Posts

Some over-the-hill novelist in Britain called John Berger is demanding a "cultural boycott" of Israel, and using the Guardian's Comment is free blog to do it. Now, if cultural boycott sounds as mushy and indistinct to you as "consciousness raising," you might be wondering what, exactly, its methods of application are. Berger:

For instance: an important mainstream Israeli publisher today is asking to publish three of my books. I intend to apply the boycott with an explanation. There exist, however, a few small, marginal Israeli publishers who expressly work to encourage exchanges and bridges between Arabs and Israelis, and if one of them should ask to publish something of mine, I would unhesitatingly agree and furthermore waive aside any question of author's royalties. I don't ask other writers supporting the boycott to come necessarily to exactly the same conclusion. I simply offer an example.

Interesting. A few paragraphs before, Berger explains that denying "state institutions" is the way to abjure Israeli hegemony in Palestine. Any guesses as to whether that mainstream publisher is owned by the government? (Actually, there's a nice chance of it given the Israeli penchant for unkosher pork in public spending; who reads John Berger in Jerusalem?)

If "boycotting" a private organization in a country whose policies you object to sounds vaguely familiar and more than vaguely sinister it might be because the same rationale is trotted out by native nutters like Ward Churchill, who defended the immolation of 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001 because they all paid taxes to the U.S. government and were therefore complicit in that government's crimes. Got that? Now add Jews, stir vigorously.

As Harry's Place points out, Berger stupidly misses the irony in his own hastily-adorned philo-Semitic flak jacket (mustn't let anyone think anti-Israel means anti-Jew after all):

Mr. Berger's petition states:

It is now time for others to join the campaign – as Primo Levi asked: If not now, when?

Actually that question was first asked by Hillel in the Pirkei Avot:

If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

Primo Levi used the phrase for the title of his novel about Jewish partisan fighters in World War II. It's a refrain from the suspiciously Zionist song sung by the partisans in the story:

Do you recognize us? We're the sheep of the ghetto, Shorn for a thousand years, resigned to outrage. We are the tailors, the scribes and the cantors, Withered in the shadow of the cross. Now we have learned the paths of the forest, We have learned to shoot, and we aim straight. If I'm not for myself, who will be for me? If not this way, how? And if not now, when?

Our brothers have gone to heaven Through the chimneys of Sobibor and Treblinka, They have dug themselves a grave in the air. Only we few have survived For the honor of our submerged people, For revenge and to bear witness. If I'm not for myself, who will be for me? If not this way, how? And if not now, when?

We are the sons of David, the hardheaded sons of Masada. Each of us carries in his pocket the stone That shattered the forehead of Goliath. Brothers, away from this Europe of graves: Let us climb together towards the land Where we will be men among men. If I'm not for myself, who will be for me? If not this way, how? And if not now, when?

Can you guess which land the song refers to?

• Tweet
• 
• Comments (0)

• 
  Like I’m A PhD Student, So Like Bite The Holocaust!
• 
  Who Was Jabotinsky?