ASA Boycott – Not Defending the Undefendable

from divestthis.com May 7, 2014

I’ve said my piece (really more than my piece) regarding the academic boycott voted in by the American Studies Association last year.  But now that we’re closing in on the six month mark since a boycott against the Jewish state was made policy by an (admittedly marginal) academic group, it’s worth taking a step back to see what the consequences have been for Israel vs. the ASA.

As far as Israeli academics are concerned, I’m not aware of a single American Studies professor from a single university taking a single step to target an Israeli academic or institution in compliance with the boycott policy.  Perhaps someone can provide us an instance of the boycott actually being enacted, but as far as I can tell the leadership of the ASA has proven itself willing to put its organization, its members and the entire discipline of American Studies at risk for the sake of a policy they do not have the guts to actually implement.

Supporters of the ASA boycott point out that the action was primarily symbolic – a means to demonstrate that the organization (claiming to represent the ideals of academic inquiry and discourse) had become so sickened by Israeli policy that they were willing to use the blunt instrument of a boycott to express their disapproval.  But for this symbolism to hold, it must be demonstrated that the boycott actually represents some kind of consensus within the field, especially for a vote passed by a “majority” of just 16% of the organization’s members.  

NOTE: Several paragraphs later....

But probably the most telling example of how desperately the boycotters don’t want to engage in the conversation they claim to crave was this week’s appearance by Jacobson at Vassar College, a school where 39 professors attacked the college’s President’s when she joined over two-hundred other college and university presidents to condemn the ASA’s action (correctly) as an attack on academic freedom.

Please CLICK HERE to read the whole article

Professor Jacobson at Vassar Colleg on May 5, 2014

William Jacobson Gives his talk at Vassar College. He offered to debate the 39 professors who wrote an angry letter to the President of Vassar stating their support for the anti Israel ASA Boycott. Not ONE of the 39 professors agreed to meet Professor Jacobson for a debate. Thus he appeared at Vassar College Monday May, 5 2014 to deliver this talk on Israel, the BDS movemnent, anti Israel ideology, the ASA Boycott and much more. Enjoy!

Eastern American Studies Association (EASA) Condemns ASA Boycott

from the JEWISH FEDERATION WEBSITE http://www.jewishfederations.org/

The Eastern American Studies Association (EASA) has decided to reject a boycott resolution against Israel academic institutions adopted by its parent body, the American Studies Association (ASA), in December 2013.

The EASA, which represents ASA members in Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, chose to reject this assault on academic freedom and join the growing list of significant institutions and bodies that have condemned this policy, including the American Council on Education (an umbrella of 1,800 institutions), the Executive Committee of the Association of American Universities (that represents 62 top institutions in the U.S. and Canada), the American Association of University Professors (that counts more than 48,000 members), and over 250 universities and colleges. 

Unlike the ASA, the annual Eastern ASA conference will not bar Israeli scholars who receive support from their local institutions from attending their national conference. As an inclusive organization committed to furthering the field of American Studies, the EASA’s statement against the boycott makes it explicitly clear that they reject, and will not comply with, the ASA’s misguided boycott, which not only prevents Israeli academic participation, but also seeks to enact a comprehensive boycott against both Israeli individuals and institutions.

While ASA members in the EASA’s member states are automatically members of the EASA, other ASA members from around the world may join by contacting them through their website. 

CLICK TO KEEP READING

Is it ‘Taboo’ to Defend Israel on Campus?

BY ALEX MARGOLIN from BackSpin Blog at honestreporting.com

Even though Israel Apartheid Week – and the shrill spectacles it inspires on many college campuses – has come and gone, the anti-Israel climate at a number of universities refuses to cool.

A case in point is the University of Michigan, where the student government voted down a call for divestments from Israel. The vote, 25-9, with five abstentions, ended a tense week of campaigning, which included threats and intimidation of Jewish students on campus.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, some students even requested a police investigation into threats that have created “an atmosphere of fear among pro-Israel students” on the campus.

University of Michigan police were contacted Wednesday evening after two pro-Palestinian activists allegedly threatened a student who refused to support their boycott initiative.

The threatening rhetoric used by these pro-Palestinian activists is part of wider campaign by the University of Michigan’s pro-Palestine group Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), which is part of the virulently anti-Israel Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement (BDS).

Join the Fighting BDS Facebook page and take a stand againt Israel’s delegitimization.

CLICK THIS TO KEEP READING

Faculty letter squelches campus voices - Debate at Vassar College Heats Up

in Miscellany News 3.26.14

NOTE: This letter posted in response to the recent Faculty Letter which opposed Vassar's President rejection of the ASA Boycott. 

