An American academic boycott campaign was started in 2009 by 13 professors in California in order to bring the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel movement (BDS) to university campuses. The movement now claims activities on more than 40 US campuses.
The US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) called on American colleges and universities to refrain from associating with Israeli academic and cultural institutions. In addition, the schools were called upon to sell their investments in specific companies with significant operations in Israel.
The USACBI gives a list of three demands which they want to pressure Israel into accepting as part of 'its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination'.
An examination of these three demands shows that they do not reflect the true situation and therefore are not a path to an end of the conflict and to peace -– see parentheses under each of their proposals for what they ignore.
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall
[In the eyes of many Arabs, all of Israel is "Arab Land", and while their objectives make it clear that this is also the belief of the USACBI organizers, they leave it unstated and instead paint Israel as an invader. There is no call for peace and end of terror that accompanies the demand for dismantling a wall that has effectively protected Israeli civilians from waves of Palestinian suicide bombers and from the entrance of illegal squatters]
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality;
[Israeli Arabs already have full equality - and enjoy more rights then Arab citizens in any Arab country - a situation that is misrepresented with this claim]
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”
[Resolution 194, which was announced in December 1948 as the civil war between Arabs and Jews still raged on in Palestine, also referred to Jewish refugees, who outnumber the Arab refugees, yet no recognition is given to the population exchange that occurred in 1948 when these Jewish refugees were expelled from Arab countries and Arab-held parts of Palestine and resettled in Israel. Also left unmentioned is that the UN specifically talked about returning refugees "who wish to live at peace with their neighbors", and recognized the need for the parties to resolve their dispute, replaced here by one-sided action that endangers Israel without ending Palestinians demands, thereby ensuring further conflict. Also "forgotten" is that resolution 194 was a non-binding General Assembly resolution taken over fifty years ago, and that significant changes and UN resolution have occurred since 1948]
The U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) has been using social networking sites to garner more support and to advertise its message. In addition to its Web site, USACBI has created Facebook and MySpace group profiles and started a Google group to foster discussions about next steps for the campaign.
Anti-Semitism
The question if this movement is based on hatred against Jews was answered on September 17, 2002 by Harvard President Larry Summers when he delivered his traditional remarks in honor of the beginning of the academic year. He told an audience at Harvard's Memorial Church Tuesday that recent calls for Harvard, Tufts, Princeton, and other schools to divest from Israel were anti-Semitic.
He explained that he felt forced to speak out publicly against anti-Semitism for the first time due to the upturn in anti-Semitism on campuses, and the attempts to delegitimize the Jewish state by comparing it to Nazi Germany and the calls for academic and economic boycotts against it.
"Profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities," he said and he told the audience that he was speaking as "a concerned member of our community" and not as president. "Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect, if not their intent."
“Anti-Semitism in American streets and cities or in the press is virtually nonexistent, while the campuses have turned into throbbing centers of anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic activity. Many feel that the calm during demonstrations and in recently emerging public expressions of anti-Semitism on the American campuses is a cover for its malignant spread on the intellectual level.”
He also cited student groups at Harvard and elsewhere that sought to raise money for Arab organizations linked with terrorists - meeting with "at least modest success and very little criticism"….
Campus campaigns
For the most part, the campaign for divestment efforts or large-scale boycotts has been ineffective since no American school has divested from or imposed an academic boycott on Israel. Many of the activities, though, have garnered significant support and media attention, in some cases emboldening students and faculty elsewhere to launch new initiatives.
In February 2009, false reports circulated that Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, had become the first of any college or university in the U.S. to participate in the divestment campaign. The college denied this and stated that Hampshire holds investments in hundreds of companies that do business in Israel, and in at least three actual Israeli companies. In August 2010 false rumors circulated that Harvard University had divested from Israel.
The ADL in April of 2010 published a sample of colleges and universities dealing with new or revived efforts to divest from Israel, Israeli companies and companies. Some examples from the list are:
University of Arizona (UA), Tucson, AZ: campaigning for the university to divest from Caterpillar and Motorola.
University of California, Berkeley (UCB): In March 2010, the Associated Students of UCB approved a resolution calling on the UCB administration and the UC Regents to divest from two companies, General Electric and United Technologies, because of their business dealings with Israel.
University of California, San Diego: proposed a divestment resolution in April 2010 that was virtually identical to the one proposed at UC Berkeley.
University of Michigan, Dearborn: In January 2009, calls for the University of Michigan's Board of Regents to create an advisory committee to examine the university endowment's investments in companies that may support or profit from the conflict in Gaza.
