The Culture of Boycott
The Dutch cultural sector likes to present itself as a guardian of artistic freedom and free expression. It is therefore remarkable that a movement has emerged from within that same sector calling for the severing of cultural ties with Israeli institutions and artists.
More than three hundred Dutch and Belgian cultural organizations have joined a cultural boycott of Israel. They argue that they no longer wish to stand on the sidelines of what they regard as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Their appeal is formally directed at Israeli institutions rather than individual artists. Nevertheless, the boycott raises a fundamental question: what happens to a cultural sector when it embraces the logic of exclusion?
Culture has traditionally been a domain in which political antagonisms are temporarily suspended. Art has always built bridges where diplomacy failed. It is therefore striking that a sector whose legitimacy rests upon encounter and exchange now opts for separation and exclusion.
The defenders of the boycott frequently invoke South Africa. In doing so, they imply that the situation in Israel is comparable to the South African apartheid regime. That assumption is problematic because it ignores fundamental differences between the two societies. Whereas the cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa targeted a state that legally differentiated between population groups, the current boycott concerns a democratic society in which political opposition exists and in which many artists are among the sharpest critics of their own government. The paradox is evident: by excluding Israeli cultural institutions, one often targets precisely those who are committed to dialogue, peace and self-criticism.
The boycott therefore touches upon a deeper problem. Art is no longer judged on its content but on the political identity attributed to its origin. Once that principle is accepted, it becomes impossible to draw a consistent boundary. Why boycott Israel and not China, Iran, Turkey, Russia, Saudi Arabia or Qatar? Why does one war become a cultural red line while another does not? Selective outrage is not the same as moral courage.
The tension becomes even greater when the boycott is supported by institutions largely funded through public money.
The question is ultimately not whether one may criticize Israel. Of course one may. Indeed, a free society requires that possibility. The question is whether cultural institutions still understand their role when they replace dialogue with exclusion.
Art loses its meaning once it becomes merely an extension of political struggle. It ceases to be a space of encounter and becomes an instrument of division. A cultural sector that judges artists by their passport rather than their work risks destroying precisely what it claims to defend: the freedom of culture itself.
From culture to activism
Yet it would be too simple to regard the current cultural boycott solely as a conflict about Israel. The boycott is a symptom of a broader development within the Western cultural sector. The question that presents itself is not only why Israeli institutions are being excluded, but above all why a sector that derives its legitimacy from openness, curiosity and artistic freedom is increasingly choosing political orthodoxy and moral exclusion.
Roger Scruton warned decades ago of the politicization of culture. For him, culture was a common home in which people could meet one another without first having to prove their political convictions.
That is precisely why the current development is so striking. Whereas cultural institutions once presented themselves as places of encounter, they increasingly function as political actors. Art is in danger of becoming less a means of exploring reality than an instrument for affirming pre-established moral convictions.
Traditionally, the artist was free to ask questions and explore ambiguity. Increasingly, however, the correct political position appears to have been determined before the conversation has even begun.
The cultural boycott of Israel provides a telling example. The boycott declaration reads not as an invitation to dialogue but as a moral judgement. The institutions involved present their position as a self-evident truth about which no reasonable disagreement is thought possible. In doing so, they shift almost imperceptibly from their role as cultural institutions to that of political arbiters.
This raises an uncomfortable question. When exactly did museums, theaters, cultural organizations and arts funds begin to claim the authority to adjudicate geopolitical conflicts? When did artists become the new judges of international law?
The irony is difficult to ignore. The very sector that presents itself as a defender of freedom and diversity appears increasingly unwilling to tolerate dissenting perspectives when they conflict with the dominant moral consensus within its own ranks.
In this respect, the cultural boycott of Israel is not an isolated phenomenon. It forms part of a broader trend in which institutions increasingly act from a position of moral certainty. What matters is no longer primarily whether a viewpoint is true, but whether it is regarded as morally desirable. Attention shifts from arguments to loyalties, and from dialogue to conformity.
The cultural institution thus risks transforming itself from a forum into a movement. And therein lies the real danger of the boycott: not that it takes a political position, but that it replaces openness with exclusion. Once that happens, culture loses its unique role and becomes little more than an extension of political struggle.
The culture of moral certainty
Perhaps even more troubling than the boycott itself is the language used to justify it. Almost without exception, the institutions involved present their position as a moral self-evidence. Terms such as genocide, colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing are not employed as hypotheses to be examined, but as established truths that demand immediate action.
This is remarkable. Not because such accusations could not possibly be true, but because they belong to the most serious legal and historical classifications recognized in international law.
Genocide is not a political slogan but a legal concept derived from the United Nations Genocide Convention, requiring not only large-scale violence but also demonstrable intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
Precisely because of that gravity, such allegations are examined by international courts and investigative commissions. The process is necessarily careful, slow and often contested.
