Avnery: “THE BOYCOTT was immensely important,” Tutu told me. “Much more than the armed struggle.” It should be remembered that, unlike Mandela, Tutu was an advocate of non-violent struggle. During the 28 years Mandela languished in prison, he could have walked free at any moment, if he had only agreed to sign a statement condemning “terrorism”. He refused."

The main difference between Tutu and Mandela is not the question of violence, but the fact that Tutu worked from the inside, in the mass democratic movement, while Mandela - and most of the ANC leadership with him - were either in prison or in exile. Tutu speaks from the perspective of an internal campaigner who cherishes the support given by solidarity movements, the encouragement they gave to activists, and the extent to which they made life less pleasant for white South Africans.

Having said that, Tutu also cautions us to look at what specific issues should be emphasized. In SA it was sport, which is a crucial part of white identity. It is not only that rugby is the civil religion of white Afrikaners, it is also the sense that they were the best in the world and were prevented from receiving their due recognition (true to a lesser extent for cricket). And indeed, once permitted to return to the normal cycle of competition, SA rugby and cricket have been at the very top of world ranking. Anyone who thinks that preventing Maccabi Haifa from playing at the UEFA champions league would have even remotely the same effect is totally ignorant of SA. This is not an argument against BDS, but for a careful selection of targets, aimed at achieving the optimal impact. No-one (including Tutu) has ever tried to evaluate the SPECIFIC impact of various boycott/sanction campaigns: we know that they worked overall, but what was the impact of specific focus areas, to what extent some campaigns may have undermined others, to what extent some campaigns may have had negative side-effects, and so on, is a topic that is still taboo. One weakness of the current BDS is that it is too intent on copying what is seen as a successful example, rather than drawing focused lessons on how to use it wisely and effectively (given that the conditions are different - Naomi Klein is a useful exception to that, and Neve Gordon follows in her footsteps).

Avnery: "The South African struggle was between a large majority and a small minority. Among a general population of almost 50 million, the Whites amounted to less than 10%. That means that more than 90% of the country’s inhabitants supported the boycott, in spite of the argument that it hurt them, too. In Israel, the situation is the very opposite. The Jews amount to more than 80% of Israel’s citizens, and constitute a majority of some 60% throughout the country between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. 99.9% of the Jews oppose a boycott on Israel. They will not feel the “the whole world is with us”, but rather that “the whole world is against us”.

The numbers are not accurate, but setting this aside, there are two issues here: first, the very boundaries and citizenship status and consequent numbers are contested here. It must be recognized. Second, it is obvious that Israeli Jews respond as Avnery says they do. The challenge is how to get them thinking about what they take for granted (that they are a majority in Israel legitimately, that the boycott reflects antisemitism, and so on): this cannot be done by leaving things as they are, but also not by blanket boycott. Rather, what we need is smart focused sanctions that would show the relationship between crime and punishment, between offensive behaviour, the related sanction, and the way to avoid it. This is major weakness of the BDS campaign as currently conceptualized: it does not show those who face the threat of boycott what they can do concretely - what is within their OWN powers, in other words - to avoid it. Instead it tells them what their government must do, and they have very little control over that. What alternative strategy exists? I have applied this logic to academic sanctions in http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/greenstein060209.html, and other attempts at specific strategies can be made in all other fields: they won't be copies of SA campaigns, just as the SA sanctions were not copies of any other campaigns. They require original thinking.

Avnery: "ONE OF the profound differences between the two conflicts concerns the Holocaust. Centuries of pogroms have imprinted on the consciousness of the Jews the conviction that the whole world is out to get them. This belief was reinforced a hundredfold by the Holocaust... It may well be that the Jewish conviction that “the whole world is against us” is irrational. But in the life of nations, as indeed in the life of individuals, it is irrational to ignore the irrational."

True, but again, the answer is to develop a focused campaign that would clarify the link between 'crime' and 'punishment': an initial focus on settlement a both Avnery and Gordon suggest is right, but should go beyond that. The goal would not be to convince the Liebermans (impossible task), but to create a critical mass of minority dissidents: even in SA the majority of whites were opposed to change or indifferent, and only a small but crucial minority got involved in the struggle

Avnery: "No one who entertains this hope can support the call for boycotting Israel. Those who call for a boycott act out of despair. And that is the root of the matter. Neve Gordon and his partners in this effort have despaired of the Israelis. They have reached the conclusion that there is no chance of changing Israeli public opinion. According to them, no salvation

Not quite true: disappointment yes, despair no. In any event, it is not an 'either or' situation. Pressure from the outside must not replace work from within: both are essential and need to be conceptualized in such a way that they reinforce one another rather than act at cross- purposes. There is no magic formula: it took decades in SA to reach a balance and it can be achieved in our case here as well.

Avnery: "In this country, Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs have nothing in common – not a common national feeling, not a common religion, not a common culture and not a common language. The vast majority of the Israelis want a Jewish (or Hebrew) state. The vast majority of the Palestinians want a Palestinian (or Islamic) state."

Again, not quite true: there are distinct national communities and identities, of course, but there are also some overlapping affiliations in Israel itself between Jewish and Arab citizens. So, this would be a good starting point: making Israel a state of all its citizens. That most Israelis and Palestinians want their own national states (unlike whites and blacks in SA) is obvious, but there are ways of moving in a more non-national direction. Not overcoming national feelings but incorporating them into a solution that would start going beyond nationalism. How to do that is not clear, but original thinking is needed, beyond the sterile and futile OSS-TSS debate.