Columbia University, New York, NY: calls for increased disclosure of university finances to establish that Columbia funds are not being used towards "maintenance of the Israeli occupation and human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank."
Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), Harrisonburg, VA: on March 25, 2010, called for grassroots boycott and divestment efforts.
Georgetown University, Washington, DC: promoted boycott against companies that "contribute" to Israeli crimes, citing Caterpillar and Motorola, among others.
New York University (NYU): a campaign to sever NYU's relationship with Tel Aviv University.
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA: An online petition launched in January 2011 called for the school to divest from its Israel-related holdings.
University of Massachusetts, Amherst: A non-binding divestment resolution at UMASS was passed by the Student Government Association on March 25, 2010.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC): delivered a letter to the Chancellor on February 25 demanding that UNC divest from Israel.
University of Rochester (UR), Rochester, NY actively promoting divestment from Israeli companies and companies that profit from Israeli action in Gaza at events and in op-eds in the campus newspaper.
University of Wisconsin, Madison (UW): called on the Board of Regents to divest from companies that profit from or enable "human rights violations in the Palestinian territories," naming among those companies Caterpillar, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop-Grumman and Raytheon.
Cultural Boycott
The US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel has also been active in its cultural boycott of Israel. This aims at boycotting performances of Israeli groups in the States and discouraging artists from performing in Israel
Probably their first attempted boycott in the cultural area was a demonstration outside a performance of Israel's Batsheva Dance Company at UCLA on February 28, 2009. Demonstrators at the protest held signs that read, "400 Children in Gaza Will Not Dance: Israel Killed Them," "Apartheid is not a Jewish Value" and "Starving Children of Gaza is Not a Jewish Value."
Recently, USACBI called for boycotts and protests of the North America Tour of the Jerusalem String Quartet. They justified this boycott on the basis of arts and culture becoming an important weapon in the Israeli government’s public relations campaign, Arye Mekel of Israel’s Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying that, “We will send well-known novelists and writers overseas, theater companies, exhibits.… This way you show Israel’s prettier face, so we are not thought of purely in the context of war.”
The Jerusalem Music Centre, according to their complaint, is the home base for the Jerusalem String Quartet, and is prominently featured on the Foreign Ministry website, revealing how it is among the Israeli cultural institutions that are all part of the ongoing effort to “re-brand” Israel’s image in the West. Thus, Israel is portrayed as an enlightened center of arts and technology, thereby concealing the ugly facts about its occupation, racial discrimination and grave violations of international law and fundamental Palestinian rights. Although the Centre claims to be independent, it cooperates readily with practically all leading organizations of music and music education in Israel
They called for the Jerusalem String Quartet to be boycotted on their North American tour from October 2-16, 2011 (visiting Vancouver, BC; Costa Mesa, CA; Tucson, AZ; Logan, UT; Downers Grove, a Chicago suburb, IL; Houston, TX; Toronto, ON; West Lafayette, IN; and Louisville, KY).
When it comes to discouraging artists from performing in Israel, one of their successes was to convince Elvis Costello to cancel two concerts he planned to perform in Israel during the summer of 2010 (see picture above). He cited the complexities of the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on his official Web site, he wrote: “there are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung.”
Producer Marcel Avraham, who brings famous artists to perform in Israel, said: "The whole thing with him really irritated me. I know the guy. He knew all about Israel before he decided to have a show here, signed the contract and suddenly decided not to come. He got good money, up front, and still didn't come. The nerve of him.”
Tuba Skinny, of New Orleans was due to play for the Israeli Red Sea Jazz Festival, and just days before, they cancelled after being informed of the boycott. Denise Jannah and Ramon Valle (of the Netherlands) became aware of the boycott two days prior to their three scheduled concerts in Israel, but they played in Israel anyway. Vintage punker Jello Biafara was also scheduled to play Israel and he also cancelled his performance.
Recently the cultural boycott attempted to convince Moldavian punkers Zdob si Zdub to cancel their performance in Tel Aviv on 5 November, 2011. They asked their supporters to let the band know, what they are probably unaware of, that there is a cultural boycott of Israel. They were asked to respect this global call. USACBI considered the chances as high to convince them to cancel since they were not informed of the boycott when they contracted to play in Israel - usually bands are contacted through their booking agents or management. Punk bands are particularly vulnerable to calls for a boycott since they are not known for breeching boycotts or crossing picket lines that exist for causes like human rights and justice.
