Tag Archives: BDS

Talal Asad: Why do I support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement?

[Savage Minds is honored to publish this essay by Talal Asad. He teaches anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center and specializes on religion and politics in the Middle East and Europe.]

I have never visited Israel, or the occupied West Bank and Gaza, but I have several friends, Jews and Palestinians, who teach in universities there and joining the BDS movement does not entail breaking my friendship with them. But I am appalled by the repeated savage destruction of Gaza as well as the slow strangulation of Palestinian society living under occupation – including Gaza, a minute territory besieged by Israel for years by land, sea and air. I am disturbed by the fact that the majority of Israelis express strong support for the repeated Gaza assaults in which thousands of Palestinians have been killed, in which vastly superior weaponry has been used by the IDF against poorly armed opponents. There is much hysteria about “thousands of Hamas rockets falling on Israel” although virtually no damage has been inflicted on Israeli civilians and buildings as a consequence. And yet Israel always presents itself as the victim in these conflicts.

Boycott. Divestment. Sanctions. Photo from Inside HigherEd
Boycott. Divestment. Sanctions. Photo from Inside HigherEd

Israeli universities have not merely expressed approval of IDF’s violence in Gaza, but strengthened their practical links with it. Israeli society seems to have become increasingly militaristic and contemptuous towards the Palestinians under its control. It is the educational, cultural and news institutions that encourage racism toward Palestinians. Critics of BDS sometimes ask whether Israelis and Palestinians talking to each other isn’t more effective than boycott in changing views –whether it isn’t precisely academic institutions that provide the spaces where people with widely different points of view can come together to talk and argue without any preconditions. So isn’t the boycott of Israeli educational and cultural institutions a repudiation of free speech, they say? One answer to that might be that there is no value to endless talk between political opponents, especially where one side is not only far more powerful than the other but also regards it with contempt and hatred. It is widely remarked that the peace talks over the last two decades have completely failed. But in fact they have not. They have bought valuable time for colonizers – openly funded, encouraged, and protected by the Israeli state – to take over more Palestinian land and water, to intensify the punitive siege of Gaza, and to solidify Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. For peace talks to have a just outcome the parties have to be mediated by a third who is committed to seeing justice done. And this certainly hasn’t been the case in the so-called Peace Talks where the United States is the supposed “honest broker.” Continue reading →

Studying Arabic in Wartime Israel

[The following is an invited post by Arpan Roy. Arpan is a student of anthropology and currently an instructor of English and linguistics at An-Najah National University in Nablus. His research interests are activism and dual narratives in Israel/Palestine.]

I.

Although I was instantly moved by the Palestinian narrative from the moment I learned of it, it would be years before I knew any Palestinians. Nor did I know any Israelis. Yet, in the bohemian subcultures of urban America, you could say that I, in the ironic words of Najla Said, ‘grew up as a Jew.’ Jews were friends, ex-girlfriends, band mates, co-workers, classmates, bosses, and professors. Some broke from the dominant Zionist narrative, while others did not. Usually we didn’t talk about it. There was enough going on with my own coming of age to get into world politics. Somehow I missed the second intifada.

Soon I’d have more to say. Once, in San Francisco, a band I was playing in broke up when the harmonium player stormed out of practice after I debuted a new song about Palestine. A few months later, in 2006, I was traveling in South America when the Second Lebanon War broke out. I was surrounded by herds of Israeli backpackers fresh out of the military. It was difficult for me not to separate the scenes of destruction I read in the news from the aloof and giddy young ex-soldiers let loose on the streets of Cuzco and La Paz. More than a few conversations went late into those nights.

Continue reading →

Anthropologists Respond to Frequently Asked Questions About a AAA BDS Resolution

We would like to thank the editors of Savage Minds for inviting us to kick off this important conversation on a potential AAA resolution in support of BDS. Over the past four posts, we have tried to highlight some of the key reasons for why anthropologists in particular should honor the call to boycott that was originally issued by a united Palestinian civil society in 2005. From our analysis of the role archeology plays in the dispossession of Palestinians to our overview of historical boycotts within the AAA and discussion of academic freedom, we made the case that BDS is the only sensible, effective, and appropriate response to the current situation.

That being said, the conversation on BDS is far too important to be fully covered in four short blog posts. We would like to thank everyone who took the time to read carefully and respond respectfully, either in the comments or privately, to seek out further clarification on these important issues.

In this last post, we will attempt to answer some of the most common questions we have received. If you have a question that is not answered below, please leave a comment and let’s continue to have this serious conversation about how best to respond to ongoing Israeli mass violations of human rights. Continue reading →

Embracing Our Better Angels: Endorsing BDS and the History of the AAA

In our previous posts, we made the argument that the American Anthropological Association (AAA) ought to endorse the united Palestinian call to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel for its ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories and systematic legal discrimination. Over the past few weeks, we have unfortunately received more horrifying reminders of why this sort of external pressure needs to be brought to bear and urgently. The situation requires the sort of exigent and effective external pressure that BDS can provide, and so the AAA ought to do what it can. Full stop.

That said, as a great many anthropological writings remind us, we should still look to our past as an organization – both our successes and our failures – to guide our response to the present situation. In the last of our regular posts, then, we will argue that endorsing the united Palestinian call for BDS represents a continuation of the best principles and traditions of the AAA. Continue reading →

Digging the Occupation: The Politics of Boycotts and Archeology in Israel (BDS pt. 3)

Recently, the television network NBC started filming Dig, a new archeology drama set in Jerusalem. Normally, we’d be ecstatic to see our fellow archaeologists getting such media fanfare. But there is nothing normal about this venture. Filmed on-site in illegally annexed East Jerusalem, the show is underwritten by 6.5 million dollar grant from the Israeli government. For comparisons sake, this means Israel is spending more to film Dig than on the yearly education budget for all K-12 Palestinian schools.

So why is the Israeli government, currently in the midst of a budget crisis, throwing millions at NBC to get Dig on the air? Because they know something we’ve been reluctant to own up to: archeological knowledge remains one of the Israeli state’s most powerful weapons. If Dig unearths anything, it is that in Israel archeology is neither a neutral nor innocent enterprise. Instead, it has become just one more tool in the occupation of Palestinian lands.

As anthropologists and archeologists, we should be especially concerned when we see our discipline being misused to promote discrimination and occupation. By endorsing Palestinians’ call for BDS, the AAA has a unique opportunity to highlight the misappropriation of our scholarly techniques and defend the good name of our profession.

Continue reading →

Pt. 2. Why Anthropologists Must Boycott: Israeli Attacks on Academic Freedom

This is the second post in a series advocating that the AAA endorse an academic boycott against Israel. For more general information on BDS, see our first post.

This past May, Palestinian students at Haifa University requested permission to hold a formal commemoration on campus for the more than 600 Palestinian villages destroyed in the course the Nakba (the mass expulsion of Palestinian residents that accompanied Israel’s founding). When administrators denied their request, students decided to gather informally without flags or banners. They were not in violation of any university policy.

But even this silent commemoration was too much for administrators. Haifa University organized a raucous dance party on the quad to disrupt the informal gathering. During the event, representatives of the student union taunted those present and police officers were sent in to intimidate and later disperse the Palestinian students.

Continue reading →