Lorde’s Tel Aviv boycott a rush to judgment

Knowing Ella Yelich O'Connor from pre-Lorde days, I feel for a young artist with the best intentions caught up in a mob ambush and put under unimaginable pressure to move in step with them. Put in the same position, I don’t think I would have been able to make a different decision to the one Ella made regarding the cancelling of her Tel Aviv concert.

She is a young person wanting to do the right thing faced with an argument framed in a way that would draw her towards siding with the radical Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

If all your knowledge of Israel comes from our media and you regularly meet unfairly harsh and biased views on Israel in many circles, it’s very difficult to filter out the garbage and understand the history and complexity of a conflict between two completely unfamiliar cultures, happening half a world away.

I was lucky enough to grow up in Israel; to grow up hearing Hebrew and Arabic in the streets, to see Israeli Jews in Israeli Arab restaurants daily and vice versa, and to take part in that coexistence myself. I have increasingly come to realise, by spending time in my later years growing up in Aotearoa, that this daily occurrence in Israel is not common knowledge in New Zealand.

If I hadn’t grown up in Israel, and hadn’t been so involved with and read about the conflict, I wonder if my view would’ve been very different to the one held by many young Kiwis. My criticism of Ella is limited to how quick she was to make her decision — she did not give herself time to exert critical thought, talk to people from both sides of this debate, or try to understand what the movement she allied herself with, BDS, really stands for.

There is a sad irony in Ella’s decision, going off her self-professed principles. Israel is a beacon of the values she claims to hold dearest: liberal, progressive values such as LGBTQI+ rights, equality for women, freedom of religion, not to mention democracy and freedom of expression, which you won’t find anywhere else in that part of the world.

Ella found herself bullied by a mob that follows a movement whose aim is to isolate and crush that very same beacon; a movement which sides with the most extreme Palestinian actors in this conflict, and whose proponents’ stated aims are

Israel is a beacon of the values she [Lorde] claims to hold dearest.

the dismantling of the Jewish state. They do not support peace, they do not even support a two-state solution, let alone denounce violence and terror.

Another irony in this flavour of activism against Israel is that many on the far left side with radical Palestinian groups based almost entirely on their shared opposition to Israel, beyond which they would find no common views or values. Unfortunately, this fact is completely lost on many, and BDS activists continue to use language to mislead, and tug at the heartstrings of people who consider themselves liberal and progressive, essentially leading them right on to the BDS platform.

Israel is not immune to criticism and by no means should any nation state ever be immune to our criticism, but BDS is not about criticism. When so many leaders and proponents of a movement openly express their wish for the destruction of a nation state, one ought to be extremely careful before accepting their slogans as legitimate criticisms, no matter how pretty the language they are wrapped up in is.

I choose to believe a day will come when Israelis, Jews, Muslims, Christians, atheists and everyone else making up the diverse Israeli society today will get to sing and dance along with Lorde in a tour of a country that, despite its flaws, is a ray of light of liberal and progressive values in an otherwise dark and oppressive region of the world.

I would urge Ella to travel to Israel one day, maybe not even as part of a tour, meet a diverse range of people, and experience Israeli society and culture first-hand. I can promise her the image of Israel she will take away from the trip will be nothing like what she has heard from the BDS supporters over the past few days.

I want say to her, good luck with your future and I wish you many days when your position on the world stage and the actions you take will promote discussions of coexistence and inclusion, rather than boycotts and hate.