I'd like to close out the week with a rant on one of my least favorite subjects. Boycotts.
The Arab League first instituted a boycott of Israel back in 1946 -- before the State of Israel even exisited. The Arabs renewed this boycott campaign in 1973 in conjunction with their oil embargo and continue to try to do so periodically. Has this boycott succeeded in bringing Israel to its knees? Hardly. Did it disgust some people and devalue the Arabs' political capital for quite a few others? Did it inspire anti-boycott legislation in the U.S. as well as various counter-boycotts and counter-counter-boycotts? Yes, it did.
Boycotts are nasty, petty and mostly ineffective in achieving their ultimate goals, though they can do damage. China continues to sponsor an international boycott of Taiwan. Many U.S. groups call for a boycott of China. "Grass roots" boycotts of Israel are still going on, although they don't get much attention. But this academic boycott of Israel, sponsored by Steven and Hilary Rose and promoted by the likes of Mona Baker, has been criticised every which way by every thinking person who has addressed the issue. Arab countries even today are sponsoring boycotts of the United States because they want to pressure us to drop our support for Israel or our "aggression" against Iraq.
We can't have it both ways. Either all of these boycotts are legitimate expressions of disapproval or persuasion or none of them are. My vote goes to "none."
Ergo, this boycott will not win my support either. A boycott of French, German and Belgian products is not the way to encourage those countries to revise their views or reconsider their foreign policies, especially considering that there is not even a remotely universal consensus on the merits of those policies. Without such a consensus, the net result of the effort is likely to be a wash at best, as weasel lovers organize counter-campaigns to support the European champions of their cause. Performances like this (link via Matt) may make for good street theater, but what do they really accomplish? The thousands of dollars worth of French wine that these restauranteurs poured down the drain had already been paid for. The French really couldn't care less if the Dom Perignon passed through a human digestive system on its way to the sewer. And, in the long run, it's either the American restaurant or its American clientele that will end up eating the bill for this little show.
Individuals who choose to avoid the products and tourist attractions of weasel world are free to make that choice and are to be commended for putting their convictions into practice. But organizing a boycott of these countries is pointless and possibly counterproductive. Let's use our energy instead to support our own government, which is hopefully about to demonstrate beyond question the wisdom of its way and the folly of theirs.
Shabbat shalom.
