Should Jews support a boycott of gay-hating Vladimir Putin-led Russia?

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One of the oft-repeated criticisms of the movement to boycott Israel is that it portrays the Middle East’s only healthy democracy as the ultimate rogue state, ignoring at the same time those authoritarian regimes that violate the most basic human rights on a daily basis. Frankly, that’s why I’m pleased that the boycott I’m writing about here has nothing to do with Israel, the Palestinians, or the Middle East in general.

This time, the target is Russia. Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has reverted to the habits of the old Soviet Union, cracking down on internal dissent, backing the world’s worst regimes, and adopting a confrontational stance toward the United States.

Putin has also declared war on homosexuality.Visitors to Russia who are suspected of being gay, or of supporting the cause of LGBT equality, can be detained by the police for up to two weeks. Even the mere act of educating children about homosexuality could result in a heavy fine or prison sentence for engaging in what the Russian state calls “homosexual propaganda.”

These ugly measures have rightly sparked outrage in the free world. and some believe the time is now right for a boycott of Russia.

How should Jews assess these boycott calls? The question important, because we have been on the receiving end of many boycott campaigns over the last century. The Nazis famously coined the term “Kauft Nicht bei Juden” (“Don’t Buy From Jews”) in their campaign to ruin Germany’s Jews on the eve of the Holocaust; in 1945, the Arab League initiated a boycott of the Jewish community in the British Mandate of Palestine, which later mushroomed into a boycott of the State of Israel; and in our own time, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has attempted to demonize Israel as the reincarnation of apartheid-era South Africa.

Because of these experiences, many Jews understandably feel that we should have no truck with boycott campaigns anywhere.

But I don’t share that view. Boycotts were not invented to target Jews (the word originates from nineteenth century Ireland, where Charles Boycott, a British landowner, was ostracized by the surrounding community for unfairly treating his tenants), nor have they been restricted to Jews (think of the boycott of racially segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama, which brought the civil rights movement unprecedented attention).

Instead, we should judge boycotts through two considerations: Is the boycott justified? Can it be effective?

When it comes to Israel, most boycott advocates believe that the Jewish State has no right to exist; insofar as their actions are directed toward the elimination of Israel as a sovereign state, we can safely deem their motives to be horrendously unjust, not to mention anti-Semitic. In the Russian case, however, no one is challenging Russia’s right to exist. Indeed, doing so would be patently absurd. Instead, the boycott is directed at changing an unjust, discriminatory policy. Changing policy was also the goal of the Montgomery bus boycott, and of the American boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, in protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.

Boycotts are fast developing a reputation for achieving only a sense of worth among those engaged in the boycotting, with little practical impact on the target. Again, look at Israel: while it might be emotionally satisfying for, say, anti-Zionist Jews to declare “Not in My Name,” the material consequences for Israel of their boycott activities are, thankfully, pathetically invisible.

That explains why some Russian LGBT rights activists are — wisely, in my view— playing down the significance of the current boycott. “To be honest, I don’t see the point in boycotting the Russian vodka,” rights advocate Nikolai Alekseev told Gay Star News. “It will not impact anyone except the companies involved a little bit. The effect will die out very fast.” In similar vein, Hudson Taylor, director of a non-profit organization promoting tolerance in sport, told ESPN, “[T]he intent of an Olympic boycott is understood, but the outcome doesn’t create the necessary change. … We are advocating that people speak out, not sit out.”

Ben Cohen is the Shillman Analyst for JNS.org.