For 1st Time, US Professors Call for Academic & Cultural Boycott of "Israel"

Source: Al-Manar TV, 29-01-2009

In the wake of the "Israeli" aggression against the Gaza Strip that killed over 1400 Palestinians, including 420 children, a group of American university professors has for the first time launched a national campaign calling for an academic and cultural boycott of "Israel".

While "Israeli" academics have grown used to such news from Great Britain, where anti-"Israel" groups several times attempted to establish academic boycotts, the formation of the United States movement marks the first time that a national academic boycott movement has come out of America. "Israeli" professors are not sure yet how big of an impact the one-week-old movement will have, but started discussing the significance of and possible counteractions against the campaign.

"As educators of conscience, we have been unable to stand by and watch in silence ‘Israel's' indiscriminate assault on the Gaza Strip and its educational institutions," the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of "Israel" stated in its inaugural press release last Thursday.

Speaking in its mission statement of the "censorship and silencing of the Palestine question in U.S. universities, as well as U.S. society at large," the group follows the usual pattern of such boycotts, calling for "non-violent punitive measures" against "Israel", such as the implementation of divestment initiatives, "similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era."

The campaign was founded by a group of 15 academics, mostly from California, but is, "currently expanding to create a network that embraces the United States as a whole," according to David Lloyd, a professor of English at the University of Southern California who responded on behalf of the group to a Haaretz query. "The initiative was in the first place impelled by ‘Israel's' latest brutal assault on Gaza and by our determination to say enough is enough."

"The response has been remarkable given the extraordinary hold that lobbying organizations like AIPAC exert over U.S. politics and over the U.S. media, and in particular given the campaign of intimidation that has been leveled at academics who dare to criticize ‘Israel's' policies," Lloyd wrote in an e-mail to Haaretz Monday. "Within a short weekend since the posting of the press release, more than 80 academics from all over the country have endorsed the action and the numbers continue to grow."

Asked if the group would accept the endorsement of Hamas supporters, Lloyd said, "We have no a priori policy with regard to the membership or affiliation of supporters of the boycott so long as they are in accord with the main aims stated in the press release."

The idea of an academic boycott against "Israel" originated in 2001 at the "World Conference Against Racism" in Durban, South Africa. A first attempt to implement a boycott was undertaken by British professors in the wake of "Israel's" 2002 "Operation Defensive Shield" and the Jenin massacre claim. Since then, British academics tried several times to establish boycotts, with the latest such effort failing because legal advisers a few months ago pointed out that academic boycotts are discriminatory and thus illegal. Yet, analysts say that another British boycott campaign is to be expected in the follow up of "Operation Cast Lead".

First indications that the climate might change in light of the Gaza offensive could be seen earlier this month when the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario proposed, "‘Israeli' academics be barred from speaking, teaching or conducting research at the province's universities unless they condemn ‘Israel's' actions in Gaza," as the Inside Higher Ed Web site reported.