1-2014 American Studies Association Joins Academic Boycott of Israel Mazin Qumsiyeh, Qumsiyeh: A Human Rights Web

http://qumsiyeh.org/americanstudiesassociation/
I am an academic living under Israeli brutal occupation and denied freedoms that are enjoyed by most people in the world.  I was arrested by Israeli authorities for simply participating in peaceful demonstrations expressing objections to Israeli apartheid policies.  Palestinian universities suffer from Israeli occupation policies including lack of freedom of movement and inability to get faculty and students from abroad (Israel regularly denies visas to them).   Dozens of military rules try to make education impossible including preventing import of basic educational material.  Gaza is even worse as its universities are under siege….Where is academic freedom when Israel bombed universities including the science faculty in Gaza? Where is freedom of speech when 7 million refugees, 60% of them under age 18 and some 20% are university-age, most of them denied ability to attend a university?  Israel even closed the two universities where I teach…for extended periods of time….

Israeli universities and the vast majority of Israeli academics are also directly complicit in colonization, occupation, and repression--details can be found here:
http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=2024

[By joining the academic boycott] the ASA joins a list of prestigious academic groups, civil society organizations, trade unions, and churches around the world that decided to act based on human rights. …  Just like in South Africa, engaging in Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions was pro-human (pro-black, pro-white, pro-colored…).  Our BDS call supported by the ASA and people of [conscience] around the world is no different.

Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

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