The “Open Letter in Defense of Academic Freedom in Palestine/Israel and the United States” signed by 39 Vassar professors is a disturbing document, although not in the way intended. To many alumnae/i, it is a jarring signal that Vassar is no longer the open, innovative institution that transformed our lives, a college which stimulated—indeed compelled—independent and critical thinking. Rather, faculty and student supporters of the BDS movement against Israel have hijacked campus discourse and imposed an anti-intellectual atmosphere in which professors are ranting activists, not scholars, and students who disagree with the prevailing “progressive” ideology are intimidated into a deafening silence.

This letter is submitted on behalf of Fairness to Israel, a growing group of Vassar alumnae/i, parents of Vassar students, and others who are deeply concerned with this sorry state of affairs. We will vigorously support Vassar’s president in her efforts to restore sanity, tolerance and civil dialogue to campus.

In their letter (manifesto, actually), the 39 professors assert that Vassar’s condemnation of a resolution by the ASA to boycott Israeli academic institutions has a “chilling effect on the free exchange of ideas and opinions.” As they see it, the “real threat to academic freedom” is the “frenzied” campaign launched against the ASA in response to its boycott resolution. This Orwellian view of who is being silenced would be laughable if the matter were less serious.  CLICK THIS TO KEEP READING

“Shut Up,” BDS Explained: An “Open Forum” at Vassar

Jonathan Marks | @marksjo103.26.2014 - 9:15 AM
From COMMENTARY 

It will come as no surprise to COMMENTARY readers that the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement undermines the missions of colleges and universities because it wants to use higher education to advance a partisan political agenda. It may come as a surprise, however, that BDS supporters like Philip Weiss now happily concede the point.

Consider his account of an “Open Forum on the Ethics of Student Activism and Protest at Vassar,” held early this month under the auspices of Vassar’s “Committee on Inclusion and Excellence.” The meeting was prompted by an international studies course on water issues in the Jordan River valley, which included a trip to the Middle East. As Weiss acknowledges, the organizers of the trip worked with Palestinian NGOs, intended to put their students in touch with Israelis, Palestinians, and Jordanians, and included a Palestinian refugee camp on the itinerary. But the trip also entailed cooperation with theArava Institute for Environmental Studies, long a boycott target because of its belief that the future of the region depends on cooperation between Israelis, Palestinians, and other stakeholders. The BDS movement demands that supporters refuse “participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions.” Moreover, the trip was “chiefly inside Israel with visits to the occupation,” and the syllabus did not explicitly discuss Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians.

So members of Vassar’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine “staged an action against” the on-campus part of the class, which included picketing, urging students to drop the course, and making a lot of noise (the only dispute seems to be whether the noise could be described as “ululating” or not). Jill Schneiderman and Rachel Friedman, two of the course instructors, complained to college officials about the protest; the protesters, most of whom were “people of color,” cried racism; and so the open forum was held. CLICK THIS TO KEEP READING

Vassar And The BDS War On Campus

Posted on March 25, 2014 by Petra Marquardt Bigman the Brandeiss Center for Human Rights under Law

The anti-Zionist – and sometimes also anti-Semitic – website Mondoweiss recently published a lengthy report by the site’s founder Philip Weiss about a meeting that took place at Vassar in early March. According to Weiss, the meeting had been scheduled by the school’s Committee on Inclusion and Excellence in order to discuss guidelines for activism after persistent protests by Vassar’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) against a trip to Israel planned by Vassar’s International Studies program.

Weiss began his report by quoting Jill Schneiderman, the professor who had apparently initiated the trip and who had mentioned the meeting in a post on her blog, where she wrote that she “was knocked off-center by a belligerent academic community dedicated to vilifying anyone who dares set foot in Israel.”  Weiss confirmed that the meeting “was truly unsettling,” that “torrents of anger ripped through the gathering” and that “rage against Israel was the theme.” He contrasted this atmosphere favorably with the broad popular support for Israel in the US, asserting that it was very different at Vassar, where “the spirit of that young progressive space was that Israel is a blot on civilization, and boycott is right and necessary. If a student had gotten up and said, I love Israel, he or she would have been mocked and scorned into silence.”

But according to Weiss, Israel’s supporters should expect not just more of the same, but worse to come, because in his view, the “battles we’ve seen so far on campus are just preliminaries.” He predicted that “things are going to get much more belligerent” and asserted that “belligerence may be necessary to the resolution.”  CLICK THIS TO KEEP READING

Empowering Jewish Students to Address Bias on Campus

ADL Launches New Interactive Education Program

This week, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) launched a new interactive education program in Florida called“Words to Action: Empowering Jewish Students to Address Bias on Campus.”  As part of a nationwide initiative for the League, the ADL Florida Office provided its first training on February 23rd to over seventy 12th grade students from Broward County.  The two and a half hour training took place at the David Posnack Jewish Community Center in Davie, Florida, as part of pre-trip education sessions for students who are about to embark on the Broward County “March of the Living” – a two week trip for Jewish teenagers to Poland and Israel in memory of the Holocaust.

