The fight over the academic boycott of Israel in the United States mostly is confined to professional associations in the Humanities and Social Sciences, where anti-Israel activist faculty have some ability to rig the system in their favor through control of key committees and programs.
Unlike in the real world at universities, the faculty who take control of professional organizations are not counterbalanced by the faculty as a whole, students, administrators, trustees, parents and alumni. Professional organizations are the perfect vehicle for anti-Israel activists for this reason.
The activists have the ability filter the debate and tailor the information provided to membership so as to provide a one-sided view.
That's what happened at the American Studies Association, which passed a boycott resolution but
refused to distribute to the membership materials
requested by the pro-Israel side. The resolution passed with less than 20% of the total membership voting for it, because of low overall participation. Since then the ASA has turned into a full-time boycott entity, with its executive board calling for a complete boycott of
Israel in all aspects, and an entire day of
boycott organizing scheduled alongside its Annual Meeting.
At the Modern Language Association debate last January on a resolution critical of supposed Israeli travel restrictions on academics, the panel discussion at the annual meeting was limited to anti-Israel activists. At the house of delegates, pro-Israel faculty did get a chance to argue against the resolution, and with that the resolution -- which had been expected to pass easily --
barely passed, and
only after the language was watered down. When put to the entire membership, the resolution
failed to gain the needed votes, and failed.
Rigging the debate appears to be happening now at American Anthropological Association for an upcoming debate, as Haaretz reports,
U.S. academics bemoan 'rigged’ fight in battle against BDS: