As I have told you, the efforts of some left-wing academics to demonize Israel never ends.
While you go about your business and pay attention to world events, they work tirelessly to ostracize Israel while ignoring both Israel’s security situation and the decades-long effort to destroy Israel.
Groups like those who sponsor the Pinkwashing conferences willingly join with the worst Islamist and other elements who stand against academic, social and civil freedoms.
But rarely has a U.S. academic group, unlike in Britain, even considered a boycott of Israeli universities and academics. We now have such a group, the Association for Asian American Studies.
While we all were watching the events in Boston and the aftermath, the AAAS quietly passed a resolution calling for a boycott of Israeli institutions and academics.
Via Times of Israel, For first time, US academic group boycotts Israel:
The Association for Asian American Studies decided to boycott Israeli academic institutions, reportedly becoming the first US academic institution to do so.
At its annual conference in Seattle last week, the group’s general membership unanimously voted in favor of a resolution that accuses Israeli universities of supporting the occupation and systematic discrimination against Palestinian students, among other charges.
“Whereas the Association for Asian American Studies seeks to foster scholarship that engages conditions of migration, displacement, colonialism, and racism, and the lives of people in zones of war and occupation… Be it resolved that the [AAAS] endorses and will honor the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions,” the resolution read.
Via Inside Higher Ed, the anti-Israeli activist professors managed to get the resolution passed with 10% of its membership voting:
About 10 percent of the association’s membership was present for last week’s secret ballot vote, which was open to all members and took place on the final day of the AAAS annual conference in Seattle….
The AAAS president, Mary Yu Danico, confirmed the resolution was approved and directed questions to the association’s past president, Rajini Srikanth, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Srikanth likened the academic boycott to that which was levied against South African universities to protest apartheid, and emphasized that the boycott is of institutions, not individual academics….
Britain’s main faculty union, the University College Union, has issued a series of resolutions over the years that fall just short of endorsing an academic boycott of Israel (see for example this 2008 resolution and this one from 2011). In April, the Teachers Union of Ireland became the first educational trade union in Europe to support an outright boycott, as The Jerusalem Post reported. However, the issue hasn’t gotten as much traction among academics on this side of the Atlantic, where boycotts are widely viewed as antithetical to academic freedom.
To understand just how extreme this action is, consider this via the Inside Higher Ed article:
The American Association of University Professors opposes academic boycotts, stipulating in a 2005 statement that “since its founding in 1915, the AAUP has been committed to preserving and advancing the free exchange of ideas among academics irrespective of governmental policies and however unpalatable those policies may be viewed. We reject proposals that curtail the freedom of teachers and researchers to engage in work with academic colleagues, and we reaffirm the paramount importance of the freest possible international movement of scholars and ideas.” (The AAUP further elaborated on that statement in regards to a then-proposed boycott of two Israeli universities here.)
Remember also how isolated these anti-Israeli academics are in American society, Good news — Israel-hating academics, leftists, Islamists, BDSers making no progress with American public opinion.
We have not heard the end of this. We’ll keep on it.
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Comments
What ten percent showed up? The “western Asians”?
Not being in academia, I don’t understand what is being “boycotted”. What does this involve, what are the repercussions, and why should anybody care, beyond noting that they have outed their antisemitism?
Because it’s becoming obvious that all this ostensible support of Muslims, all the decrying of “Islamophobia”, all the specious support for “Palestinians”, the pinkwashing and other nonsense, really is just the same-old, same-old: antisemitism, newly blessed and rendered publicly palatable under a recent PC variant of the false flag technique.
” Not being in academia, I don’t understand what is being “boycotted”. What does this involve, what are the repercussions, …. ”
I don’t want to mock your question but your name does give me some leeway to suggest “cutting edge technology to clean academia” in punny way.
Seriously, boycotting Israel’s institutions of higher learning cuts off any access to the latest thinking, which has proven to be so innovative, in various fields of science, agriculture, medicine, social communication etc.
It is a bit late to ask technologically advanced American corporations to stop their research at Israeli universities and pull out of the country.
But then what would The Association for Asian American Studies know about the development of algorithms to compact data so that the tiniest of radio transmitters possible are capable of sending those amazing pictures from Mars, developing the ubiquitous 8088 Intel processor used in IBM’s first PC.
As an Expat Singaporean of Chinese Vietnamese descent and whose family’s diaspora reached France, Australia and Cuba… Can anyone explain to me….WTF is ‘Asian American Studies’?!!
Is this the course that teaches young white lefties my culture’s ethic of thrift, hard work and individual responsibility?
Or is this where they learn how to order Dim Sum in Mandarin?
“WTF is ‘Asian American Studies’?!!”
I took one Asian American Studies class in college. I needed the units, and the time and days of the week it met fit my schedule perfectly. I thought it would be an easy “A” and it exceeded my wildest expectations … the Asian-American professor, who had a chip on her sholder the size of Tibet, looked unhappy when I finished the final exam in about 20 minutes. The class was a joke.
What did I learn? I learned Asian American Studies is basically a jobs program for left-wing Asian American grad students who don’t want to study anything too rigorous, but who want to voice their adolescent grievances about growing up non-white in a majority white America and all the imagined horrors that come with that.
