The American Studies Association leadership has endorsed a boycott of Israeli universities, and is now seeking the approval of the body’s 5,000 members.
The decision posted Dec. 4 follows a contentious debate at the group’s annual meeting last month and 10 days of deliberations that were supposed to last one morning. The boycott resolution was approved unanimously by the 20-member national council.
“We believe that the ASA’s endorsement of a boycott is warranted given U.S. military and other support for Israel; Israel’s violation of international law and U.N. resolutions; the documented impact of the Israeli occupation on Palestinian scholars and students; the extent to which Israeli institutions of higher education are a party to state policies that violate human rights; and the support of such a resolution by many members of the ASA,” the council announcement said.
The preamble to the resolution accused Israeli universities of complicity in the occupation.
The council is now seeking the endorsement of the group’s entire membership. Chartered in 1951, the ASA, according to its website, has 5,000 individual members — teachers, professors, researchers and other professionals involved in the study of American culture and history — along with 2,200 library and other institutional subscribers.
“The ASA is a large organization that represents divergent opinions,” the announcement said. “Anticipating strong and potentially divided feelings on this question, the Council unanimously decided to ask ASA members to endorse the resolution by a vote.”
Boycott opponents, speaking Nov. 23 at an open meeting called to discuss the resolution during ASA’s annual conference, had recommended a body-wide poll. Such a poll is unusual, and boycott proponents strongly opposed it. The national council representatives at the meeting said they would consider the resolution the following morning and would likely have a decision that day, but the mulling lasted a week and a half.
Voices at the open meeting overwhelmingly favored the boycott, but those opposed said they were not representative of the organization’s broader membership. A number of the speakers, particularly Palestinians, said the ASA and the field it represents is a refuge from what they describe as an American society that is uninterested in their viewpoint.
According to the ASA website, the boycott will not inhibit collaboration with individual Israeli academics.
“The ASA understands boycott as limited to a refusal on the part of the ASA in its official capacities to enter into formal collaborations with Israeli academic institutions, or with scholars who are expressly serving as representatives or ambassadors of those institutions (such as deans, rectors, presidents and others), or on behalf of the Israeli government, until Israel ceases to violate human rights and international law,” the website noted.
“We are expressly not endorsing a boycott of Israeli scholars engaged in individual-level contacts and ordinary forms of academic exchange, including presentations at conferences, public lectures at campuses, and collaboration on research and publication,” the note added.
The posting suggests that the boycott is not binding on members, meaning it would apply principally to the activities of the ASA as an organization. “The ASA recognizes that members will review and negotiate specific guidelines for implementation on a case-by-case basis and adopt them according to their individual convictions,” it said.
Pro-Israel groups on campuses were watching the resolution’s progress closely. Until now, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) has made few inroads into U.S. academia. One exception is the Association for Asian American Studies, which in April passed a resolution in favor of boycotting Israeli academic institutions.
Supporters of the resolution said its warm reception at the ASA conference was a signal of a shift in public opinion.
“The ASA’s open meeting was a clear indication that the time of fear and of the blockade on debate may be over — and that there is a new climate in which critical discussion of Israel’s policies towards Palestine will no longer be taboo,” David Lloyd, a professor of English at U.C. Riverside, wrote on the Electronic Intifada website.