American Anthropological Association votes for boycott

Professional associations have responded cautiously to the Palestinian call for boycott against Israel, despite thorough investigations by major human rights associations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s own B’Tselem which concluded that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians under its control amounts to apartheid. Perhaps this is mainly due to fear of dividing their membership, to the fierce resistance of a minority of members whose sympathies lie with Israel, or for some other reason. But at any rate the trend now seems to be clear. In December 2013 the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) braved the predictable onslaught of antisemitism charges by declaring its support for boycott. In the next few years attempted acts of solidarity by the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the American Anthropological Association (AAA) proved premature; the AAA’s resolution on boycott being defeated by a mere 38 votes. But in June 2019 the British Society for the Study of the Middle East (BRISMES) voted overwhelmingly to support BDS. In March 2022 the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the American-based organisation with a large international membership, adopted a similar resolution. And just this month the American Anthropological Association, undertook a second survey of its over 10,000 members, and this time voted decisively to boycott Israeli institutions. We don’t know which professional associations will be next, but that there will be others now seems almost certain.

The AAA’s resolution is published below, followed by an explanatory statement. The original of the resolution can be accessed here, and the explanatory statement here.

REFERENDUM ON A PROPOSED RESOLUTION TO BOYCOTT ISRAELI ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS

March 2023

Whereas, in 2005, 175 Palestinian civil society organizations, including the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE), issued a call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli state, in support of the Palestinian struggle for human and political rights, including the basic right of freedom;

Whereas, the Israeli state operates an apartheid regime from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, including the internationally recognized state of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, and the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the 1998 Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court (ICC) define apartheid as a crime against humanity. (See also, and further links below).

Whereas, Israeli academic institutions are complicit in the Israeli state’s regime of oppression against Palestinians (and see also and also), including by providing research and development of military and surveillance technologies used against Palestinians;

Whereas, Israeli academic institutions do not provide protections for academic freedom, campus speech in support of Palestinian human and political rights, nor for the freedom of association of Palestinian students on their campuses;

Whereas, Israeli academic institutions have failed to support the right to education and academic freedom at Palestinian universities, obstructing Palestinian academic exchanges with academic institutions in the US and elsewhere;

Whereas, in 2018, the Israeli government enshrined the principle of Jewish supremacy in a law stating unequivocally that “the right to exercise national self-determination” in Israel is “unique to the Jewish people” and that “Jewish settlement is a national value,” mandating that the state “will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development,” thus further codifying the second-class status of Palestinians within Israel and normalizing the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank;

Whereas, from the onset of the Nakba, the catastrophic events of 1948 that led to the mass expulsion and displacement of Palestinians from their homes, Palestinians—including activists, artists, intellectuals, human rights organizations, and others—have documented and circulated knowledge of the Israeli state’s apartheid system and ethnic cleansing;

Whereas, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories have confirmed that Israeli authorities are committing apartheid against the Palestinian people, and have documented the institutionalisation of systematic racial oppression and discrimination, which has been established to maintain the domination of one racial-national-ethnic group over another. These reports corroborate Palestinian knowledge of the Israeli state’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians;

Whereas, the United States funds, arms, defends, and otherwise plays a decisive role in enabling and sustaining the Israel state’s apartheid regime (and see also and also), including the Israeli state’s military occupation of the West Bank, its building and expansion of settlements throughout the West Bank, which international law defines as illegal, and its ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip;

Whereas, U.S. academic institutions facilitate the complicity and normalization of Israeli apartheid by engaging in academic exchanges with Israeli universities, and otherwise maintaining close, extensive and privileged ties with Israeli universities;

Whereas, the Middle East Studies Association, the leading learned society concerned with the region, has extensively debated an academic boycott resolution and passed it, with a super-majority of 80% of its voting members supporting the resolution, indicating a broad scholarly consensus of area experts on this matter;

And whereas, the AAA is a leading U.S.-based learned society;

And, Anthropological frameworks and methods, ethnographic and archaeological, are actively used by the Israeli state to further its system of apartheid and ethnic cleansing;

And, the AAA’s Statement of Purpose affirms a commitment both to “take action on behalf of the entire profession” and to “promote the… constant improvement of professional standards in anthropology;”

And, the AAA’s 1999 Declaration on Anthropology and Human Rights states, “Anthropology as a profession is committed to the promotion and protection of the right of people and peoples everywhere to the full realization of their humanity” and “the AAA has an ethical responsibility to protest and oppose… deprivation;”

And, the discipline of anthropology, as the study of humanity, bears a distinct and urgent responsibility to stand against all forms of racism and racist practices;

And, members of the AAA have organized various forums, over many years, for discussion and debate of Palestinian civil society’s call for BDS against the Israeli state, in full embrace of the AAA’s deep commitment to academic freedom and open debate;

Now therefore,

Be it resolved that the AAA as an Association endorses and will honor this call to boycott Israeli academic institutions until such time as these institutions end their complicity in violating Palestinian rights as stipulated in international law; and

Be it further resolved that the AAA leadership, in accord with the governance procedures of the Association’s bylaws, is charged with implementing this boycott and determining how to do so with reference to the Association’s own mission; and

Be it further resolved that this boycott pertains to Israeli academic institutions only and not to individual scholars, and also that individual anthropologists who are members of the AAA are free to determine whether and how they will apply the boycott in their own professional practice; and

Be it further resolved that in implementing this boycott, the AAA will support the rights of all students and scholars everywhere to engage in research and public speaking about Palestine and Israel and in support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

Explanatory Statement

AAA Membership Endorses Academic Boycott Resolution