Israel Boycott Movement Comes to U.S.
The movement to boycott Israeli academic institutions has largely been centered in Britain (where in 2007 the University and College Union dropped the call). In response to the conflict in Gaza, calls for academic boycotts have crossed the Atlantic, surfacing first in Ontario, and now in the United States
The U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, launched last week, enumerates five goals. These include: “Refraining from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions that do not vocally oppose Israeli state policies against Palestine,” “promoting divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions,” and “supporting Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.”
The group’s press release continues, “We believe that non-violent external pressure on Israel, in the form of an academic, cultural and economic boycott of Israel, can help bring an end to the ongoing massacres of civilians and an end [to] the occupation of Gaza and Palestine” — with “Palestine” referring to the West Bank land occupied by Israel since the 1967 war, explained David Lloyd, a professor of English at the University of Southern California who’s involved with the campaign. “We are actually literally following the call of the Palestinian civil society groups that call for a boycott, and what they ask for is a return to 1967 borders.”
As of Saturday afternoon, two days after the campaign’s press release went out, Lloyd reported that the campaign had received more than 70 endorsements by individuals, and two by organizations.
“Many universities in the United States have direct involvement with Israeli institutions, ranging from study abroad programs to collaborative research. And we believe that should be suspended until such time that Israel respects international and humanitarian law,” said Lloyd.
In the United States, opposition to academic boycotts is strong. A 2007 statement signed by nearly 300 university presidents sums up why: “In seeking to quarantine Israeli universities and scholars, this vote threatens every university committed to fostering scholarly and cultural exchanges that lead to enlightenment, empathy, and a much-needed international marketplace of ideas.”
The statement was issued in response to the boycott movement then afoot in Britain, and was written by Columbia University’s president, Lee Bollinger. “At my institution, our president, Lee Bollinger, has said publicly that if you boycott Israeli academics you boycott us at Columbia,” said Andrew R. Marks, president and founder of International Academic Friends of Israel and chair of Columbia’s physiology department. “He’s taken a stand against academic boycotts which I’m proud of, and I think that would be the norm among the better universities in the United States. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t affect our students and others who are impressionable and looking for a cause to pick up, that sort of thing, so it certainly concerns me.”
Beyond the argument in favor of exchange and dialogue, “You go to the question of whether or not this [an academic boycott] could possibly ever help the Palestinian people. And that’s quite doubtful, since the academics in Israel, as in many countries, tend to be pretty left-wing and actually are some of the most forceful voices in favor of peace and fair treatment of Palestinians,” Marks continued. “So I tend to think this whole movement, which originated in the U.K., was very much an anti-Israel movement and not really honestly designed to help the Palestinians. And I think it’s very unfortunate it’s spreading to the United States, but not surprising.”
Marks said the boycott call seems to be an extension of the divestiture movement, which focuses on university investments and endowments – “so it’s not entirely new but it’s taking it a step further.”
Lloyd in fact said, of the campaign’s plans, “Our effort is not so much to initiate as to connect with already existing, scattered divestment movements around the country.” Asked about the argument that academic boycotts fly in the face of academic freedom, Lloyd responded, “Israeli institutions are complicit in immense infringement on Palestinian academic freedom, so it’s really hard, it seems to me, for Israeli institutions to claim the rights of academic freedom that they are so systematically denying to their Palestinian counterparts.”
The campaign’s press release cites “Israel’s ongoing scholasticide” – a reference to its attacks on educational facilities during the war in Gaza, but also to what the writers describe as systematic, 40-year-long restrictions on Palestinian access to schools and universities in the West Bank and Gaza.
“We feel that we should not collaborate with Israel as long as it is refusing academic freedom to Palestinians. It is really a profoundly moral issue,” Lloyd said.
“Presidents of universities have spoken out against the boycott of Israeli academics in the past. They are not speaking out against the systematic and gradual destruction of Palestinian institutions by Israel.”
The American Association of University Professors in 2006 issued a statement opposing academic boycotts, “in view of the Association’s long-standing commitment to the free exchange of ideas.” The AAUP particularly opposes boycotts such as the one being proposed here, in which institutions would be boycotted unless they “vocally oppose” Israeli policies. “We especially oppose selective academic boycotts that entail an ideological litmus test,” the AAUP statement says. “We understand that such selective boycotts may be intended to preserve academic exchange with those more open to the views of boycott proponents, but we cannot endorse the use of political or religious views as a test of eligibility for participation in the academic community.”
