A Strange Choice of Book Reviewer

Let's say your the literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald's Saturday arts supplement, Spectrum. 

Let's assume you're well-informed and genuinely interested in debate.

Let's say you've decided (for reasons best known to yourself) that, of all the latest books on Palestine/Israel that need reviewing, it just has to be Philip Mendes and Nick Dyrenfurth's Boycotting Israel is Wrong.

Who are you going to commission to do the job?

Jake Lynch, Stuart Rees, Peter Slezak, Antony Loewenstein, Nick Reimer, Marcelo Svirsky? All conversant in the politics of Palestine/Israel, and all supporters of the pro-Palestine boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign.

OK, you're not Spectrum's literary editor. Susan Wyndham is, and she's commissioned Dennis Altman, professorial fellow in the Institute for Human Security & Social Change at LaTrobe University to review Mendes & Dyrenfurth (Shaky support for two states, 20/6/15)

Problem is, according to freelance journalist Michael Brull, a close observer of these things, Altman is dismissive of the call to boycott Israel. (But what about Zionism?, Michael Brull, Overland, Autumn 2010)

Now I've been unable to access the Altman article Brull refers to on Overland's website. It seems to have been withdrawn for some reason. But, assuming that Brull is correct, and Altman takes a dim view of BDS, or worse, why then commission him of all people to review an anti-BDS book?

Certainly, anyone who begins his review this way has got to be a bit of a worry:

"Anyone who writes about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is asking for trouble; even that statement will itself draw criticism. Few issues bring out such deeply polarised views, leaving little room for genuine empathy with the range of positions involved on the ground."

OMG... genuine empathy for the range of positions involved? Yes, yes, Mr Netanyahu, I do empathise with your position, I really do... you're absolutely right about... and... and... but...

Ditto for this:

"I largely agree with the comment they [Mendes & Dyrenfurth] cite from David Remnick... that: 'Israel exists; the Palestinian people exist... Within these territorial confines two nationally distinct groups, who are divided by language, culture and history cannot live... wholly together'."

Well, weren't South Africa's Whites and Blacks ONCE so divided?  Now where do they live if not wholly together?

And this:

"Thus Boycotting Israel gives us a great deal of detail about some of the excesses of the BDS movement, including the attacks on the Max Brenner chocolate shops..."

Attacks? You're kidding me? What attacks?

But more than that, Altman avoids the real reason why Zionist propagandists such as Mendes and Dyrenfurth have gone to the trouble of writing a book smearing the BDS campaign.

It's because one of the three aims of the BDS campaign is the right of return to their homes and lands, in Israel (im)proper, of the Palestinian refugees of 1948.

Mendes & Dyrenfurth have referred to this fundamental tenet of international law sneeringly as "a so-called Right of Return." (The BDS campaign's flaws and failings, M&D, Australian Jewish News, 5/5/15) And Dyrenfurth recently said on the ABC's Radio National that "The most problematic aim of the PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel) statement relates to the right of return for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war... if there was a mass return of Palestinian refugees to Israel proper... that would mean the end of Israel..." (Is boycotting Israel ethical or anti-Semitic?, Religion & Ethics Report, 17/6/15)

What he meant was the end of Israel as a Jewish supremacist state, that is one which allows people like Mendes & Dyrenfurth, simply by virtue of their having Jewish mothers,* to swan in or out of Israel (im)proper as they please, while denying the same right to its original, indigenous non-Jewish inhabitants, ethnically cleansed in 1948. IOW, to discriminate in favour of Jews but against non-Jewish Palestinians.

[*Through Israel's Law of Return]

A Trenchant Analysis. Not.

How shallow and sniffy is this analysis by the director of the Institute for Human Security at La Trobe University, Dennis Altman*, in The Age of September 19?:

"... debate [over Palestine], while sometimes intense..." (Israel's opposition to recognising Palestine is a puzzle)

What? Where is this debate? Certainly not in the Fairfax press.

"... rarely goes beyond entrenched set pieces on both sides."

Surely he's not implying that there's an equivalence between Zionist propaganda and its rebuttal?

"The pro-Palestinian lobby is small, and too often engages in acts that are counterproductive."

Such as? 'Counterproductive': Murdochspeak.

"The pro-Israeli [sic] lobby is far larger and influential, and has powerful emotional support on both sides of politics. Kevin Rudd once claimed that support for Israel was in his DNA, and Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott seemed determined to go one better. Neither national interest nor the small Jewish population explain it. I suspect it is born of the formative experiences of political leaders, now in their 40s and 50s... "

Just emotional support? That's all there is to it? Why so coy? Some people would find that way too superficial. People such as this "Australian official," for example:

"It wouldn't matter whether it was John Howard or Kevin Rudd or Tony Abbott in the prime minister's chair... [The Israelis] know they've got us by the balls... partly because of the strength of the Israel lobby..." (Betrayed PM should not be taken for granted by Israel**, Peter Hartcher, SMH, 26/2/10)

By the balls? Not the heartstrings, but the balls. Goodness, whatever could he mean? Maybe this:

"When Labor approached key [Jewish] groups to hold fund-raising events for the coming election, they feigned busyness, but it was a deliberate and unmistakeable retaliation. The Jewish community was an important source of Labor funds for the 2007 election. A single lunch in Sydney raised $100,000. A Toorak tennis court party for 200, attended by Rudd and Gillard, raised more. But as this year has unfolded, it became increasingly clear such effort would not be repeated." (What am I, chopped liver? How Rudd dived into schmooze mode***, Peter Hartcher, SMH, 22/6/10)

Maybe some things speak louder than formative experiences.

"... note that Gillard was a student leader when the national movement was destroyed by ferocious debates on Palestine."

Debates killed the old Australian Union of Students? Or then president Gillard got spooked by the Israel lobby's campus extension and decided to shift to more pragmatic issues - which bored the pants off its members and contributed to its demise soon after she graduated? (See my 14/8/10 post The Real Julia Gillard.)

[*For an equally irritating, but nonetheless interesting amplification of Altman's views on these matters, see Escaping the Tribe? overland.org.au, Spring 2009; **For the context see my 11/6/10 post Those Irresistable Zionist Pheromomes Again 2; ***For the context see my 22/6/10 post The Best Israel Policy Money Can Buy.]