One of the most annoying aspects of left on left criticism is the tendency of some to insist that everybody on the left should be equally critical of all international injustices no matter how those injustices might actually differ. Here's Thomas Friedman:
So to single out Israeli universities alone for a punitive boycott is rank anti-Semitism. Let’s see, Syria is being investigated by the United Nations for murdering Lebanon’s former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Syrian agents are suspected of killing the finest freedom-loving Lebanese journalists, Gibran Tueni and Samir Kassir. But none of that moves the far left to call for a boycott of Syrian universities. Why? Sudan is engaged in genocide in Darfur. Why no boycott of Sudan? Why?
Point proven! Well, actually, not so much. After all, one thing that's entirely missing from Friedman's analysis is the fact that there are, you know, already government sanctions against the countries he thinks are getting a pass. At the same time there are other large groups of (mainly liberal) people actively agitating for divestment from both countries like Sudan, and also of other autocratic, rights-violating countries in the Middle East.
But perhaps the most important omission is that, though neither British nor American government officials agitate outwardly for military action against Israel, many of them do agitate for military strikes against countries like Syria and Sudan, and, though it may be convenient to ignore such exhortations, they do in fact make the price of organizing against those countries much, much higher.
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