Academic Boycotts of Israel are Antisemitic
December 20, 2013
TAKE ACTION NOW: Urge Universities to Withdraw Membership from Organizations Endorsing the Boycott of Israel
In the 1930’s, thousands of Jewish professors were kicked out of German universities, simply because they were Jews. Today in America, Jewish professors are threatened with being thrown out of scholarly conferences, prevented from publishing in scholarly journals, and denied research or employment opportunities, simply because they are citizens of the Jewish state.
Today’s academic boycott of the Jewish state and its scholars is no less antisemitic than the academic boycott of Jewish scholars in Germany 70 years ago.
Academic boycotts of Israeli academic institutions and scholars, like virtually all anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns within the last several years, have been established in response to the Palestinian political call to join the BDS movement against Israel. That call was issued in 2005 by a coalition of Palestinian organizations that included the terrorist organizations Hamas and the PFLP, and its purpose was to facilitate the elimination of the Jewish state. It is not surprising that most of the American founders of academic boycotts of Israel have publicly expressed their opposition to the Jewish state.
Hannah Rosenthal, the former U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, has unequivocally condemned academic boycotts, saying: “when academics from Israel are boycotted – this is not objecting to a policy – this is anti-Semitism.” In addition 446 American University Presidents signed a statement published in the New York Times entitled “Boycott Israeli Universities? Boycott Ours, Too!”Alarmingly, more than 1,000 faculty members at over 300 US colleges and universities have endorsed an academic boycott of Israeli universities and Jewish Israeli academics. (You can see the names of the academic boycott supporters at each university in AMCHA’s Academic Boycott Map).
Even more disturbing is that well-known academic organizations are embracing the academic boycott of Israel. Last April, the general membership of the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) unanimously approved the resolution put forward by the AAAAS National Council to endorse the boycott of Israeli universities.
On December 15, the 5,000-member American Studies Association (ASA) approved an anti-Israel academic boycott resolution put forward by the ASA National Council.
The ASA’s recent endorsement of the academic boycott of Israel has drawn scathing criticism from many organizations, including the American Association of University Professors, the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesental Center, Zionist Organization of America, American Jewish Committee, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and Stand With Us.
In addition, two universities — Penn State Harrisburg and Brandeis — have officially withdrawn their membership from the American Studies Association, after the ASA’s endorsement of the academic boycott of Israel.
However there are 83 colleges and universities that are still institutional members of the ASA.
TAKE ACTION NOW
Below is a list of the remaining institutional members of the ASA. Please consider writing to one or more universities on the list and urge them to join Penn State Harrisbug and Brandeis University in withdrawing their membership from the ASA in response to that organization’s antisemitic boycott of Israel:
| Alberta Institute for American Studies |
| Bard Graduate Center |
| Boston College |
| Boston University |
| Brandeis University |
| Brigham Young University |
| Brown University |
| California State University, Fullerton |
| California State University, Long Beach |
| Carnegie-Mellon University |
| Centre for the Study of the United States |
| College of Staten Island, CUNY |
| College of William and Mary |
| Cornell University |
| Crystal Bridge Museum of American Art |
| CUNY Graduate Center, American Studies Certificate Program |
| DePaul University |
| Dickinson College |
| Eccles Centre for American Studies, The British Library |
| Emory University |
| Fordham University |
| Franklin College of Indiana |
| George Washington University |
| Georgetown University |
| Hamilton College |
| Harvard University |
| Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania |
| Indiana University |
| Kennesaw State University |
| Kenyon College |
| Lehigh University |
| The Long Island Museum |
| Michigan State University, English Department |
| Middlebury College |
| New York University |
| Northwestern University |
| Penn State University, Harrisburg |
| Princeton University |
| Ramapo College |
| Richard Stockton College of New Jersey |
| Rider University |
| Roger Williams University |
| Rowan College of New Jersey |
| Rutgers University, New Brunswick |
| Saint John Fisher College |
| Saint Louis University |
| Saint Olaf College |
| Skidmore College |
| Smith College |
| Sophia University |
| St. Francis College |
| Stanford University, American Studies Program |
| Stanford University, Green Library |
| Stetson University |
| Students At The Center |
| Temple University |
| Trinity College, Hartford, CT. |
| Tufts University |
| University of Alabama |
| University of California, San Diego |
| University of Delaware |
| University of Hawaii |
| University of Iowa |
| University of Maryland, Baltimore County |
| University of Minnesota |
| University of Mississippi |
| University of New Mexico |
| University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill |
| University of Notre Dame |
| University of Oklahoma Honors College |
| University of Southern California |
| University of Southern Mississippi |
| University of Texas, Austin |
| University of Texas, Dallas |
| University of Utah |
| University of Western Ontario |
| University of Wyoming |
| Vanderbilt University |
| Vassar |
| Washington State University |
| Washington University, St. Louis |
| Western Connecticut State University |
| Willamette University |
| Winterthur Program in Early American |
| Culture Youngstown State University |