Cary Nelson, president of the AAUP and a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, added that, practically speaking, “I think it’s inappropriate to expect institutions to take positions on a nation state’s policy…. How would an institution in the United States take a stand on national policy? Would the Faculty Senate vote, would the administration impose a policy, would the entire campus vote, would the students have an equal vote?”
In Britain, student protesters in support of Gaza have held sit-ins at 16 universities, as the Guardianhas reported. At the London School of Economics and Political Science, the director refused to issue a university statement condemning Israel’s attacks on Gaza, but supported a fund-raising drive for scholarships for Palestinian students.
Nelson said the scholarship approach seemed to him a creative and “specifically academic” idea. “A scholarship program for Palestinian students is a very straight-forward contribution that American academics can make and I think it’s a wonderful suggestion.”
Times they are-a-changing.
Alhamdulilah.
I watched Fox news this morning. They are not so jovial as they once were. I almost feel sorry for them….. wait… no. Can’t force myself. Siiiiiigghhhhhh……
academic boycotts won’t happen here in the US. It’s a waste of time, but hey, if you want to go for it, by all means!
I have to wonder though if people are more concerned with “punishing” Israel than with actually establishing a Palestinian state.
Sigh…
Non-Jewish girls should Boycott Jewish Boys! That’s one boycott I support completely!
Having some experience in the region, it is that those that adhere to the PACBI statement refrain from all contact with Israelis, whether or not they “vocally oppose Israeli state policies against Palestine” (1). That’s fine with me, but how do you measure how loud is “vocal”? Who is the judge?
As for the interpretation for what “Palestinian lands” means in the NGO BDS statement, it seems it is rather wishful. It has been left in the original vague, with the purpose of remaining vague. When academia-trained professionals want to be clear they know how to exhaust a point ad nausea. And the vagueness has one intent, which is to include forces that prefer a “one-state solution”.
That’s a solution popular with the intelligentsia of SOAS and a handful of other universities, and virtually nobody else.
In somma, it feels like one of those ’70s Trotskyst cults managed to hijack the campaign against the occupation. And then we’re surprised people are not rallying up behind this…?
Same tactics always:
Give up, won’t work
Intimidation
Deflection
Appeals to emotion
Sarcasm
Am I missing any?
AMG, I am with you all the way!
The non-Jewish girls must boycott Jews boys at all cost!
also boycott bar code 729 (israel) pass it on so that everybody in the world remembers 729, avoids 729, and tells their shop owners not to stock 729 products.
Let me spell this out for you. Jews give incredible sums of money to every conceivable educational and non-profit institution in the US. No one will support boycott here except a fringe, which will quickly be called anti-semitic by ADL and that will be that.
Second, it’s already against the law in the US to boycott Israel at an institutional level. This was enacted in the 1970s during the Arab embargo.
Also, don’t forget that something like 50% of Democratic political contributions come from Jewish money, and Dems are now running congress. All the top Dems are Zionists. They will pass new laws to eradicate any semblance of boycott.
Finally, where do you work? Yes, you. Do you work for a financial institution? Do you work in manufacturing, or publishing, or sales? Do you work for a corporation? How many Jewish employees are there in this corporation? How many Jewish employees are there in management? How many Jewish customers? How many institutional
As someone who boycotts the Jewish state, are you aware that the business you work for can and will be pressured to fire you on the basis of an anti-Israel boycott? I’m sure they can think of some excuse… you’re an anti-semite… you are disenfranchising important customers… you are giving bad PR to the company…
If you’re ready to quit your job and be ostracized everywhere you go, continue with your boycott.
Am I being cruel and mean? Yes. Fuck it, I’m done playing nice with you people. Boycott runs both ways.
There are plenty of poor people in Israel. 28% of the population is below the poverty line and relying on government and non-profit support. Half of this 28% are Arabs in the north and Bedouin in the south. The other half are widows and orphans, seniors and poor families struggling to have enough challah for Shabbat.