“Words to Action” is designed to empower and equip college and college-bound students with constructive and effective responses to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias on campus. The program is based on ADL’s Confronting Anti-Semitism program, which was created in the 1980’s in response to a comprehensive survey of Jewish youth in New England, conducted by the League. The findings revealed that middle and high school youth frequently experienced anti-Semitic comments, taunts, harassment and graffiti in their schools, neighborhoods and communities. Rather than standing up to this prejudice, many youth remained silent, both in the face of oppression and later, when they returned to their homes and families.

“Decades later, ADL has tracked the continued existence of this same type of anti-Semitism, along with another form of anti-Semitism – fueled by anti-Israel sentiment – that turns up on college campuses,” stated Hava Holzhauer, ADL Florida Regional Director.  “We believe that “Words to Action” will help Jewish young adults and college-bound teens address the current face of anti-Semitism by increasing their comprehension and awareness of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias in their lives, by refuting anti-Semitic stereotypes and anti-Israel myths with accurate information, and by teaching skills for responding effectively to anti-Semitism.”

ADL’s inaugural training in Florida included an interactive activity engaging students to define and understand the terms: anti-Israel, anti-Zionism, and anti-Semitism; a PowerPoint presentation on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement and how anti-Israel campus groups adopt such tactics as a deliberate strategy; and an “Assess and Act” segment during which the students viewed three vignettes – “Anti-Israel Bias in the Classroom,” “Apartheid Wall,” and “Headlines.”  The students were provided with ADL materials to serve as a resource for them and their friends.

To request an ADL “Words to Action” training, please call: (561) 988-2900.

ADL in the News

Sun-Sentinel: Students being trained to fight anti-Semitism

GO TO SOURCE HERE

BDS Supporters Worry About Freedom of Speech

Petra Marquardt Bigman : March 7, 2014 10:13 am : Anti-Israelism, Anti-Semitism, Freedom of Speech

Judith Butler and Rashid Khalidi, both well-known academics and high-profile supporters of the BDS movement campaigning for “boycotts, divestment and sanctions” against Israel, have issued a statementthat was originally circulated under the dramatic title “Support Freedom of Expression! Oppose Intimidation!” They claim that there are “accelerating efforts to curtail speech, to exercise censorship, and to carry out retaliatory action against individuals on the basis of their political views or associations, notably support for BDS.”

READ IT ALL HERE

Identifying Antisemitic Activity

The AMCHA Initiative Protecting Jewish Students is invaluable. Possibly the most cogent and organized site out there. Here is just one link to their "Identifying Anti Semitism on Campus" guidelines: GO TO LINK HERE

Or just go to THE WEBSITE HERE

VIDEO: How to combat BDS on campus

Watch VIDEO HERE

BDS Cookbook - How to fight back against BDS

Another little lovely site with instructions on how to confront #BDS on campus. I've also put this in the permanent links to the right.

GO HERE

National Jewish groups oppose Maryland anti-boycott law

March 9, 2014 6:25am

WASHINGTON (JTA) – National Jewish organizations oppose a bill under consideration by Maryland legislators that would financially penalize any college involved in an academic boycott of another country.

The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League in statements have said that while they clearly do not support the American Studies Association’s call for a boycott of Israel, which occasioned this bill, they also do not support any attempt to stifle academic freedom.

There were two lengthy hearings in Annapolis on March 5 and March 6 on the bill, which would prohibit public universities from paying for its employees to attend conferences or use public funds in any way if they participated directly or indirectly in support of academic boycotts of countries that have a declaration of cooperation with Maryland. Israel has such a declaration.

The bill also would reduce state funding to the boycotting universities by three percent.

“Maryland’s proposed legislative action, which itself raises academic freedom questions, is not the answer to discriminatory acts against Israeli academics,” Alan Ronkin, the director of AJC’s Washington office, said in a March 5 statement.

Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/03/09/news-opinion/united-states/national-jewish-groups-oppose-maryland-anti-boycott-law#ixzz2vU7mf2ga

READ MORE

Submission: Divestment Promotes anti-Israeli Movement

Another great piece from UCLA and the DAILY BRUIN
This one was submitted earlier today, the 25th  BY AVINOAM BARAL, TAMMY RUBIN AND MIRIAM ESHAGHIAN

Here are some key hightlights: 

Omar Barghouti, founder of the BDS movement: “We oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.”

As’ad Abukhalil, a leading BDS activist: “The real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel.”

