>> Chip, anti-Semitism isn't non-existent in the US left, but calling
>> for divestment from Israel without calling for divestment from the
>> US, China, Russia, Sudan, etc. isn't ipso facto anti-Semitic, as
>> Rabbi Lerner alleges in this case.
>
> It is a tough call. Clearly, Chinese depradations in Tibet demand
> a call for divestment, but the US left is peculiarly silent.
>
> Why? Because of China's leftist past? Because Buddhism lies
> outside the Abrahamic continuum?
>
> I think Lerner's claim is a simplification, but the left's
> selectivity here is in urgent need of unpacking.
Calls to divest from China aren't non-existent among leftists, if you think of the left broadly. To take one example, "NGOs Force BP Amoco Shareholder Vote on Divestment from Chinese Oil Company," <http:// www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com/node/196>. That's further than Palestinian solidarity activists have gotten.
If you think of the left narrowly, as in the Marxist left, it is true that there has existed little sympathy for the movement for Tibetan autonomy or independence. That may be because China once was arguably socialist, but the more likely reason today -- when China is clearly capitalist and in some ways more capitalistic than many longer-standing capitalist countries -- is that the revolt of Tibetans against China began with the support of the CIA: <http:// www.kansaspress.ku.edu/concia.html>.
Beyond that, the Marxist left generally thinks of the struggle against the Israeli occupation as one of the most important struggles against US imperialism: if and when political pressures force Tel Aviv to stop its occupation (and, better yet, when Jews, Palestinians, and others come to live in freedom and equality in historic Palestine), it means that Washington loses one of its most important allies in power -- the Israeli right -- in its Middle East geopolitics; and the end of the Israeli occupation may even have a salutary effect on politics in many Arab countries, as their power elite will no longer be able to hide behind occasional shows of their "state anti-Zionism" and "state anti-imperialism."
That said, grassroots organizing often comes out of more than a matter of moral principle or political analysis -- it develops from person-to-person, institution-to-institution, and other contacts. So far, the most weighty call for divestment from the Israel occupation has come not from liberal NGOs or the Green Party or the Marxist left but from the Presbyterian Church USA. That's probably in large part because Palestinian Christians worked hard with leftists in the PCUSA for a long time and lobbied for change.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>