Israel, Palestine and Sri Lanka

When speaking out seems futile

Other than finding the picture above, I have deliberately done no research whatsoever for this piece. The reason why will become clear...

A few years ago, I attended the Leo Baeck College (where I work)'s rabbinic ordination ceremony, held at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London. This large and lavish synagogue building happens to be situated opposite Lord's Crickey Ground. Leo Baeck College's ordinations are held on a Sunday afternoon in the summer and, on this occasion, the ceremony took place at the same time as an international match.

One of the teams playing that day was Sri Lanka. They were joined by a few dozen protestors from the Tamil minority, demonstration against what they considered was genocide and war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan government, dominated by the majority Sinhalese.  It was a noisy protest, making much use of a megaphone. The police had confined them to a spot over the road from the entrance to Lord's - just outside the synagogue. So ordination that year was accompanied by chanted slogans. It was a little disruptive but it didn't take away too much from the ceremony.  One of the rabbis did politely ask them in advance to plan on being quiet for a few minutes during the most solemn part of the ceremony. They agreed but when the time came they must have forgotten. But no one minded too much.

In the last few weeks I have been thinking a lot about that protest. The demonstrators were clearly passionate and angry about what they considered to be mass murder. They were greeted largely with indifference; from us Jews, from the spectators and even (as far as I could tell) from any Sinhalese supporters of the team at the match.

Was that indifference deserved? Or was the Tamil cause one that any decent, fair-minded person should either condemn or support? Did those like me - with absolutely no connection to Sri Lanka whatsoever - need to care?

The truth is, I didn't know then and I don't know now.  I just don't know very much about Sri Lankan conflict. As I said, I deliberately didn't do any research for this article in order to demonstrate the limitations of my knowledge:

• I think I remember reading that the British empire divided and ruled Sinhalese and Tamils during the colonial period. I don't know whether they marginalised the Tamils and treated the Sinhalese as a ruling class, or vice versa (the British tried both majority and minority rule elsewhere in the empire).

• I think I remember that Tamils and Sinhalese are divided by religion. One of them is Hindu, the other Buddhist.

• There was a group called the Tamil Tigers who fought for a Tamil homeland. They were notable for their use of suicide bombings

• Sometime around the time of the demonstration, the Tamil insurgency was defeated. They were pushed into a small area which was bombed and attacked by soldiers. Many Tamil civilian lives were lost.

• India also has a Tamil minority in the south. I think the Indian state supports the Sinhalese side but I could be wrong on this.

That's it. It's probably more than most people know but it's pretty pathetic. It's certainly not enough to pick a 'side', or even to know whether there is any reason to do so. But nobody is asking me to are they? And even the protestors at the synagogue weren't asking me to; it was the Sri Lankan state and its cricket team they were focused on.  While I am sure they hoped they would raise awareness of their cause with the general public would, they came across as very much alone. The far left didn't seem interested enough to try and take over their cause for their own ends, nor did the far right. As for the liberal centre... nothing.

There might be a racist element to that apathy: An implicit dismissal of one set of brown people fighting another set of brown people: 'It's in their nature for the natives to get over-excited and squabble'.

Contrast this smug laziness with Israel-Palestine. One of the defining characteristics of the way the conflict echoes  outside the region is that its protagonists tend to frame it as something everyone should care about. That's particularly the case with Palestine solidarity activists. The demonstrations we have seen in recent weeks have frequently burst out of their allotted boundaries. Whereas, for all their noisiness, the Tamils at Lord's were alone and confined to one spot, pro-Palestinian demonstrations are multicultural and  spill out onto the underground, outside McDonald's and anywhere else. The message seems to be that this is a cause for everyone. And while support for Israel is a less exuberantly public affair, there are no shortage of activists who will tell you that Hamas threaten civilisations itself, not just Jews.

While solidarity activists on all sides do seek to 'educate' potential supporters and the wider public, this is not an issue where ignorance is treated an excuse. In fact, it isn't really a barrier to taking part in the general melee.  All you need is an emotional pull to one 'side' or another and you are away. There is a broad sense of entitlement to speak of Israelis/Jews and Palestinians, regardless of knowledge. Social media and the streets are full of triumphant cries of 'How can we be antisemites? Palestinians are semites!' or from the other side, 'There has never been a Palestinian state!'; the delight in such ejaculations is palpable, driven by the sense that this is the first time anyone has ever made such an unassailable point.

Why is ignorance no barrier to involving oneself in activism for Israel-Palestine, whereas it is an insurmountable obstacle to joining Tamils demonstrating outside Lords?  Part of the explanation is fairly prosaic. As many people have pointed out, Israel-Palestine is paradise for foreign press coverage - small, accessible and with great infrastructure. The sheer length of the conflict also plays a role; only the very old can remember a time when it wasn't at least background noise. And yes, antisemitism (or, conversely in the case of pro-Israel activists, philosemitism) does play a role too.

But at the moment I am less interested in explaining the intense focus on Israel-Palestine, than I am in trying to figure out its implications. One thing I am increasingly convinced of is that, at least in the case of this conflict, models of activism that are based on 'drawing attention' are deeply flawed. One thing that Palestinians and Israelis don't have shortage of is attention. Not only do they themselves bear witness, their advocates outside the country do so on their behalf. Even when Gaza's communications were cut off by the Israeli army, pro-Palestinian activists ensured that this enforced silence ended up being 'heard' all around the world.

And what good has is done?

I don't know enough to judge whether Tamils and Palestinians have faced similar predicaments but let's for the moment assume they do. Palestinian solidary activists are a highly diverse bunch; they throng the streets in their hundreds of thousands - and Palestinian lives in Palestine are only getting worse. Tamil solidarity activists are mostly just Tamils and throng the streets in their dozens, occasionally - and they appear to have lost their struggle in Sri Lanka.

At the end of October I tweeted the following:

It may be that speaking out and making noise were effective drivers of social change a few decades ago. In a cacophonous online-driven world, it's unclear what speaking out actually achieves, at least on questions of geopolitical conflict. So what then? I'm still trying to work that one out...