That is who you hurt with your boycott, and their tortured, hungry, pleading faces are what people like me will show to your boss before he gives you your two week notice. And when that happens, I’ll make sure the TV crews are on the scene to publicize it.
Fayaad, should we boycott you since you’re related to PFLP members, a documented terrorist group?
Keep me posted. I’d hate to have to stop reading you.
I thought it was illegal in the US, to boycott Israeli products (or something along those lines)?
Anyway, I’m all with you. At the moment, here in the UK, there are hundreds of unofficial boycotts of all Israeli products and Israeli-supporting companies and institutions.
What’s the deal with boycotting starbucks? They’re not even in Israel.
US laws prohibit boycott of Israel in compliance with the Arab embargo. 1) The Arab embargo was lifted in 1993. 2) The Divestment and Boycott movement is home-grown and modeled after that against Apartheid South Africa. 3)US Laws at one point forced black people to sit in the back of the bus.
Well said Fayyad!
Samar
As a PFPL member, Fayyad, you are not “home grown”, and neither is the boycott movement. But either way I support your cause for non-Jewish girls to boycott Jewish boys! Not even a peck on the cheek! Not even a wink and smile! May all non-Jewish women BOYCOTT JEWISH BOYS!
Starbucks has accumulated bad will from their previous dealings with Israel and from their CEO’s associations with Israeli organizations. I think that’s why they continue to suffer, but I’m not aware of a reason to continue boycotting them, vis a vis Palestine/Israel, that is.
Boycott Starbucks for their burnt tasting coffee
Yeah, their coffee is terrible. The f’ed up thing is that many of the beans they sell separately are fine, and some even great. I think they don’t train their employees well, but how much training do you need to make coffee?
Starbucks got run out of Israel as far as I know. They couldn’t compete.
This is great news: if anything the Warsaw Ghetto, erm… I mean Gaza Strip, nuking by Nazi Germany, erm… I mean White South Africa, opsa… what’s the name of that racist state from Asia that participates in Eurovision and controls Holywood?!
Sure, Israel – I knew it!
Well, in any case the ongoing genocide against Gaza what has achieved is the relaization by Western public opinion that Israel is a nazi regime ready to do anything to consolidate its colonial presence in Palestine and to get rid of native Palestinians by any means at hand.
It also seems clear that the two-states “solution” is not viable (Israel just needs to control the West Bank in order to get water for its many irrigation farms and cities) and that this is not a conflict between two nations as much as a problem of colonialist racism and apartheid. A problem that can only solved with a single-state multiethnic solution at this stage, allowing the refugees to return and either recover their robbed lands or be compensated fairly and giving back the right to vote to the many denizens of Palestine.
It is also becoming evident that recognizing Israel is a wrongdoing in itself, complicity with racism and genocide, and that giving this fascist state any undue privileges like allowing their teams to play in European competitions or their products to be sold in European or American markets is direct complicity with the Genocide.
Israel should be totally boycotted, not just at scholarly level (even if is a beginning) but a whole institutional and economic levels. A naval and air blockade, if not direct intervention under UN banners, is totally justified under international law and humanitarian principles.
But there is a problem: the all-powerful Israel Lobby (AIPAC by other name). Hence the very Israel Lobby must be boycotted in all spaces and as well any cmpany or institution that cooperates with Israel in any way.
It won’t be easy, specially as the Israel Lobby is tremendously influential worldwide, but there is nothing that cannot be acomplished with determination and conviction. Reason and Justice stand by our side. On their side just lies, deceit, manipulation and brutal mass murder.
If there is anything that may resemble the Manichean dycothomy of good vs. evil in our time, that one is the struggle against Israel for Democracy and Human Rights in Palestine.
We shall overcome!
Manju – you seem intelligent.
Some links here …
The child poverty rate in North America hovers between 25-30%, 28% is not remarkable.
Why is 14% of the poverty rate Arabs that make up 20% of the population? Why does that 20% of the population get 5% of the funding and services? How much of that do Bedouin towns get? Nice that you care about them for propaganda purposes.
North America? Including Mexico I’m sure the poverty rate is much higher than that.
In the US, it’s 18%. But then in the US there are far greater resources for dealing with poverty, as Obama is about to demonstrate.
GOBAMA!