With all the insane and frankly terrifying news coming out of the U.K. today—and can I just say that I still don’t understand why on God’s green Earth you would put something as important as Brexit up for a public vote—there is at least some solace because one great British institution is still making a modicum of sense.
On Wednesday, Dame Helen Mirren denounced BDS during a visit to Jerusalem, where she hosted the Genesis Prize ceremonies, during which violinist Itzhak Perlman received a $1 million lifetime achievement award (the so-called “Jewish Nobel”). (Perlman slammed Donald Trump for apparently making fun of a disabled reporter last fall, calling the would-be president’s gesture “terrible.”)
“I think that art is an incredibly important way of communication,” she said during Thursday’s show. “The artists of the country are the people you need to communicate with and make a relationship with and learn from and build upon. So I absolutely don’t believe in the boycott, and here I am.”
It’s no secret to readers familiar with my work that I am no fan (to put it mildly) of the Netanyahu government, that I find the settlement policy to be abhorrent in both a moral and a practical sense, and that I am deeply alarmed by the rising tide of racial intolerance in Israel. But I am with Helen on this one (as, I imagine, I am with most things.)
Art is the universal language, and artists are the ambassadors of the world, the very persons most often imbued with a deep sense of empathy, openness, and justice. By making them targets—BDS thrives thanks to artists like Roger Waters who work hard to enforce cultural boycotts of Israel, often by trying to convince other artists to join his crusade—the movement only succeeds in marginalizing and silencing voices that are actually often the most sympathetic to, and able to effectively argue for, BDS’ stated aim (if, that is, the national determination of the Palestinian people is indeed their chief cause.)
Targeting artists also continues to feed the toxic stew of right-wing extremism and paranoia, which neatly gives credence to the idea that the world hates us, hates Israel. Therefore anything we do, no matter how antithetical to Jewish values or human rights, is justifiable. Much as the phrase “radical Islam,” as President Obama recently and rightly pointed out, bolsters the fraudulent claims of extremist groups that the West has declared war on Muslims, while offering no constructive solutions or practicable formulas for peace.
And when people become locked in their tribal resentments, feeling it’s “us versus/or them,” and work to expel and silencing all who disagree, then what happens? Nothing good, I’ll put it that way. Helen Mirren, a truly great artist, understands this. I just wish more people did.
“I am a believer in Israel,” Mirren said. “I think this is an extraordinary country filled with very, very extraordinary people. It’s just a lucky, for me, accident in my life that I have had this privilege.”
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Rachel Shukert is the author of the memoirs Have You No Shame? and Everything Is Going To Be Great,and the novel Starstruck. She is the creator of the Netflix show The Baby-Sitters Club, and a writer on such series as GLOW and Supergirl. Her Twitter feed is @rachelshukert.