All the more striking, therefore, is the fact that a significant part of the cultural sector behaves as though this process has already been completed. As though judgement has already been passed. As though all reasonable doubt has already been removed.
Europe’s great intellectual tradition was built upon the recognition that human beings are fallible. Karl Popper emphasized that knowledge does not arise from certainty but from the continual willingness to expose convictions to criticism. Science itself derives its strength not from certainty but from its readiness to revise previous conclusions when new evidence emerges.
Yet the contemporary cultural sector appears increasingly reluctant to embrace this form of intellectual humility. Instead, a climate has emerged in which moral conviction is ever more frequently confused with factual certainty.
In many boycott declarations, the events of 7 October recede into the background with remarkable speed. The war is presented as a story with a single perpetrator and a single victim. Yet wars rarely lend themselves to such simple narratives.
Those who describe the devastation in Gaza without mentioning 7 October tell only part of the story. But those who invoke 7 October in order to render all criticism of Israel impossible do precisely the same. The task of culture should be to make this tension visible, not to conceal it behind slogans and political certainties.
As Hannah Arendt observed, ideological systems reduce complex realities to a single moral framework. The result is not merely a loss of nuance, but also a diminished capacity to take seriously facts that do not fit within that framework.
Once this occurs, the plurality of human experience disappears from view. Reality is reduced to a struggle between good and evil, oppressor and oppressed, victim and perpetrator.
It is precisely for this reason that one might expect greater restraint from cultural institutions. Museums, theaters and arts organizations are not international courts of law. Their task is not to issue legal judgements, but to promote reflection, imagination and understanding. When they present themselves as moral authorities that have definitively comprehended complex conflicts, they move from the realm of culture into that of ideology. In doing so, a sector that prides itself on critical inquiry risks losing its most important characteristic: the capacity to accommodate doubt.
The question is not whether cultural institutions are entitled to make moral judgements. The question is whether they exercise sufficient humility when speaking in terms normally reserved for judges, historians and international tribunals.
For where doubt disappears, freedom of thought ultimately disappears with it.
Selective morality
Moral convictions derive their authority not only from sincerity, but also from consistency. Anyone who appeals to universal values must be prepared to apply those values universally. Once comparable situations are treated in fundamentally different ways, the impression inevitably arises that it is not the principle itself that matters, but the identity of the person or state to which it is applied.
The institutions involved present their position as a commitment to human rights and justice. These are undoubtedly noble ideals. Yet for that very reason, the selectivity of their outrage raises important questions.
Why has the war in Gaza led to a cultural boycott, while comparable measures have not been adopted in relation to China, Iran, Qatar or Saudi Arabia, states that have likewise been accused of serious human rights abuses?
These questions are not intended to justify the actions of Israel. Rather, they are intended to illuminate something else: the striking asymmetry with which the cultural sector distributes its moral indignation.
The question is not why Israel is criticized, but why Israel so often becomes the object of cultural exclusion.
This asymmetry becomes even more striking when it concerns antisemitism itself.
The case of Ye, who openly praised Hitler and promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories, raises an uncomfortable question: why does the cultural sector sometimes appear more willing to boycott Israeli institutions than to confront explicit antisemitism? This is not to suggest that antisemitism is ignored, but it does raise the concern that the boundary between legitimate criticism of Israel and the stigmatization of anything associated with Israel can at times become remarkably blurred.
The question becomes even more pertinent when one considers the way Hamas is treated in many cultural statements.
The attack of 7 October 2023 constituted the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. Yet this event disappears with remarkable speed into the background of many cultural declarations, while attention shifts almost entirely to the Israeli response. The issue is not that the suffering of one side should weigh more heavily than that of the other. The problem arises when the crimes of one party are placed at the centre of the narrative while those of the other are pushed to the margins. When that happens, the impression inevitably arises that analysis is being guided not by universal values, but by political preferences.
This is particularly problematic because cultural institutions claim a special moral authority. They present themselves not merely as participants in public debate, but as guardians of justice, inclusion and human dignity.
Those who claim such a position must be prepared to apply the same standard to everyone.
Roger Scruton once observed that the greatest threat to a free culture does not come from overt censorship, but from the temptation to value moral conviction more highly than the pursuit of truth. Once that happens, culture becomes a mirror in which people see only their own beliefs reflected back at them.
Perhaps that is the most troubling aspect of the current boycott movement. Not that it takes a political position, but that it appears increasingly unwilling to subject itself to the same critical scrutiny that it applies to others.
A culture that no longer examines itself critically loses its credibility.
And without credibility, what remains is merely activism.