Linkage to other campaigns
The US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel attempts to gain influence and support by linking up with activists for other causes, especially those causes that they feel would appeal to liberals. USACBI came out in support of a boycott of Arizona because of the State’s actions regarding Hispanics, and supported anti-war activists investigated in Minneapolis and Chicago, and those convicted in the trial of the Irvine 11.
In June of 2010, the Boycott Israel campaign announced their endorsement and support for the call for Boycott of Arizona on account of its “manifestly racist laws,” HB1070 and SB 2281. SB1070 calls for police officers to require documentation from people to establish resident status. SB 2281 outlaws the teaching of ethnic studies in Arizona schools.
Their support was based on their claim that Mexicans and Mexican Americans faced the same imposed borders as Palestinians, borders that were imposed on them by “foreign powers.” They asserted that the “U.S. Apartheid Wall” was similar to “Israel's Apartheid Wall.” They found the two walls to have much in common – not only because both are built on land that was occupied by conquest, that displace indigenous people, and that separate families, but also because these walls are built by the same colonial forces.
They are particularly upset that it was an Israeli firm, Elbit Systems, which played a leading role in the construction of both walls. Even worse, another Israeli connection to the American border fence was the Golan Group which gave an intensive eight-day training course for special immigration agents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, working along the Mexican border in April 2007. The Golan Group was founded by ex-Israeli Special Forces officers and boasts more than 3,500 employees in seven countries.
USACBI expressed its solidarity with organizations that boycott Arizona so as to strive for equality and justice of oppressed indigenous peoples, particularly the demand to reverse these racist laws. The U.S. Wall they declare will further segregate border communities, break families apart, and increase the number of deaths on the border as migrant workers are pushed deeper into the desert.
The US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) strongly condemned the raiding of offices and the subpoena of community anti-war activists by the FBI in Chicago and Minneapolis. They called for an immediate end to the “suppression of civil rights and free speech,” and an immediate suspension of the grand jury prosecution of the anti-war activists who were subpoenaed since September 24 2010.
This refers to simultaneous raids by the FBI on September 24, 2010 of seven homes of anti-war activists in Minneapolis and Chicago and the MN Anti-War Committee’s office. Twenty-three people were served subpoenas to a federal grand jury investigating allegations of “material support for terrorism” Apparently the FBI had an informant, who went by the name of "Karen Sullivan," who infiltrated the anti-war group in Minneapolis.
USACBI in Oct of 2011 announced its solidarity with the Irvine 11 and condemned the verdict in the Irvine 11 trial. On September 23, 2011, ten students were convicted of two criminal misdemeanor acts for disrupting a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine, during which they tried to prevent him from speaking with the students and faculty at a campus famous for its freedom of speech.
Guidelines of USACBI for Applying the International Cultural Boycott of Israel
USACBI sees all Israeli academic institutions, unless proven otherwise, as complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation and denial of basic Palestinian rights, whether through their silence, actual involvement in justifying, whitewashing or otherwise deliberately diverting attention from Israel’s violations of international law and human rights, or indeed through their direct collaboration with state agencies in the design and commission of these violations. Accordingly, these institutions, all their activities, and all the events they sponsor or support must be boycotted. Events and projects involving individuals explicitly representing these complicit institutions should be boycotted, by the same token.
USACBI urges academics and cultural workers to apply the following:
1. Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions.
2. Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions.
3. Promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by academic institutions, and place pressure on your own institution to suspend all ties with Israeli universities, including collaborative projects, study abroad, funding and exchanges.
4. Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic, professional and cultural associations and organizations.
5. Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.
6. Encourage your university and college administrations to institute funding for scholarships and fellowships for Palestinian students.
7. Request your administration/president to issue a public statement censuring Israeli destruction of and interference with Palestinian schools and universities, archives and research centers, both in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine.
8. Organize teach-ins or similar events with campus and community organizations at which the campaign for the economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel can be fully and openly discussed.
Specifically, the Palestinian academic boycott against Israel applies to the following events, activities, or situations:
1. Academic events (such as conferences, symposia, workshops, book and museum exhibits) convened or co-sponsored by Israeli institutions. These boycottable activities include panels and other activities sponsored or organized by Israeli academic bodies or associations at international conferences outside Israel. Importantly, they also include the convening in Israel of meetings of international bodies and associations.
2. Institutional cooperation agreements with Israeli universities or research institutes. These agreements, concluded between international and Israeli universities, typically involve the exchange of faculty and students and, more importantly, the conduct of joint research. Many of these schemes are sponsored and funded by the European Union (in the case of Europe), and independent and government foundations elsewhere. For example, the five-year EU Framework programs, in which Israel has been the only non-European participant, have been crucial to the development of research at Israeli universities.
