[News] Palestinian, Arab American scholars back ASA’s Israel boycott, condemn “intimidation”

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Palestinian, Arab American scholars back ASA’s Israel boycott, condemn
  “intimidation”

Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 14:52
*http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinian-arab-american-scholars-back-asas-israel-boycott-condemn-intimidation*

The following sign-on statement from Palestinian and other Arab-American 
scholars and writers comes in the wake of the American Studies 
Association 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/american-studies-association> (ASA) 
vote 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/asa-membership-votes-boycott-israel-landslide> 
to endorse the academic boycott of Israeli institutions, and the 
backlash against it by anti-Palestinian groups.


    Statement of Support for the American Studies Association

    We, the undersigned Palestinian and other Arab-American scholars and
    writers as well as Arab scholars in the United States affirm our
    strong solidarity with the American Studies Association’s position
    in favor of the boycott of Israeli academic institutions

    We also condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the expressions of
    hate and intimidation to which ASA members are being subjected,
    tactics that are illegal or verge on illegality under US law.

    We express our heartfelt gratitude to the ASA – and to all other
    academic associations including the Association for Asian American
    Studies and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
    (NAISA)
    <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/native-american-and-indigenous-studies-association-naisa>
    – that have taken this principled and courageous stand despite the
    fierce backlash from organizations that support Israel’s atrocious
    and decades-old human rights record of military occupation and
    dispossession of the Palestinian people and their lands.

    We appreciate your recognition of the 2005 Palestinian Civil Society
    Call <http://www.bdsmovement.net/call> for Boycott, Divestment, and
    Sanctions (BDS) <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/bds> and its
    three rights-based demands as one for solidarity with the
    Palestinian people’s struggle for self-determination.

    We further express our appreciation of your recognition that BDS is
    a legitimate, non-violent tool of resistance by peoples enduring
    settler-colonialism, occupation, and apartheid. The effectiveness of
    this form of struggle was demonstrated during the South African
    struggle for freedom, justice and equality and is now being
    demonstrated by the Palestinian-led BDS movement, which represents
    all major political and civil society forces within and beyond
    Palestine.

    We welcome ASA’s stand as an affirmation of the decades of
    groundwork laid by earlier generations of Arab American scholars in
    the study of the impact of the US-Israeli alliance in the Middle
    East and the United States. For many years Arab American scholars as
    well as Arab scholars in the US have worked in isolation and those
    tackling this issue have faced a grueling combination of anti-Arab
    racism, Islamophobia, and various levels of censorship with little
    or no support from most professional organizations.

    By broadening the possibility for critical discussion and debate
    about the US, Palestine, and Israel, the ASA’s stand has created a
    new opening that will help to challenge the attack on academic
    freedom that Palestinian and Arab-American scholars and our allies
    encounter in the US.

    We strongly uphold the principles of free speech and association
    guaranteed in US jurisprudence and demand that the legal protections
    offered by these guarantees be extended to our colleagues in the ASA
    without delay.

    We urge all of our colleagues of whatever ethnicity to support the
    ASA by:

        * Becoming a member of the ASA and/or making a donation to the
          organization,
        * Encouraging your department to join the ASA.
        * Writing a letter of support to the ASA.

    Institutional affiliation for purposes of identification only.

    *Signed:*

        * Rabab Abdulhadi, Associate Professor, San Francisco State
          University
        * Lila Abu-Lughod, Columbia University.
        * Bashir Abu-Manneh, Visiting Assistant Prof., Brown University.
        * Ali Abunimah.
        * Samer Alatout, Associate Professor.
        * Evelyn Alsultany, University of Michigan.
        * Paul Amar, University of California Santa Barbara.
        * Sam Bahour, Co-editor, Homeland: Oral History of Palestine and
          Palestinians and political pundit at ePalestine.com
        * Riham Barghouti, Teacher, NYC and Founding Member, Adalah-NY
        * Moustafa Bayoumi, Associate Professor, Brooklyn College, City
          University of New York.
        * Hatem Bazian, University of California Berkeley and American
          Muslims for Palestine.
        * George Bisharat, Professor of Law, UC Hastings College of the
          Law.
        * Lara Deeb, Scripps College, Department of Anthropology
        * Noura Erakat, Freedman Fellow, Temple Law School
        * Samera Esmeir, Associate Professor, Department of Rhetoric,
          University of California Berkeley.
        * Leila Farsakh, Associate Professor, Department of Political
          Science, University of Massachusetts Boston.
        * Nadia Guessous, Rutgers.
        * Layla Azmi Goushey, doctoral student in Adult Education,
          Teaching and Learning Processes, University of Missouri;
          Assistant Professor of English, St. Louis Community College.
        * Bassam Haddad, Director, Middle East Studies Program,
          Associate Professor, Department of Public and International
          Affairs, George Mason University.
        * Toufic Haddad, senior teaching fellow, School of Oriental and
          African Studies.
        * Elaine Hagopian, Prof. Emerita of Sociology, Simmons College,
          Boston.
        * Lisa Hajjar, Professor of Sociology, University of California
          Santa Barbara.
        * Wael Hallaq, Columbia University.
        * Nadia Hijab, Co-Founder and Director, Al-Shabaka: The
          Palestinian Policy Network.
        * Amira Jarmakani, Georgia State University.
        * Rania Jawad, Assistant Professor, Birzeit University.
        * Suad Joseph, University of California, Davis
        * Nour Joudah, Institute for Palestine Studies.
        * Rhoda Kanaaneh, Visiting Researcher, Center for Palestine
          Studies, Columbia University.
        * Remi Kanazi, poet and writer.
        * Ahmed Kanna, University of the Pacific
        * Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies,
          Department of History, Columbia University
        * Lisa Majaj, Independent Scholar.
        * Saree Makdisi, professor of English, University of California
          Los Angeles.
        * Dr. John Makhoul.
        * Nadine Naber, Associate Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies,
          Asian American Studies, University of Illinois, Chicago.
        * Dena Qaddumi, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies;
          Policy Member, Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network.
        * Steven Salaita, Associate Professor, Virginia Tech.
        * Therese Saliba, Evergreen State College.
        * Aseel Sawalha, Department of Anthropology, Fordham University
        * Sherene Seikaly, Director, Middle East Studies Center, The
          American University in Cairo.
        * Julie M. Zito, PhD, Professor of Pharmacy and Psychiatry,
          University of Maryland, Baltimore.

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