The state-funded boycott
The cultural boycott raises questions not only about the role of art and culture, but also about the role of government. A significant portion of the Dutch cultural sector is financed through public funds. It is therefore entirely legitimate to ask what responsibility the state bears when publicly subsidised institutions participate in political boycotts.
May an institution funded by all taxpayers exclude artists, institutions or partners on the basis of their national affiliation? And if so, where should the boundary be drawn?
This question becomes even more relevant when the institutions involved explicitly justify their boycott through moral and political arguments. The cultural boycott of Israel is not an artistic choice. No one argues that Israeli artists produce inferior art. No one claims that their work lacks artistic relevance. The exclusion takes place for political reasons.
This creates a remarkable situation. The state finances institutions that subsequently impose a political sanction on cultural partners from a friendly democratic state.
Cultural institutions are autonomous and must remain free from political direction. But autonomy does not absolve either the institutions themselves or the government of principled responsibility.
The state likewise sets limits on discrimination, exclusion and unequal treatment. It does not subsidize institutions for the explicit purpose of excluding particular nationalities, religions or ethnic groups from participation in cultural life.
It is precisely for this reason that the present situation is so uncomfortable.
This reluctance becomes visible in the response of the Minister of Education, Culture and Science to parliamentary questions concerning the cultural boycott. Rather than addressing the principled tension between public funding, cultural exclusion and the fight against antisemitism, the minister largely shelters behind the principle of institutional autonomy. Remarkably, this leaves the central question unanswered: can the government, on the one hand, combat antisemitism while, on the other, raising no principled objections when publicly funded institutions participate in a movement that organises cultural exclusion on the basis of national affiliation?
Precisely because the government rightly presents itself as a defender against antisemitism, an uncomfortable tension emerges.
How credible is a government that warns against the normalization of antisemitism while simultaneously subsidizing institutions that participate in a movement specifically aimed at severing cultural relations with the world’s only Jewish state?
This is not to suggest that every critic of Israel is an antisemite. Such a conclusion would be both inaccurate and intellectually dishonest. Criticism of governments belongs to the very essence of a free society.
But it does mean that the government cannot simply hide behind the assertion that cultural institutions are autonomous.
Autonomy does not relieve the state of its obligation to reflect upon the consequences of its own funding structures.
Ultimately, a more fundamental question is at stake: why does the government subsidize culture?
Is the purpose to foster an open cultural space in which different voices can encounter one another? Or is it to support political movements that determine which artists, institutions and forms of cooperation remain morally acceptable?
This question goes to the heart of the democratic rule of law.
A free society requires critical art, but it also requires cultural institutions that remain conscious of their role as custodians of a public sphere.
Once those institutions begin to see themselves as political gatekeepers, not only does the nature of the cultural sector change, but the meaning of public funding changes as well.
The state then ceases to subsidize encounter and begins to subsidize exclusion.
And that is a development about which any democratic society ought to be deeply concerned.
The shadow of Europe
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the cultural boycott is not the boycott itself, but the lack of historical self-reflection with which it has been embraced.
Europe has a long history of excluding Jews from public life. For centuries, Jews were barred from guilds, universities, associations and professions, almost always on grounds that were presented as necessary, justified or morally defensible.
It would be careless to equate the current boycott with that history. The context, motives and circumstances are different. History rarely repeats itself in a literal sense.
Yet history does teach that societies should remain alert to the ways in which collective exclusion becomes normalized.
The certainty with which parts of the cultural world embrace a single interpretation of this conflict may say more about the cultural sector than about Israel itself.
Raymond Aron warned against the temptation of moral simplicity: the tendency to reduce complex realities to neat narratives populated by heroes and villains.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is marked by a history of wars, terrorism, failed peace processes and mutual trauma. No serious historian would claim that this history can be reduced to a single moral formula.
It is therefore striking that part of the cultural world embraces one interpretation of the conflict with such confidence.
Increasingly, one gains the impression that certain viewpoints are no longer considered wrong because they are mistaken, but because they are no longer deemed permissible to express.
The current cultural boycott therefore raises a more fundamental question.
Are cultural institutions still places of encounter, or have they become institutions that determine in advance which perspectives are acceptable? This question touches upon the future of democratic culture itself.
A free society requires art that challenges, nuances and questions established convictions. Europe’s greatest cultural achievements did not emerge from exclusion, but from encounter, debate and curiosity.
The most fundamental criticism of the cultural boycott of Israel is not that it takes a political position, but that it replaces dialogue with exclusion.
And once exclusion is presented as a cultural virtue, culture risks losing precisely what makes it valuable: its capacity to build bridges where politics builds walls.
Art does not arise from unanimity.
It arises from tension.
From conversation between people who think differently, believe differently and see the world differently.
A culture that offers space only to voices that have already reached the same conclusion ultimately ceases to be a culture.
It becomes an echo.
And echoes teach us nothing new.
