The Danny Glover Standard

Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prizewinning author who’s made her moral case against the Cuban embargo scathingly clear. In a letter to thenPresident Bill Clinton, she said, “Even if you despise Fidel and even if the Cubans should not have shot down the planes violating their air space . . . the embargo is wrong because it punishes people . . . for being who they are.”

As it happens, we have sympathy for the argument that opening up regimes to the world may well do more to fight oppression than boycotts and embargoes. But when it comes to Alice Walker, the same woman who has argued passionately against the embargo on Cuba supports similar attempts to isolate the Jewish state.

Likewise Stephen Hawking. While Hawking supports boycotts against Israel, years ago he signed a letter saying the Cuban em bargo deprives “innocent people of the basic needs for a decent life, all in the name of freedom and democracy.” Guess it’s OK so long as any pain is felt by Israelis.

Ditto for Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu who this month denounced the use of economic sanctions against Cuba as “criminal.” But the same woman supports efforts to divest from companies that have any dealings with the Israeli military.

Finally, there’s Danny Glover, who has also supported boycotts against Israel. Glover isn’t the deepest thinker, but he at least makes clear his double standard: He opposes the Cuban embargo — because he admires Havana’s Communist regime.

There is a principled case against embargoes and boycotts. But it stops being principled when it is applied as selectively as so many of the antiIsrael crowd are doing.