Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Jon Haber, one of the core activists working against anti-Israel divestment efforts in Somerville, Massachusetts last year, has a must-read retrospective on the subject for anyone interested in the latest issue of the Engage Journal:
Divestment Meets its Waterloo in Somerville, Massachusetts
For readers of Engage, the exploitation of progressive rhetoric to subvert an institution (in this case, a US city) will sound depressingly familiar. Fortunately, the success of fair-minded citizens to turn back anti-Israel divestment, boycott and vilification mirrors Engage's own success in halting the misuse of positive principles like human rights and academic freedom for misguided, even wicked, political ends...
The story has a happy ending, though, like a Chuckie or Freddie movie, there is always room for a sequel, unfortunately.
One of the themes of this happy story is that of "overreaching," and speaking of overreaching, this is a good opportunity to point out the happy story (unhappy for him) of New England based anti-Israel, pro-Divestment, radical-Leftist activist, Mazin Qumsiyeh. (Previous links mentioning Qumsiyeh's antics on this blog: Palestine Day in Connecticut - Part 1, Clueless in Danbury and A Letter to Georgetown). Those in the know will be aware that Qumsiyeh had one of his screeds (he seems to crank them out full time) published in the official literature at the Davos forum. While the anti-Semitism on display outside the gates at Davos was one of the first things I noted on this blog three years ago (scroll to Feb. 3), this is, as far as I'm aware, its most overt appearance inside officialdom. See this blog post at Le Monte de Sisyphe for a run-down of what happened.
That's bad you say? Well, yes, but here's the thing. Much as recent boycott blather by certain Leftist Norwegian politicians sent Norwegian officialdom scampering for microphones to issue obsequious apologies, Qumsiyeh's joy at publication must have been short-lived, asthe appearance of his printed drivel sent the Chairman of the World Economic Forum immediately lunging for a keyboard to issue his unequivocal "it will never happen again" apology. It seems that outside the echo-chamber of obscure web-sites and activist meetings, when Qumsiyeh finished following Cindy Sheehan around on the "peace bus" and stepped out into the light of day...the instant he did that...he became an international embarrassment. That's worth keeping in mind as a little morale boost for those of us who spend a lot of time shining lights into dark corners and imagining that all the world is dark corners.
