Views in brief

Arguments about the BDS movement

RECENTLY ON SocialistWorker.org, I watched a video of the International Socialist Review's forum in Boston with Noam Chomsky on "Israel's war on Gaza and the U.S. government's role." Needless to say, it was an insightful talk given at a crucial moment to build support for the Palestinian cause.

However, I was surprised that Noam rejects the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) campaign that has been called for by Palestinian activists like Haidar Eid and civil organizations like the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, Global BDS Movement, and the One Democratic State Group.

He seems to reject it on tactical grounds, saying:

The South African boycott, divestment and sanctions were effective after decades of education and organizing...If people understood what was going on...you can have that kind of campaign. But this is different. You don't need the campaign. If people understood what was going on, you could settle the problem without that; namely, by getting the U.S. to withdraw its extreme rejectionism, and that focuses on the task that's in front of us...It's an educating and organizing task.

Chomsky's reasoning poses a false dilemma. There is good reason to believe the BDS campaign can be an effective method to carry out our long-term educating and organizing tasks.

Noam Chomsky is a very influential thinker on the left. Has someone taken up this argument with him? Is there a significant debate along these lines about BDS among solidarity activists?
Frank Couget, Astoria, N.Y.

The fight against Israel's apartheid

IN A spirit of solidarity, James Fiorentino says that Professor Haidar Eid "slightly mischaracterizes the role of armed struggle" in South Africa's anti-apartheid movement ("Israel's vicious apartheid").

He points to the centrality of the South African workers' movement then, and therefore the centrality of pan-Arabic (especially Egyptian) workers' struggles in the future of the Palestinian anti-apartheid movement. But Eid's characterization of the "four pillars" of the movement--armed struggle, mass struggle, political underground, and international solidarity--is actually perfectly tuned to the situation he is addressing.

Armed struggle has played a key role in the successful fights against Israeli expansionism and occupation for the last decade: the liberation of Southern Lebanon, the defense against the re-invasion of Lebanon, and the resistance to the U.S./Israeli-backed Fatah coup in Gaza. These armed struggles succeeded even though Israel is, as James reminds us, a nuclear power.

I hope he would not call these movements "parochial." Nor should we mechanically separate them from working class mass action, past or future.

Eid's list of the "four pillars" in the history of the South African freedom struggle does not evaluate their relative merits, nor was it his point to do so. He raised them to shed light on Palestine today. But James does "slightly mischaracterize the role of armed struggle" in South Africa.

The ANC's guerrilla units, it is true, made little headway. And the workers' movement was undoubtedly the most powerful element. But the liberation armies in Namibia, Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, which successfully overthrew colonialism and apartheid regionally, contributed mightily to the isolation of white rule. There may be parallels and lessons here for Palestine.

Eid was right to leave the door open to different conceptions of the future of the struggle, and wisely takes his starting point in the history of the struggles in both South Africa and Palestine.
Avery Wear, Lemon Grove, Calif.

AIG just a drop in the bucket

REGARDING "AIGreed": Thanks for the fine article. The New York Times has it partly right when it notes that the bonuses are only a tiny fraction of the monies AIG gave to banks.

Yes, Goldman Sachs got $12.9 billion from AIG, but this was on top of the billions Goldman Sachs and other banks got under the TARP. Moreover, the Goldman Sachs bonuses dwarf the AIG bonuses. Bloomberg News reported that Goldman Sachs gave $2.5 billion in stock and stock options as 2008 bonuses. The AIG bonuses seem paltry in comparison.

Focusing on AIG gives Obama and the pols a chance to look and sound tough, while diverting attention from a scandal that engulfs the entire system, a system that includes the pols of both parties and some of their biggest financial backers, namely investment banks.

According to OpenSecrets.org, Goldman Sachs was Obama's largest contributor after the University of California system (contributions from employees and families).
Charles Jenks, from the Internet

What Andrew Stern represents

SERVICE EMPLOYEES International Union President Andrew Stern's takeover of the United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW) is outrageous ("SEIU trashes union democracy in California").

He does not represent workers. He supports employers and pushes for collective-bargaining agreements that shortchange employees and benefit employers.

I hope the new formation by the disenfranchised UHW members will be successful. I would like to be kept informed of further developments.
Emily Maloney, from the Internet