It would appear that the American Studies Association is striving to be more Catholic than the pope himself, so to speak.
The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has publicly rejected a boycott of Israel per se, while supporting a boycott of products made in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Yet a few days ago, the American Studies Association passed a non-binding resolution to boycott Israeli institutions of higher learning on the grounds that Israel is mistreating Palestinian Arabs, that Israeli universities and schools have been complicit in this pattern of mistreatment and that Arab citizens in Israel have been the victims of racial discrimination.
There are a disturbing elements of truth in all these claims.
As an occupying power in the West Bank, populated by more than two million Palestinian Arabs, Israel is denying the Palestinians basic rights, real freedom and the sovereign statehood they desire and deserve. As long as Israel occupies the West Bank, the Palestinians will protest, resist and resort to terrorism. Israel, in turn, will react, using all the means at its disposal to crush Palestinian resistance and terrorism.
It’s a vicious cycle that hasn’t changed since Israel captured the West Bank in the Six Day War in 1967. It’s why the Palestinians have staged two uprisings, in 1987 and again in 2000, and why they may yet launch a third rebellion. Of course, some Palestinian protesters are rejectionists whose ultimate goal is not a two-state solution but the destruction of Israel by any means possible.
It can safely be assumed that Israeli universities, from the Hebrew University to Tel Aviv University, all world-class institutions, have worked hand-in-glove with the state to devise tactics and strategies to administer and control the West Bank in the least costly way. It can also be assumed that Israeli scholars have at one time or another served as regular soldiers or reservists in the West Bank.
Israeli Arabs, the descendants of Palestinians who did not flee to neighboring countries during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, are de facto second-class citizens. Their lands have been expropriated. Arab municipalities, when compared to Jewish ones, do not receive proportionately equal funds from the government. Israeli Arabs comprise at least 20 percent of Israel’s population, yet fill less than two percent of civil servant positions. Israeli Arabs, too, face discrimination in the job and housing markets.
A substantial number of Israelis oppose and are fed up with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which isolates Israel in the region and the world, heightens regional tensions, coarsens Israeli society, demeans Israeli democracy and prevents a just political solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Thoughtful Israelis also realize that the status of Israeli Arabs is in dire need of improvement. If the Arab citizens of Israel do not receive fair and equal treatment, Israel will face a monumental national problem of its own making, a problem that may well tear asunder Israeli society.
The resolution passed by the American Studies Association, a facet of the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign aimed squarely at Israel, is grounded in hard, cold facts. But why was Israel singled out for special opprobrium? Why was Israel the first country to be boycotted by the American Studies Association?
These are questions that cry out for an honest answer as soon as possible.
It’s incumbent on the American Studies Association to fully explain why such paragons of authoritarianism as China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and North Korea have not been subjected to an academic boycott as well. In the main, these are totalitarian police states where free elections are a mirage, where freedom of expression and dissent is ruthlessly crushed and where the rule of law is brazenly flouted.
By sharp contrast, Israel is a genuine, if imperfect, democracy.
Why, then, has Israel been unfairly boycotted?
An academic boycott of Israel may have been justified had all countries with disagreeable and offensive policies and practices been boycotted. But this is not the case. The American Studies Association has singled out Israel for unique condemnation and exclusion. This is not only grossly unfair and unreasonable, but blatantly inconsistent, disengenuous and dishonest.
All nations should be treated equally. It’s a fundamentally democratic and decent principle that the American Studies Association has willfully and stupidly swept under the carpet.