The professor liked to tell anecdotes about racism she’d suffered … like how the parents of her white boyfriend didn’t totally accept her.
I wanted to say, “If I had a son and he brought home a whiny, prickly, sourpuss like you, I wouldn’t be too thrilled, either.”
As long as they can convince themselves and a significant number of others that there is a need, (racism, oppression yadda yadda) not only for a single class, but for an entire degree program, this jobs program enjoys good job security.
“… jobs program for left-wing Asian American grad students who don’t want to study anything too rigorous, …”
*** but who want to work in academia.
“preserving and advancing the free exchange of ideas among academics irrespective of governmental policies and however unpalatable those policies may be viewed”
I bet they’ve boycotted the pants off China for it’s foundation on the murder of millions and subjugation of a peaceful neighboring nation..right?
Could all of this anti-Semite, Jew hatred come from the head of the snake itself, Barry ‘I have to deal with him everyday’ Soetoro, Marshall Davis, Obama?
[…] The Muslim Boston Terror killers likely were not content with killing only in Boston. As expected: Tsarnaevs discussed bombing Times Square, sources say. The Boston Marathon first, New York’s [New York] Times Square next, and yet the poor put upon Muslim killers are “… angry that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion.” Are we supposed to blame Israel? […]
Would anyone expect an organization with a race based membership to be anything other than racist?
The ‘useful idiocy’ in this country has reached a high even the left probably never thought it could.
We need GOP leadership to counter this. It cannot be left solely to bloggers to overcome the democrat/government/media/union/education propaganda machine!
When will be collectively rise up and demand Boehner’s resignation at the second most powerful — yet most ineffective — man in Washington DC??
Who is AAAS? (Association for Asian American Studies)
The usual suspect. Check their website and you find their 2013 conference (who paid?) solicited papers on the topic THE AFTERLIFES OF EMPIRES. Guidelines include:
“The political urge and urgency to challenge the U.S. empire, most expressly in the movement against the Vietnam War, helped to define Asian American Studies in its founding. That urge, however, has perhaps faded over the past four decades, even as our current political moment demands that we comprehend and critique empire from and across multiple disciplines. How might we theorize or define empire in the twenty-first century? How have public policies, political and academic discourses, social practices, health services, research, teaching, and cultural productions made empire visible and invisible in the United States and beyond”?
Hmm. So Israel = evil empire??!!
Aaastudies.org home site has no substantive info re; officers, etc. instead shilling $24.95 for a class in Defensive Driving.
Acorn-type distraction. Veritas alert!!!
I think many fail to realize how dangerous “identity politics” really are.
The leftists, formerly known as democrats in this country, have always played the game. That is their entire electorate.
Classify citizens into subsets, called “demographics”, convince them that they are victims of each and every other demographic, feel their pain, and espouse how only they can make them whole.
In reality, it allows each group, each demographic, to carve themselves out from society as a whole, and view themselves as superior to the others.
Progressiveness…is a game of opposites.
Yes, so absurd, a lie so bold, no one would ever believe it.
Hmmmmmm…How, oh how, to say this: Scumbags, Moral Midgets, Human Phlegm, Sewage…
Aucturian: AMEN..! WTF works for me.
They weren’t good enough for membership in those esteemed groups (couldn’t reach the requirements). Hence, they started their own group.
Ohhhh, I like that. (-:
Q: How do you blind a member of the Association of Asian Studies?
A: Put a windshield in front of them.
All I know is if I’m fortunate enough to get to Heaven, I hope that there’s a plurality of Israilis as opposed to Palestinians…
I don’t care what people do or say – as long as they do or say it with their own damned money.
Get the government OUT of the education business completely, end all funding except whatever voucher value is issued to all parents for 1-12 education. All private and open competition, it would be amazing how quickly all this leftist academic nonsense disappears. They can only do it with taxpayer money with no strings attached. Cut it off.
Israeli boycott: so this is what the “COEXIST” bumper sticker really means.
AAAS is like the Pedernales River, an inch deep and a mile wide at the mouth!
Just a bunch of demonic hot air (dare I says fart)so now that the boycott is official when G-d of Israel smites them with the plagues of Alzheimer, rheumatoid arthritis, auto-immune diseases, ashtma, cancer will they boycott the amazing medical discoveries(made just last year in Israel by Israelis)and refuse treatment because it was developed by Israel? Even the Palestinians know that they get the best medical treatment from Israel.
Read how G-d is blessing Israel to be a blessing:
http://israel21c.org/culture/israel21cs-top-10-stories-of-2012/
“…Already famous for their technological innovations, Israeli companies brought dozens of groundbreaking new technologies to market, from inventive mobile apps to cardboard bikes, invisible keyboards and technology that can protect our runways.
Israeli physicians and researchers were just as hard at work, making significant breakthroughs in cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, infertility, viruses and asthma.
From prizes in medicine and science, to awards for developments in the fields of world hunger, solar energy, desertification and water reclamation, Israeli entrepreneurs gained worldwide recognition.
Israel was also there to help in the wake of global disasters, from Haiti to Kenya, Ghana to Japan. When Hurricane Sandy devastated the US east coast, Israelis were among the few foreigners to send aid…”
Baruk Hashem Israel is forever!