I support… the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign… because, especially in our instantly connected world, an… injustice committed against one, or against one group of people, is an injustice against all,… against every one of us; a… collective injury.
My particular reason for participating in the cultural boycott of… Israel… is that, first of all, I can; I’m a writer, a novelist, and I produce works that are, as a rule, presented to the international market. This gives me a small extra degree of power over that which I possess as a (UK) citizen and a consumer. Secondly, where possible when trying to make a point, one ought to be precise, and hit where it hurts. The sports boycott of South Africa when it was still run by the racist apartheid regime helped to bring the country to its senses because the ruling Afrikaaner minority put so much store in their sporting prowess. Rugby and cricket in particular mattered to them profoundly, and their teams’ generally elevated position in the international league tables was a matter of considerable pride. When they were eventually isolated by the sporting boycott – as part of the wider cultural and trade boycott – they were forced that much more persuasively to confront their own outlaw status in the world.
A sporting boycott of Israel would make relatively little difference to the self-esteem of Israelis in comparison to South Africa; an intellectual and cultural one might help make all the difference, especially now that the events of the Arab spring and the continuing repercussions of the attack on the… Gaza-bound flotilla peace convoy… have threatened both Israel’s ability to rely on… Egypt’s collusion in the containment of Gaza, and… Turkey’s willingness to engage… sympathetically with the Israeli regime at all. Feeling increasingly isolated, Israel is all the more vulnerable to further evidence that it, in turn, like the racist South African regime it once supported and collaborated with, is increasingly regarded as an outlaw state.
I was able to play a tiny part in South Africa’s cultural boycott, ensuring that – once it thundered through to me that I… could do so – my novels weren’t sold there (while subject to an earlier contract, under whose terms the books… were sold in South Africa, I… did… a… rough calculation of royalties earned each year… and sent that amount to the ANC).… Since the 2010 attack on… the… Turkish-led convoy to Gaza… in… international waters, I’ve… instructed my agent not to sell the… rights to my novels to Israeli publishers. I… don’t buy Israeli-sourced products or… food, and my partner and I try to support Palestinian-sourced products wherever… possible.
It doesn’t feel like much, and I’m not… completely happy doing even this; it… can sometimes feel like taking part in collective punishment (although BDS is, by definition, aimed directly at the state and not the people), and that’s one of the most damning charges that can be levelled at Israel itself: that it engages in… the collective punishment of the Palestinian people within Israel, and the… occupied territories, that is, the West Bank and – especially – the vast prison camp that is Gaza. The problem is that constructive engagement and reasoned argument demonstrably have not worked, and the relatively crude weapon of boycott is pretty much all that’s left. (To the question, “What about boycotting Saudi Arabia?” – all I… can claim is that cutting back on my consumption of its most lucrative export was a peripheral reason for giving up the powerful cars I used to drive, and… for stopping flying, some years ago. I certainly wouldn’t let a book of mine be published there either, although – unsurprisingly, given some of the things I’ve said about that barbaric excuse for a… country, not to mention the contents of the books themselves – the issue has… never arisen, and never will with anything remotely resembling the current regime in power.)
Novelist Iain Banks backs cultural boycott of Israel