3. Study abroad schemes in Israel for international students. These programs are usually housed at Israeli universities and are designed to give international students a “positive experience” of Israel. Publicity and recruitment for these schemes are organized through students’ affairs offices or academic departments (such as Middle East and international studies centers) at universities abroad.
4. Addresses and talks at international venues by official representatives of Israeli academic institutions such as presidents and rectors.
5. Special honors or recognition granted to official representatives of Israeli academic institutions (such as the bestowal of honorary degrees and other awards) or to Israeli academic or research institutions.
6. Palestinian/Arab-Israeli collaborative research projects or events, especially those funded by the various EU and international grant-giving bodies. It is widely known that the easiest route to securing a research grant for a Palestinian academic is to apply with an Israeli partner: as an example, Palestinian/Arab-Israeli research efforts in the field of water and environment.
As in the cultural field, events and projects (such as those involving educators, psychologists, or historians) involving Palestinians and/or Arabs and Israelis that promote “balance” between the “two sides” in presenting their respective narratives or “traumas.” All such events and projects that bring Palestinians and/or Arabs and Israelis together are strong candidates for boycott.
7. Research and development activities in the framework of agreements or contracts between the Israeli government and other governments or institutions. Examples include the United States-Israel Bi-national Science Foundation (BSF) and the “Eureka Initiative,” a European inter-governmental initiative set up in 1985 that includes Israel as the only non-European member.
8. Research and development activities on behalf of international corporations involving contracts or other institutional agreements with departments or centers at Israeli universities.
9. Institutional membership of Israeli associations in world bodies. While challenging such membership is not easy, targeted and selective campaigns demanding the suspension of Israeli membership in international forums contribute towards pressuring the state.
10. Publishing in or refereeing articles for academic journals based at Israeli universities. These journals include those published by international associations but housed at Israeli universities. Efforts should be made to re-locate the editorial offices of these journals to universities outside Israel.
11. Advising on hiring or promotion decisions at Israeli universities through refereeing the work of candidates, or refereeing research proposals for Israeli funding institutions. Such services, routinely provided by academics to their profession, must be withheld from complicit institutions.
The Academic Boycott in action
Mona Baker, a professor of translation studies at the University of Manchester institute of science and technology (Umist) decided to sack two liberal Israeli academics from minor roles on her journals in 2002.
Prof. Baker decided that she could no longer work with Gideon Toury, a professor at Tel Aviv university who was on the advisory board of the Translator, and Miriam Shlesinger, a lecturer in translation studies at Bar-Ilan university who was on the editorial board of another journal, Translation Studies Abstracts. Both are published by Prof Baker's Manchester-based firm, St Jerome, but neither runs to more than 1,000 copies at a time.
In an email to Prof Toury on June 8, 2002, Prof Baker said: "Dear Gideon, I have been agonizing for weeks over an important decision: to ask you and Miriam, respectively, to resign from the boards of the Translator and Translation Studies Abstracts. I have already asked Miriam and she refused. I have 'unappointed' her as she puts it, and if you decide to do the same I will have to officially unappoint you too.
"I do not expect you to feel happy about this, and I very much regret hurting your feelings and Miriam's," she said. "My decision is political, not personal.
"As far as I am concerned, I will always regard and treat you both as friends, on a personal level, but I do not wish to continue an official association with any Israeli under the present circumstances."
Prof Toury replied: "I would appreciate it if the announcement made it clear that 'he' (that is, I) was appointed as a scholar and unappointed as an Israeli."
Dr Miriam Shlesinger, the former chairperson of Amnesty International in Israel, has been active in an Israeli activist group that defies army blockades in order to deliver supplies to Palestinian towns in the West Bank. "The idea is to boycott me as an Israeli, but I don't think it achieves anything."
Prof Baker said the interpretation of the boycott was her own and she did not necessarily expect other signatories in a similar position to follow her lead. Instead of seeing herself as a bully who uses her position to attack Israelis, she paints herself as the victim, stating: “I’m damned if I'm going to be intimidated. This is my interpretation of the boycott statement that I've signed and I've tried to make that clear but it doesn't seem to be getting through. I am not actually boycotting Israelis, I am boycotting Israeli institutions.”
Prof Baker said she was bemused by the row over two "tiny" journals. She has been at Umist since 1995 and a professor since 1997. A spokeswoman for the university said: "This is nothing to do with Umist. The boycott documentation clearly states Mona Baker signs it as an individual."
Further Reading:
Israel Law Center Launches Student Hotline to Combat Anti-Israel Hostilities on American Campuses