The official BDS platform demands a “right of return” to Israel for all descendants of Palestinian refugees, which, in the words of President Barack Obama, “would extinguish Israel as a Jewish state.”

As Jews, we see Israel as our home, a major part of our identity and a symbol of our liberation as a people. In returning to our ancestral lands, reestablishing Jewish independence and building a thriving democracy, our people overcame nearly two millennia of dispossession and oppression across Europe and the Middle East. Thus, our self-determination is not only a right enshrined in United Nations international law, but also a guarantee that grave historical injustices will not be repeated. And yet, under the guise of justice and human rights, BDS effectively seeks to violate our collective rights and negate our existence.

Read this excellent article and statement here:

Brandeis Senior Makes $5k Challenge to Apartheid Week Promoters Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/brandeis-senior-makes-5k-challenge-to-apartheid-week-promoters/2014/02/26/

By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus Published: February 26th, 2014

Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/brandeis-senior-makes-5k-challenge-to-apartheid-week-promoters/2014/02/26/

From the JEWISH PRESS.COM comes this great article about Joshua Nass. If you're a heavy consumer of Twitter News like I am then you are familiar with this story about Joshua, the senior at Brandeis who has his own non-profit, Voices of Conservative Youth. He's done well with this and appeared awhile ago on Fox Business where he was talking about the ASA Boycott,

"Nass was on air speaking about the decision of the American Studies Association to boycott Israeli academic institutions, and the response by (at that time, it’s now well more than doubled) more than 90 university presidents, who rejected the ASA’s boycott. Varney was incredulous that the boycott of Israel proponents had gotten a toehold onto the American college campuses. Nass explained that this effort was rooted in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, which had met with some success in Europe. “The BDS movement is rooted in intellectual dishonesty. They try portraying the Israelis as occupiers, there is no such thing as Israeli occupiers, there is no such thing as occupied territories, there is no such thing, in my opinion, as disputed territories,” Nass explained. Varney says, “Five thousand American academics voted to boycott Israel? It is absolutely incomprehensible, that the only democracy of any sort in the Middle East, the only one, and they are going to boycott it?” and Nass responds, nodding, “it is astounding.” The clip goes on a bit, with Nass ultimately ending the segment by calling on the universities to fire every academic who voted in favor of the boycott."

He assumed that segment was over until this past Sunday someone tweeted him and asked why he was "working for the other side"? Someone, still unknown, had edited him in to some promotional material for so-called Apartheid Week, using footage from that Fox Business Interview. 

Since then Nass has tweeted about asking to have him removed from the lying clip which makes him look as if he's a supporter along with Roger Waters, Fareed Zakaria, and Steven Hawkings. No one accepts responsibility. 

So today he has offered a challenge: 

I will donate $5000 of my personal money to a mutually agreed upon charity, if whomever edited me into the Apartheid Week promotional trailer does the following: 1. Reveals him or herself; 2. Removes my images from the trailer; 3. Issues a public letter of apology for using my likeness without my consent, and in a manner intended to misrepresent my actual beliefs; and 4. Agrees to debate me on the merits of the “Israel as Apartheid State” in a public forum of my choosing. So there is the challenge issued by a college senior to people who created a promotional video for the upcoming “Israel Apartheid Week” on American campuses. And for students or faculty who read this and who are on campuses where “Israeli Apartheid Week” events take place, remind them of the challenge. See if the people behind the anti-Israel hatefests have the courage of their convictions. If they don’t, ask them why not.

Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/brandeis-senior-makes-5k-challenge-to-apartheid-week-promoters/2014/02/26/2/

Read it and see it all here

ASA President-elect holding "secret" anti-Israel conference at NYU

See the ARTICLE HERE



If you're not busy this weekend, Lisa Duggan the President-elect of the American Studies Association, is holding a 'secret' anti-Israel conference, the agenda of which she published (above) on her Facebook page.

But the most curious part is that this conference is supposed to be asecret.... 

And for those of you - like me - who are solicited multiple times each year for donations to NYU, the university is apparently sponsoring this conference.

It is unclear whether this conference is officially sponsored by NYU itself. The registration webpage says all questions should go to NYU, implying that this is an official university event and not just part of the American Studies Program.

Keep that in mind the next time they ask you to whip out your checkbook.

BDS Returns to Campus — And it is Time to Fight Back

Brandeis Blog - February 11, 2014

BDS is back on American college campuses, especially on the West Coast — if indeed it ever left. For the last several months, public attention has been focused on successful boycott campaigns staged by anti-Israel groups at American academic associations such as the American Studies Association and the Asian American Studies Association.  Now the energy in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is returning to American college campuses.  Anti-Israel groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine, are preparing to mount massive BDS campaigns on campuses across the country, such as the University of California at Los Angeles.

Read Entire Article Here: