Palestinian Voices: Statements from Academics and Students in Palestinian Education

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 declaration that the boycott is against institutions, not individuals.  Anti-boycott arguments claim that all faculty in Israel-Palestine are tied to state institutions because Israeli universities operate under the aegis of the state.  However, academic boycott guidelines stipulate clearly that only individual scholars who openly identify themselves as representing the State who are, by dint of that identification, subject to the boycott. In making that identification, those scholars are in fact declaring their support of Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights.  The boycott is an act of non-violent resistance to a situation of global injustice.

A major document has been produced that provides vivid accounts of conditions faced by Palestinians: the voices of Palestinians.  Rather than focusing on the harms that might befall a Jewish Israeli scholar, this dossier of Palestinian accounts documents the actual, existing, and constantly repeated harms to Palestinian scholars—harms that go far beyond not being able to attend a conference. As one of the contributors reminds us, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights describes education to be “both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of realizing other human rights.” The Israeli occupation stands in the way of Palestinian rights to education, and it also stands in the way of other fundamental human  rights.

Download Palestinian Voices: mla-palestinian-voices

For over six decades, Palestinians have lived under Israel’s destructive military occupation, an occupation that the UN Security Council recently affirmed is a violation of international law. Whether by means of the inhumane checkpoints, the expansion of settlements, banning of equipment, imprisonments, or random clashes, the occupation undermine the fundamental educational efforts of Palestinian teachers, students, and  teaching facilities. The MLA academic boycott resolution seeks minimally to affirm the Palestinian right to education

As scholars of the humanities, it certainly behooves us to listen to these Palestinian voices carefully, and to honor their call for solidarity.

Unfamiliar Canada: What Canadian MLA Members Should Know about the BDS Movement

During its annual conference that will take place January 5-8 2017, the Modern Language Association will consider and engage in debate regarding two resolutions. One resolution calls for the MLA to endorse the boycott of Israeli academic institutions and support the work of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The other resolution asks that the MLA not boycott Israeli institutions. If either of the resolutions passes, the resolution will be voted on by the whole MLA membership in 2017.

Canadian members of the MLA may think that they do not need to be involved in the fight between pro and anti BDS groups, because Canada is not involved in support for Israel to the same extent that the United States is, and because the Canadian government and civil society does not take as a hard a line against BDS activism on university campuses and elsewhere.

Both assumptions are wrong.

UN Security Council Resolution 2334 Condemns Israel’s Illegal Settlements, Justifies Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions

On December 23, 2016, the UN Security Council passed UN Resolution 2334 condemning Israel’s illegal settlements, currently home to over 600,000 Jewish settlers.  The resolution is an affirmation of international law, and the first resolution the Security Council has adopted on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years. Although not legally binding, it is nonetheless important measure. UN 2334 works in tandem with grassroots organizing by the international community supporting the non-violent Palestinian-led call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions until Israel complies with international law—a movement MLA Members for Justice in Palestine seek to support with an academic boycott resolution that will be presented for a vote this January at the Delegate Assembly.

The resolution demanding a halt to “all Israeli settlement activities” was put forward at the 15-member council for a vote by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal. This happened a day after Egypt withdrew the resolution, under pressure from Israel and US president-elect Donald Trump, who called for the US to veto the measure. The resolution was adopted with 14 votes in favor, and an abstention from the United States. As reported in Al Jazeera, “The United States’ abstention was the biggest rebuke in recent history to long-standing ally Israel, allowing the Security Council to condemn its settlements and continuing construction in Palestinian territory as a ‘flagrant violation’ of international law.”

In Jadaliyya, Ardi Imseis offers an analysis of the resolution that outlines what it can and cannot do, and its potential importance. In this assessment, Imseis underlines ways the resolution complements the work of BDS: “[T]he resolution offers a first in calling “upon all States . . . to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.” This is important, for it affirms the Council’s view that third States should remain aware that their bilateral relations with Israel—political, civil, economic, social, cultural—cannot continue as usual. For far too long, Israel has been able to weather the occasional diplomatic and public relations fallout from its illegal and immoral policies in the OPT, knowing that this will result in little actual change in bilateral engagement with influential policymakers and business people in third States. This call by the Council therefore signals a shift with potential implications that can theoretically result in more robust legal, economic and political sanction of Israel abroad, including through measures encouraged by the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.”

Responses in Israel indicate the power and importance of the resolution. As reported in the Guardian, the move was immediately condemned as “shameful” by the office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.This article also includes responses from those critical of Netanyahu’s “diplomacy,” including columnist Chemi Shalev’s assessment that “Resolution 2334 shatters the [Israeli] government-induced illusion that the settlement project has been normalised, that it passed the point of no return, that it is now a fait accompli that will remain unchallenged.”

In an editorial in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, journalist Gideon Levy calls UN Resolution 2334  “a gust of good news, a breath of hope in the sea of darkness and despair of recent years.” Gideon also states, “Resolution 2334 is meant above all for Israeli ears, like an alarm clock that makes sure to wake you up on time, like a siren that tells you to go down to the bomb shelter.” This wake-up call, like the MLA Boycott resolution, offers a non-violent and powerful way to contest Israel’s human rights violations. As we enter a new year, the MLA Boycott resolution affords MLA members an opportunity to insist that Palestinians be afforded their human rights, including the right to education and academic freedom.

#MLABoycott17

Threat of Legal Action Against MLA

In this article recently published online by Mondoweiss, David Lloyd exposes the cynical politics of the Brandeis Center, which “has sent a letter to the Modern Language Association threatening a lawsuit if the Association passes the resolution to endorse the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.” Lloyd explains that threats of legal action against professional associations by supporters of Israel is a crass form of coercion that aims at intimidating academics and undermines the democratic processes of the associations. He also notes that these threats indicate the growing importance of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which has emerged as a crucial force within progressive politics in the current context. Lloyd concludes that “a [boycott] resolution that seeks to hold Israel accountable for its violations of Palestinian rights is all the more critical as Trump appoints openly Islamophobic, racist extremists to major positions in government.”

Palestine and the Boycott Resolution at MLA 2017

We are gearing up for the MLA 2017 Convention in Philadelphia and the debate on the resolution to endorse the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.  There are several sessions at which that resolution will be discussed, culminating in the Delegate Assembly’s annual meeting on Saturday, January 2017.  They are as follows:

53. “Association Presidents’ Perspectives on Boycott”
Thursday, 5 January, 1:45-3:00 p.m., Franklin 8, Philadelphia Marriott

116. Town Hall Meeting for MLA Members
Thursday, 5 January, 5:15–7:00 p.m., Grand Ballroom Salon E, Philadelphia Marriott

245. Open Hearing on Resolutions
Friday, 6 January, 10:15–11:30a.m., Grand Ballroom Salon D, Philadelphia Marriott

277.Open Hearing of the MLA Delegate Assembly
Friday, 6 January, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Grand Ballroom Salon D, Philadelphia Marriott

510. MLA Delegate Assembly
Saturday, 7 January, 11:00 a.m., Grand Ballroom Salon GH, Philadelphia Marriott

Please try to attend as many of these as you can and bring anyone who will join you: we want to create a sense of supportive buzz and swell prior to the Delegate Assembly (DA) meeting. The DA only allows delegates to vote on the resolution, but any member present can speak to the issue, and in other associations the presence of supportive members has proven to be very effective in encouraging a vote in favor of the resolution.

JOIN THE MLA or MAKE SURE YOU HAVE RENEWED BY JANUARY 4, 2017!
SHOW UP AT THE TOWN HALL AND SPEAK OUT!
MOST IMPORTANT: SHOW UP AT THE DELEGATE ASSEMBLY HEARING ON SATURDAY AND SPEAK OUT!

New Video: The MLA and the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions

The MLA and the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions https://vimeo.com/195907261

Check out the new MLA Members for Justice in Palestine video.

The MLA and the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions

The short documentary (7.5 minutes) makes the case for MLA members to vote in 2017 in support of a resolution to endorse the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Scholars call on the MLA to make a commitment to Palestinian rights to education and academic freedom. They emphasize the dire conditions of Palestinians living under Israeli rule.

The video includes interviews with numerous prominent literary scholars who support the boycott resolution. Gayatri Spivak, W.J.T.Mitchell, Bruce Robbins, Margaret Ferguson, Rosaura Sanchez, David Lloyd, Malini Schueller,  David Palumbo Liu, Jeffery Sacks, Koritha Mitchell, Kenneth Surin and Kamran Rastegar are among the scholars interviewed. The interviews were conducted at the 2016 MLA Convention in Austin, Texas.

The video ends with reminder that you must renew your MLA membership by January 7, 2017 to be eligible to vote on resolutions passed by the Delegate Assembly in 2017.  Support Palestinian rights to education!

Responding to the Call (to Endorse the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions)

Rebecca Comay and David Lloyd wrote the op ed piece below, explaining 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 institutions. Comay and Lloyd contextualize the coming Delegate Assembly vote on the resolution in terms of  US politics in general and the 2016 presidential election results. They write: “There is no doubt that Trump’s administration will give its fullest support to the nation whose worst aspects he has praised as a model for his own intended policies.” They conclude by emphasizing the established ethical principles that underwrite the MLA and the political reasons for MLA members to stand in solidarity with Palestinians. 

This January, the Modern Language Association will meet during the last days of the administration of President Barack Obama. In the early days of his presidency Obama recognized that “the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable,” while calling on them to pursue a non-violent path to peace and justice.  He will be replaced by Donald Trump, whose election has signaled a likely end to any US restraint on Israeli settlement expansion. One Israeli government minister has already proclaimed that Trump’s presidency confirms that “the era of a Palestinian state is over.”

Certainly, Trump’s campaign rhetoric was unrelentingly supportive not only of Israel’s right to exist, but also of its most racist and draconian policies, from racial profiling to the notorious apartheid wall.  There is no doubt that Trump’s administration will give its fullest support to the nation whose worst aspects he has praised as a model for his own intended policies.  The coming years promise to be even more difficult times for the Palestinian population living under brutal conditions of blockade and occupation, and for those Palestinian citizens of Israel who must negotiate a discriminatory state with its numerous laws that continue to disadvantage and dispossess them.

The boycott seeks to break the impasse that has been enabled by the ongoing reluctance of governments internationally to sanction Israel’s violations of law and human rights.  The immobility of the global political establishment can only be countered by a global civil society that responds to the Palestinian call and acts upon it.

Against the Yellowwashing of Israel

This essay by Candace Fujikane, an Associate Professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi, traces the circuits of yellowwashing narratives representing U.S. aid to Israel through the historical figure and substance of Inouye.  Through a critical analysis of such yellowwashing, the paper considers the articulations of the US settler state with the Israeli settler state and the ways they are mutually constitutive.  The yellowwashing of Israel opens up another dimension to these color washings: as Israel circulated the figure of Inouye, the substance of Inouye’s actions make evident the ways that US settler colonialism is constitutive of Inouye’s positionality as a Japanese American.  Fujikane then foregrounds what has been erased in these displacements: Palestinian political agency under deadly Israeli assault.  In contrast to the state-sponsored color washings of Israel, the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement has enabled broader alliances in an international movement to end Israeli apartheid.

Candace Fujikane is Associate Professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi.  She co-edited with Jonathan Okamura Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawaiʻi.  Her work has been published in the American Quarterly, Amerasia Journal, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Asian American Studies After Critical Mass and a special issue of Marvels and Tales entitled Rooted in Wonder: Tales of Indigenous Activism and Community Organizing.  She is currently working on her book manuscript Mapping Abundance: Indigenous and Critical Settler Cartography in Hawaiʻi.

She presented a version of this essay at the 2016 MLA conference in Austin, Texas on a panel entitled “Displaced Subjects: Asian American Studies and Palestine” with Lisa Lowe, Rajini Srikanth and Cathy Schlund-Vials. An expanded version of the paper is forthcoming in a collection edited by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials entitled Flashpoints for Asian American Studies.

Below are excerpts of the paper. Click this link to download a pdf of the paper: Yellowwashing

Excerpts

We can track the yellowwashing of Israel in the ways that the state of Israel and American Zionist lobbyists have produced and circulated a narrative of Israeli alliances with Asian Americans through the figure of U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye.  At the time of Inouye’s death in December 2012, former AIPAC president Robert Asher advised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel should act to honor Inouye’s memory (Solomon). In January of 2014, Israel announced that it would name its missile facility the Daniel K. Inouye Arrow Anti-Missile Defense Facility after the Hawaiʻi-based senator. (3)

Report on MLA Members’ Trip to the West Bank and Israel

Summary

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 also wanted to hear directly from Palestinian scholars and students about their thoughts on the academic boycott of Israeli institutions. They also met with a number of Jewish Israeli leftwing academics and activists to hear about the opportunities for change from within the regime.   In the course of their eight day trip the group met with undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and university administrators at six universities in the occupied West Bank —  Birzeit University in Ramallah, Bethlehem University, An-Najah University in Nablus, Palestinian Technical University–Kadoorie in Tulkarm, and Hebron University – as well as both Palestinian and Jewish academics and students from a number of Israeli universities.  The report includes a detailed account of how Palestinian education has been undermined by Israeli checkpoints, impediments to travel, obstacles to getting materials, raids on campuses, arrests, denial of entry to foreign faculty, and restrictions on research. It also addresses the complicity of Israeli academic institutions in the occupation and the unequal treatment of Palestinian faculty and students in Israel. The report presents the positions of Palestinians and Israelis on the academic movement, making a convincing case for an MLA resolution endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Included here are selected excerpts from the report. Click the link below to download a pdf of the complete 23 page report.

Download a pdf of the entire report: MLA Members’ Report on Palestine Trip

Palumbo-Liu’s Open Letter to MLA Members: Why Consider Palestine Now?

David Palumbo-Liu, the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University, recently posted the open letter below on the MLA Commons.  Palumbo-Liu is currently on the Executive Committee of the MLA. He is the founding editor of the e-journal, Occasion: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities and a Contributing Editor for The Los Angeles Review of Books. He writes for Truthout‘s Public Intellectual Project, and he has published in Salon, The Nation, AlterNet, The Guardian, and other venues. He founded and directs the Teaching Human Rights Collaboratory. 

Open Letter to MLA Members: Why Consider Palestine Now? Aren’t There More Important Things to Worry About?

November 30, 2016 David Palumbo-Liu Leave a comment

Open Letter to MLA Members

I write not as a member of the Executive Council but as an individual member of the MLA.  As you know, at our January meeting the Delegate Assembly will be voting on resolutions regarding Israel-Palestine. We have had some time now to hear the arguments from both sides. I will not rehearse those arguments but rather ask you to look carefully at the statements each group has made and their supporting documents. I wish to use this space to address a related issue—it is the question of whether or not the MLA, at this particularly dangerous moment in our nation’s history (and that of the world), should even address the issue of injustice in Israel-Palestine, especially as it regards academic freedom, the right to education, and larger issues of human rights.