Changes

"They're back!" chimed The Somerville News earlier this week after Primary Day on September 19^th, during which members of the So-Called Somerville Divestment Project (SC-SDP) could be seen at a number of polling places (as were our forces).

Having taken advantage of lenient requirements to get onto the ballot of just one state district (rather than the whole city), the SC-SDP is now campaigning for two anti-Israel resolutions, one on (you guessed it) divestment, the other on the "Right of Return" (the subject of my next essay) that will appear on ballots this November in just one district, the Middlesex 27^th.

While the city's leaders and citizens have soundly rejected divestment again and again over the last two years, apparently the SC-SDP is under the impression that a district with two progressive leaders in state government (State Senator Pat Jehlen and State Rep Denise Provost) might be susceptible enough to the siren's lure of divestment to unwittingly drag the Middle East conflict to Somerville's streets in '06.

"They're Back," like "Deja-vu all over again" implies that we are in for another round of the Divestment Wars that broke out in the city in 2004 and 2005. But the fact is that two years is a long time in politics. When the SC-SDP almost managed to sneak divestment past the Aldermen in '04, the stakes were terribly high. Divestment was on the march at college campuses and already had a foothold in many mainline Protestant churches. A victory in Somerville would have triggered calls for divestment at other cities and towns across the country, a significant victory to those who have long hoped to build momentum to de-legitimize and economically punish the Jewish state.

Well the SC-SDP failed to get Somerville in their column and, after that failure, divestment was radioactive in municipalities. And at universities, a stronghold of anti-Israel forces, not a single school has responded to calls for divestment with action (other than the condemnation of divestment efforts on the part of alumni and administrators, and anti-divestment outpolling pro-divestment petition ten to one). This left only churches, and with the rejection of divestment by the Presbyterian Church earlier this summer, the mainline Protestant churches followed the Presbyterians out of the divestment business for good.

And so we are left with the question of what SC-SDP hopes to accomplish by getting their measures voted on in the Middlesex 27^th this November? Certainly a local electorate voting "Yes" on a call for divestment or other ballot question critical of Israel is no fun, but how much effect would this vote have in other constituencies? Would such a vote have more of an impact than a similar district vote critical of Israel taken in the city of Cambridge ten years ago? (Remember that one? I thought not.) Is there any chance that a democratic electorate will re-kindle the divestment/demonization projects we've seen born and die over the last two years when even hierarchical organizations like churches refused to return to a divestment agenda during last summer's war in Lebanon?

No doubt, SDP leaders see an unbroken link between their past and current efforts and, in their self-centered, self-righteous fury, are determined to win a battle, any battle, even if it means venue shopping for one of the least representative districts in the country in order to make their stand.

Yet, given events in the Middle East over the last six months, one would think that the Boston-based Israel hating community could find new issues to mine, new tactics to try, rather than returning to poor Somerville again and again to sell their increasingly diluted snake oil.

Here is where the realm of fantasy comes into play. For keep in mind that members of the SC-SDP do not perceive themselves as the hate-filled cranks or public nuisances that they in fact are. No, in their minds, this issue turns each member - regardless of how little they've done with their lives, regardless of whether or not they still live with their parents at age 45 - into members of a great, revolutionary struggle. For in the wannabe revolutionary's mind the city of Somerville is merely a prop to be used (and abused) in an effort to make the fantasist feel bigger, more important, more significant than reality demonstrates to them every day.

As ever, the SDP Web site offers a mirror into the soul of the organization and the people making up its ranks. The top features a photo from a press conference no one covered with "Project" members wrapped in kaffiahs, brandishing signs written in magic marker and standing beside rabbis from the Neturei Karta cult (the fringiest of fringe Jewish groups ultra-orthodox Jews who not only reject the Jewish state, but actively campaign with Israel's enemies for the country's violent destruction). It's almost as if the SDP, knowing the anti-Israel playbook calls for recruiting Jews into their ranks as defense against accusations of anti-Semitism said: "OK - Get us some Jews, preferably with black hats and side curls!" As vanguards go, you can't get more motley than this lot.

Further down the home page, there is the "Divestment Update" section which has been quietly cleansed of all references to the Presbyterian Church and other organizations that were once brandished as the model for us all. Click on their link labeled "Great News... United Church of Canada Passes Divestment Resolution!" and you get to a page describing how the church has, in fact, rejected divestment (as have all other churches by crushing margins). It would be easy to just brand the group behind this deception as garden variety liars, but keep in mind that truth and falsehood only have meaning when you dwell in the same world as those to whom you are talking.

It may be that the divestment crusaders have chosen correctly, that there is a district in the country where their witches brew of truncated news, fabricated accusations and moral blackmail will find a receptive audience. They may even be able to parlay a victory on one of their ballot questions into something bigger, but I have my doubts. In fact, knowing what I know of my former neighbors in Somerville, I don't expect even those who are critical of Israel want to have their agenda set by a group that cares so little for the city, beyond its usefulness in a grand, fantasy-driven, quasi-political strategy designed to make a few individuals feel more important than they ever will be. Somerville has demonstrated common sense on this issue so many times, I can't believe citizens of the Middlesex 27^th are going to behave less sensibly than their neighbors, especially on an issue that is getting more tired every time it is dragged through the neighborhoods around Davis Square.

Just some thoughts.