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<h1 class="title" id="page-title">Palestinian, Arab American scholars
back ASA’s Israel boycott, condemn “intimidation”</h1>
<div class="submitted"> <span property="dc:date dc:created"
content="2014-01-08T14:52:56+00:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span class="username" xml:lang=""
about="/users/ali-abunimah" typeof="sioc:UserAccount"
property="foaf:name" datatype="">Ali Abunimah</span> on Wed,
01/08/2014 - 14:52<br>
<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinian-arab-american-scholars-back-asas-israel-boycott-condemn-intimidation">http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinian-arab-american-scholars-back-asas-israel-boycott-condemn-intimidation</a></small></small></small></b><br>
</span> </div>
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class="file file-image file-image-jpeg media-element file-full"
style="width: 618px;"><br>
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<p>The following sign-on statement from Palestinian and other
Arab-American scholars and writers comes in the wake of the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/american-studies-association">American
Studies Association</a> (ASA) <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/asa-membership-votes-boycott-israel-landslide">vote</a>
to endorse the academic boycott of Israeli institutions, and the
backlash against it by anti-Palestinian groups.</p>
<h2>Statement of Support for the American Studies Association</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>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</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>We express our heartfelt gratitude to the ASA – and to all other
academic associations including the Association for Asian American
Studies and the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/native-american-and-indigenous-studies-association-naisa">Native
American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA)</a> – 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.</p>
<p>We appreciate your recognition of the 2005 Palestinian Civil
Society <a href="http://www.bdsmovement.net/call">Call</a> for <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/bds">Boycott, Divestment, and
Sanctions (BDS)</a> and its three rights-based demands as one for
solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for
self-determination.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>We urge all of our colleagues of whatever ethnicity to support the
ASA by:</p>
<ul>
<li>Becoming a member of the ASA and/or making a donation to the
organization,</li>
<li>Encouraging your department to join the ASA.</li>
<li>Writing a letter of support to the ASA. </li>
</ul>
<p>Institutional affiliation for purposes of identification only.</p>
<p><strong>Signed:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Rabab Abdulhadi, Associate Professor, San Francisco State
University</li>
<li>Lila Abu-Lughod, Columbia University. </li>
<li>Bashir Abu-Manneh, Visiting Assistant Prof., Brown University. </li>
<li>Ali Abunimah. </li>
<li>Samer Alatout, Associate Professor. </li>
<li>Evelyn Alsultany, University of Michigan. </li>
<li>Paul Amar, University of California Santa Barbara. </li>
<li>Sam Bahour, Co-editor, Homeland: Oral History of Palestine and
Palestinians and political pundit at ePalestine.com </li>
<li>Riham Barghouti, Teacher, NYC and Founding Member, Adalah-NY </li>
<li>Moustafa Bayoumi, Associate Professor, Brooklyn College, City
University of New York. </li>
<li>Hatem Bazian, University of California Berkeley and American
Muslims for Palestine. </li>
<li>George Bisharat, Professor of Law, UC Hastings College of the
Law. </li>
<li>Lara Deeb, Scripps College, Department of Anthropology </li>
<li>Noura Erakat, Freedman Fellow, Temple Law School </li>
<li>Samera Esmeir, Associate Professor, Department of Rhetoric,
University of California Berkeley. </li>
<li>Leila Farsakh, Associate Professor, Department of Political
Science, University of Massachusetts Boston. </li>
<li>Nadia Guessous, Rutgers. </li>
<li>Layla Azmi Goushey, doctoral student in Adult Education,
Teaching and Learning Processes, University of Missouri; Assistant
Professor of English, St. Louis Community College. </li>
<li>Bassam Haddad, Director, Middle East Studies Program, Associate
Professor, Department of Public and International Affairs, George Mason
University. </li>
<li>Toufic Haddad, senior teaching fellow, School of Oriental and
African Studies. </li>
<li>Elaine Hagopian, Prof. Emerita of Sociology, Simmons College,
Boston. </li>
<li>Lisa Hajjar, Professor of Sociology, University of California
Santa Barbara. </li>
<li>Wael Hallaq, Columbia University. </li>
<li>Nadia Hijab, Co-Founder and Director, Al-Shabaka: The
Palestinian Policy Network. </li>
<li>Amira Jarmakani, Georgia State University. </li>
<li>Rania Jawad, Assistant Professor, Birzeit University. </li>
<li>Suad Joseph, University of California, Davis </li>
<li>Nour Joudah, Institute for Palestine Studies. </li>
<li>Rhoda Kanaaneh, Visiting Researcher, Center for Palestine
Studies, Columbia University. </li>
<li>Remi Kanazi, poet and writer. </li>
<li>Ahmed Kanna, University of the Pacific </li>
<li>Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies,
Department of History, Columbia University </li>
<li>Lisa Majaj, Independent Scholar. </li>
<li>Saree Makdisi, professor of English, University of California
Los Angeles. </li>
<li>Dr. John Makhoul. </li>
<li>Nadine Naber, Associate Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies,
Asian American Studies, University of Illinois, Chicago. </li>
<li>Dena Qaddumi, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies;
Policy Member, Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. </li>
<li>Steven Salaita, Associate Professor, Virginia Tech. </li>
<li>Therese Saliba, Evergreen State College. </li>
<li>Aseel Sawalha, Department of Anthropology, Fordham University </li>
<li>Sherene Seikaly, Director, Middle East Studies Center, The
American University in Cairo. </li>
<li>Julie M. Zito, PhD, Professor of Pharmacy and Psychiatry,
University of Maryland, Baltimore. </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
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