicity and in mobilizing anti-Israel activism, effectively uniting anti-Zionists with critics of specific Israeli policies.

The risk posed is that such campaigns will create an equivalency between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa that penetrates the mainstream of public and political consciousness. Given Israel's dependence on vigorous trade, as well as scientific, academic, and technological engagement with other countries, this movement towards isolating the country may pose a strategic threat."



Reut Institute researchers are not missing the point: South Africa is, indeed, a kind of model, and the BDS campaign definitely inspired by the boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa. Indeed, “to ultimately turn (Israel) into a pariah state,” until it will act according to international law and fulfill its commitments to international covenants, like the Geneva Conventions. It is not implicit but an open and consistent strategy, concerning the political domain as well as the economic, the cultural, the education, sport and trade.

Is it a “strategic threat” as the Reut Institute seems to think? Not yet: while the BDS campaign is progressively gaining support from the world civil society, it is not the policy of most of the governments, which, like the European Union, prefer to convince and to “put quiet and friendly pressures” than to have a strategy of sanctions. Even the suspension of the partnership agreement between Israel and the EU has not been suspended, despite the fact that the State of Israel is clearly violating the terms of that agreement.

The Israeli government however should not be over-confident: several European states have, unofficially, made clear to the solidarity movement in their respective countries than though they cannot be part of the campaign, they are not unhappy with the BDS initiatives. For, even the US administration is not happy with the rejectionist policy of the present Israeli government and its decision to pass over President’s Obama request, and to continue settlement’s activities. The growing isolation of Israel in the international community is a reality, though often a hidden reality. The aggressive rudeness of Foreign Minister Yvette Lieberman and his deputy Danny Ayalon towards Turkey is symptomatic: since many decades, Turkey is a strategic ally of Israel, and this alliance a cornerstone of the US strategy in the Near East; threatening this strategic relationship is not only political blindness but enough a reason to create a lots of worries in Washington, and a strong desire to get rid of the present government.

Will the White House pass from an unfriendly personal relationship to real political pressure? Right now it doesn’t seem so. But at the medium range, it is not impossible. Twenty years ago, the Israeli PM was Yitzhak Shamir, and he opposed explicit US demands to freeze settlements activities. In less than a year, and through financial pressures, he was replaced by Yitzhak Rabin who agreed to open negotiations with the PLO. US strategic interests in the Middle East (the war against Iraq) were stronger than the Israeli lobby in Washington. This may happen again in the not so far future.