We are especially disappointed with the decisions of many trade unions in Great Britain who have failed to contact Jewish progressive bodies and the entire Israeli Left Wing and Civil Rights aggregate, and have decided to single out the State of Israel as the sole or the primary target of boycott resolutions.

We feel that the boycott is stereotyped and based on old racist ideologies that seek singular treatment of Jews and the Jewish State of Israel. Targeting Israel uniquely as a human rights abuser, while ignoring myriad other evils in the world, smacks of discrimination. Whilst Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza can and should be legitimately criticized, attacks on Israelis and expressed hatred of Israelis “as Israelis”, are serious issues that also demand recognition. Such an approach, we feel, can never aid reconciliation nor achieve the aim of a two-state solution.

All Meretz groups are committed to fraternal discourse with our Arab neighbours. We strongly support a two-state solution, as this is what most Palestinians demand. Meretz members abroad, such as Yossi Beilin and Avshalom Vilan of Meretz Israel (Members of the Knesset – Israel’s parliament) have been at the forefront of comprehensive two-state negotiations with leading Palestinian counterparts. Indeed, the Geneva Accords remains perhaps the only fully thrashed out proposal for a settlement to enjoy significant support in both communities, Israeli and Palestinian. We further note that in poll after poll, the majority of the Israeli public have expressed themselves against a continuous occupation of the West Bank and control of Gaza.

One in every five Israeli citizens is not Jewish; and of this 20 percent, 17 percent are Israeli Palestinian Arab – a percentage of population that significantly tops the equivalent for minorities in Britain. While they formally enjoy equality in the law, in practice there have been lamentable instances of discrimination. Meretz has led demands for an improvement in their situation for decades. Happily, some significant advances have occurred over the last years. Israel now has Arab members of the government and even one director of the Israel National Fund, former bastion of Jewish Zionism.

As a democratic state Israel warrants rights for people of every persuasion and ability. It has a free press and fully functioning trade unions. Where the state or the courts fail, Meretz and other bodies have actively campaigned against these failings. To thus blindly characterize Israel as an “apartheid state” simply does not pass muster, we feel, and clumsily diverts us from the real issues.

Along with groups in Israel that support peace and civil rights, Meretz UK believes that the occupation and control of the West Bank and Gaza in its current form must end. We also say that occupation undermines the state’s achievements in guaranteeing civil and human rights within Israel itself.

Meretz UK further believes that those who wish to advance the two-state solution should support the Left, Civil and Human Rights sectors within Israel. There are literarily hundreds of projects in this sector, from the large, such as Be-Tselem, Meretz Yahad (Israel), Peace Now, Gush Shalom, and ACRI, to smaller ones like Neve Shalom and Shemesh. Amongst them also the Israeli trade union movement, the Histadrut. However, boycotts only erode the potency of such groups, while doing precious little to damage the forces behind occupation itself.

We believe that the boycott is the result of ignorance. For peace to work there needs to be engagement with Israelis and Israeli organizations, and mutual negotiations between both parties. The challenge is to get the hardened margins to engage in open discourse. Boycotts merely dodge that challenge in a vainglorious display of gesture politics at its most pathetic.

British organizations have missed a unique opportunity to support the peace process as neutral agents. By boycotting Israel, supporters of the boycott strengthen the right in Israel – those who wish to prevent or delay a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Psychologically, boycotts merely send out the message to Israelis and Jews worldwide that Israel must defend itself against all others, and that the world stage is against the Jewish state, or Jews, once again. Culturally this shows great insensitivity, misinformation and one-sidedness.

Surely it is some paradox that the same month unions up and down Britain chose to ghettoize Israel as “beyond the pale”, the Arab League sent its first delegation to the state to open talks! If Israel’s Arab neighbours feel the time to engage is now, why are supposed “progressives” in the UK moving in exactly the opposite direction? Can they truly be “more royal than the king”?

Britain, as former British mandate authority, and therefore the British people and organizations of today, have a great responsibility to foster amicable relations between Arabs and Jews and strengthen the forces that accept the other. Contemporary Britain could play an important role, because of its great achievements in inter-faith dialogue and the Northern-Irish peace process.

We pledge to assist any British organization willing to make contact with the Israeli civil rights, human rights and Left wing sectors, and work in association with likeminded Palestinian, Arab and Muslim organizations.

We will align with other British organizations, Jewish, Arab or any other body with these aims, and continue to campaign and inform about progressive and courageous organizations in Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East at large, and explain and support the civil and human rights agendas in Israel (including their representatives in the UK).

We extend our hand to trade unions, academic unions and other bodies who share our commitment to a fair and just settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with respect for the national, human and civil rights of Israelis and Palestinians, including national self-determination through a negotiated, mutually-agreed upon, two-state solution.

Meretz UK

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