Submitted by faculty members in MLA-related fields at Israeli universities

This statement, at MLABoycott’s website, is presented anonymously by Israeli academics who support the boycott of Israeli universities.  The faculty are forced to sign anonymously because of a 2011 law passed by the Israeli parliament that prohibits support for BDS among I…[Read more]

Both Judith Butler and Ariella Azoulay have recently posted at MLABoycott’s site, articulating their rationale for supporting the boycott of Israeli academic institutions at this time.

Azoulay writes:

“The boycott targets the Israeli regime, not Israeli citizens, unless they act as representatives of the regime. What, then, is the position of…[Read more]

This open letter by Jeff Sacks, in response to Anthony Apia’s recent blog on the Commons, appeared in the online journal Jadaliyya: http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/25811/an-open-letter-to-kwame-anthony-appiah-president-o

Sacks writes:

With all of the talk about academic freedom, what is this “freedom” that we are talking about, if it is n…[Read more]

Hello everyone,

We hope you will join us for the following panels organized for the 2017 MLA by the Global Arab and Arab American Literature Forum. They are as follows (sorry for cross-posting)

Session 200: States of In/Security: Global Palestine in Literature, Culture, Art, and Activism<b>
</b>Friday, 6 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 104B, Pe…[Read more]

We have received the sad news that the great essayist and art critic John Berger died today, January 2, at age 90. He was a principled supporter of BDS.  In 2006 he wrote what is referred to as The Berger Letter, endorsing the cultural boycott of Israel institutions. It reads in part:

“As Nelson Mandela has pointed out, boycott is not a…[Read more]

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Objections to the MLA Boycott resolution uniformly focus on its supposed abridgement of academic freedom to individual scholars in the US or in Israel without any concern for the educational rights of Palestinians.  Purposefully obfuscating the case, critics of the boycott resolution brush past the resolution’s de…[Read more]

Jewish Studies scholar Daniel Boyarin has issued the following statement about academic boycott:

“I am on record, even on Israeli television, as a supporter of BDS and of a limited academic boycott as well. By limited boycott I mean that I do not countenance boycotts of individuals (Let he who is sinless cast the first stone) but of institutions…[Read more]

In a recent blog issues in his capacity as MLA President, Anthony Appiah addressed the current debate around justice and academic freedom for our Palestinian colleagues.

MLA Colleagues Bill Mullen, Jacques Lezra and Tim Reiss respond here:

Bill Mullen

As a supporter of the MLA resolution to boycott Israeli universities, I would like to make…[Read more]

The following extracts are from an in-depth report on Cary Nelson’s shifting and often inconsistent pronouncements on academic freedom and boycotts that appeared in Mondoweiss in 2014. It is gratifying to know that Nelson supports and participates in academic boycotts, if under conditions of his own choosing.

Boycotting universities for labor…[Read more]

The Brandeis Center, notorious these days for launching efforts to censor other people’s freedom of speech, has just threatened the MLA with a lawsuit if it passes the boycott resolution. For responses to this clumsy effort at intimidation, see David Lloyd at:

Threat of Legal Action Against MLA

and…[Read more]

<p>MLA Sessions in 2017 Related to BDS–please add to this list and check the first entry out out if you are coming to the Philadelphia MLA Convention! Early and important is Session 53, “Association Presidents’ Perspectives on Boycott,” with speakers from our sister organizations that have strenuously debated and voted in favor of supporting the…[Read more]

This report comes from our Palestinian colleagues at Birzeit University.

http://www.birzeit.edu/en/news/israeli-occupation-continues-strangle-palestines-education

In continuation of its barbaric aggression on our people and national institutions, the Israeli occupation forces stormed Birzeit University’s campus in the early morning hours of W…[Read more]

A new report by MLA members who traveled to Palestine this summer to explore conditions for Palestinian professors and students in universities and colleges is now available at: https://mlaboycott.wordpress.com/2016/12/06/report-on-mla-members-trip-to-the-west-bank-and-israel/

Additionally, there are a number of new items, including these…[Read more]

Rebecca Comay and David Lloyd explain the importance of the academic boycott resolution that they have submitted to the MLA for a vote at the Delegate Assembly when it meets on January 7 in Philadelphia. The op ed encourages MLA members to “respond to the call” of Palestinian civil society and endorse the boycott of Israeli academic inst…[Read more]

In June, 2016 a group of six MLA members traveled together to the West Bank and Israel to find out what it was like for Palestinian academics and students trying to study, teach, and research at universities in the occupied territories and within Israel itself.  In addition to learning about academic conditions under occupation,  the group al…[Read more]

” I urge all colleagues to endorse this reasonable and well formulated resolution and make clear their refusal to remain silent in the face of escalating brutality directed at a desperate population of civilians living under alien military occupation.” Ian Balfour

Check out the MLA Members for Justice in Palestine website for recent statements on…[Read more]

Even an opponent of boycotts agrees that:

“This is frivolous litigation designed for the sole purpose of getting the government to suppress the freedom of speech of a private organization. It should be condemned by everyone on all sides of the BDS issue, and anyone who believes in liberty….
This is a demand by conservatives for government…[Read more]

In recent months, Israel and its supporters have been ramping up their campaign to suppress BDS activism globally, having failed to prevent this non-violent civil society movement from disseminating information about Israel’s discriminatory regime, continuing acts of dispossession, and unrelenting violations of human rights and international law.…[Read more]