As I’ve explained before on the Ibishblog, I have serious reservations about relying on boycotts as a primary tactic for the Palestinian national movement under the present circumstances. And, I think that boycotts that target Israel generally, as opposed to the occupation, under any circumstances would probably have rapidly diminishing returns, in several respects, for the Palestinian cause. I think the probable impact on Israeli political sentiments was pretty acutely diagnosed by Uri Avnery in the second of two recent commentaries on the subject. However, I have expressed sympathy for targeted boycotts that focus on the occupation and make it clear that what is being targeted is the hideous apparatus of the settlements, the checkpoints, the separation barrier, the home demolitions, etc. In other words, I don’t have a simple position of being opposed to boycotts, as some people have misunderstood. I think some are much more useful than others, and I judge them on a case-by-case basis and not in a knee-jerk manner.

To illustrate my point, there have been a number of divestment actions of late that I think have been entirely positive, useful and should be encouraged because they specifically target the occupation and not Israel in general, and are therefore politically useful and not counterproductive. Last week, the Norwegian government said it was going to withdraw all of its pension fund investments from Elbit Systems, the company that manufactures the monitoring system installed on the appalling Israeli separation barrier that snakes through the occupied West Bank.

Norway’s Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen said that the decision was made because, "We do not wish to fund companies that so directly contribute to violations of international humanitarian law." To which I can only say, bravo! This kind of divestment action, specifically targeting the mechanics of one of the worst aspects of the occupation, is an extremely positive development. It is sound, principled, moral and very much in Norway’s own interests.

There is probably a lot more that can be done, especially in Western Europe, to achieve similar highly targeted, occupation-specific divestments that send the right message in the right way. Even in the United States, when it comes to direct contributions to violations of international humanitarian law by the occupation, some similar measures might be possible, and, when targeted in an intelligent and purposive manner, indeed useful.

Boycott and divestment activists in Europe and the United States can learn a great deal from the extremely intelligent way in which Norway took and framed its decision. The ministry explained: "The surveillance system has been specially designed in close collaboration with the buyer and has no other applications. Elbit Systems is clearly aware of exactly where and how the system is intended to be used." The Norwegian government made it crystal clear that these specific elements were central to its decision to divest from Elbit Systems, and stressed that the decision was based on these aspects of the issue and not the nationality of the Israeli company. The way Norway has handled this is not only principled, it is extremely astute and shrewd, making a very important point without falling into the obvious pitfalls which attach themselves to broad-brush boycott measures, and which I have outlined in earlier Ibishblog postings.

In addition, the U.S. pension fund TIAA-CREF has withdrawn approximately $250,000 from the Israeli firm Africa Israel Investments, which was reportedly in response to a letter from some Palestinian activists pointing out that, "the fund continues to invest clients’ money in a number of companies supporting Israeli settlement activity." This also strikes me as worthwhile and the useful development, although I remain somewhat skeptical about how much these kind of actions can actually achieve. However, I am ready to be pleasantly surprised and I really can’t see any downside to boycott actions of this kind that are specific to organizations and companies that are deeply engaged with the mechanics of the occupation.

On the other hand, the controversy over the Toronto Film Festival, in an effort to in effect block Israeli films from being shown or to punish the festival for showing Israeli movies is, I think, a good example of a boycott action that is well-intentioned but not particularly helpful. The artists and filmmakers who have supported the action cite the occupation as their primary objection, but I have two serious reservations about this approach.

First, I think that responding to the occupation by boycotting anything Israeli in order to punish all of Jewish Israeli society for the crimes of the occupation is at least as likely to reinforce Israeli and other Jewish support for the settlers as it is to undermine it. In other words, I just don’t think this kind of generalized boycott will have the effect of dividing Israeli society but rather is more likely to unite it in a very negative way.

Second, I think that anything that smacks of broad-brush censorship, in this case the exclusion of art that has been made by people from the wrong society, is difficult to defend. It will leave a bad taste in the mouths of many people who might otherwise be sympathetic. There are after all a very wide range of opinions among Jewish Israelis, and also an Arab minority in Israel (boycotts that target all of Israeli society tend to forget about this, as it will be extremely difficult to make targeted exclusions for Palestinian citizens of Israel). At any rate,I am left very cold by the idea that refusing to engage with the art and expression of a particular society generally is a positive contribution to international political life. One can easily imagine similar positions taken by other groups of people towards, say, the brilliant films being made in recent years in Iran. How would that help anything?

The bottom line is I just don’t see how excluding all Israeli movies from international film festivals is going to help the Palestinians. It seems to me precisely the kind of boycott action that is more likely to annoy most Israelis and unify them rather than intensify divisions over the occupation and undermine the position of those Israelis who are willing to seriously and completely end it (quite possibly many of them being artists and filmmakers). As with any tactic, there are forms of boycott and divestment that are politically constructive and useful, and those that probably do at least as much harm as good.

NOTE: The day after I posted this, I posted the following correction, since some of this posting contained a mischaracterization of some aspects of the Toronto Declaration.

ANOTHER NOTE: This posting appears to be cursed. Now MarketWatch reports that TIAA-CREF denies that its withdrawal from the Israeli company was in any way linked to political considerations, but rather was based on its removal from a stock index:

The U.S. pension fund TIAA-CREF said that it no longer owns shares in Africa-Israel. In a statement, the fund said that "[earlier] this year, the CREF Stock Account had an extremely small investment in the company, which was sold after its removal from an emerging-markets index that the account tracks." The online editions of the Israeli newspapers Yediot Achronot and Ha’aretz reported that a number of the fund’s investors had urged TIAA-CREF to shed the holding because the company had built projects in the West Bank.

Good information on these issues appears harder to come by than most. Who knows how many more of these notes I will have to add in the coming days. Hopefully, none.