For the second year in a row, the “Walk for Israel” event in suburban Detroit rebuffed sponsorships from Jewish/Israel groups that support boycotting Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Andre Douville, chairman of the coalition that organized the May 15 walk, said Partners for Progressive Israel (which describes itself as a “progressive Zionist organization”) and Americans for Peace Now (which calls for the evacuation of settlements and a shared Israeli-Palestinian capital in Jerusalem) both fit the coalition’s definition of supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.
“Simply put, our advocacy and policy statement says that any organization that supports any form of BDS would not be accepted as a co-sponsor,” Douville said last week, two days before the event to celebrate Israel’s independence. “They want to argue that they only support it for business in the occupied territories.”
The left-wing groups — citing different criteria — said that while they support a boycott of settlement goods, they vigorously reject boycotts of Israel.
“We oppose boycott, divestment and sanctions efforts directed at Israel,” said Ori Nir, APN’s spokesman. “We believe such campaigns are misguided and counterproductive. We therefore encourage fellow Americans to buy goods made in Israel, while discouraging them from buying goods made in what is not Israel, in West Bank settlements.”
Should actions against BDS proponents be extended to groups that exclusively target settlements? More and more, this question is playing out in Jewish communities across the United States.
Some Jewish groups have lobbied to extend anti-BDS legislation — now under consideration in Congress and in state houses — to protect settlements. Others say that boycotting Jewish enterprises beyond Israel’s 1967 borders is not the same as blanket support for an economic and cultural boycott of Israel called for by pro-BDS forces.
The wrinkle in Detroit’s case is that the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Detroit, and the local federation that largely funds it, have not organized Israel independence celebrations since the late 1990s, with the exception of a 60th birthday program in 2008.
That created an opening for the establishment of a coalition of organizations spearheaded by Temple Shir Shalom, where Douville is executive director, dubbed “Walk for Israel.” The walk, which attracts about 1,000 participants, starts at the West Bloomfield synagogue, about 25 miles from downtown Detroit.
Ken Knappow, long involved in the Detroit-area Jewish community and a member of left-wing pro-Israel groups, said he noticed two years ago that the walk’s sponsors include right-wing groups such as the Zionist Organization of America, the Republican Jewish Coalition and Christian Zionist organizations, along with staunchly pro-Israel groups such as AIPAC and StandWithUs.
Saying the coalition was unrepresentative of the Jewish and pro-Israel communities in the area, Knappow asked Partners for a Progressive Israel and Americans for Peace Now if he could sign on as a co-sponsor of the walk on their behalf.
He wanted to present the groups’ materials in the gathering area before the walk.
The national groups gave Knappow the go-ahead, but the 18-person Walk for Israel board rejected the applications, accusing the organizations of supporting BDS.
Knappow provided statements to the board from the groups rejecting BDS, but the board was adamant that the settlements exclusion was out of bounds.
“Embedded in the mission of [Partners for a Progressive Israel] is inherent support for what we call targeted divestment and sanctions,” Douville said. “We don’t even call it occupied territory. It’s Judea and Samaria,” he said, using the biblical names for the West Bank preferred by those who do not consider the areas occupied under international law.
“The right wing is not great on nuance,” Knappow countered in an interview.
Alan Gale, associate director of the JCRC of Greater Detroit, would not comment on why umbrella groups such as the JCRC, the federation and the JCC stopped organizing the Walk for Israel. Knappow said it was too bad the walk was no longer in the hands of the JCRC or another more representative umbrella body.
“When the JCRC was involved, there were no problems,” he said.