Against Apartheid: The Case for Boycotting Israeli Universities

Description

Focusing on the complicity of Israeli universities in maintaining the occupation of Palestine, and on the repression of academic and political freedom for Palestinians, Against Apartheid powerfully explains why scholars and students throughout the world should refuse to do business with Israeli institutions. This rich collection of essays is a handbook for scholars and activists.

Ashley Dawson is a professor of English at CUNY's Graduate Center and at the College of Staten Island/CUNY. He is also the former editor of the AAUP's Journal of Academic Freedom. Bill V. Mullen is a professor of American Studies at Purdue University and a member of the advisory board of USACBI (United States Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel).

"This book is a tour de force: a must read that belongs on the nightstand of every decent human being on this earth concerned with peace and justice. Superbly edited, it brings together the most powerful and cogent cases ever made for BDS: the now widely global, non-violent civil disobedience that Palestinians and their supporters have launched against the vicious monstrosity of Zionist theft of their homeland. BDS is the civilized people's response to the barbarity of Israeli colonial occupation of Palestine and Against Apartheid provides a relentlessly persuasive body of brilliant scholarship to prove the point. Do not miss it!" Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in the City of New York "Voices resound through this book with the reasoned argument that Israeli apartheid must be ended - and the way for intellectuals and artists to participate in this struggle is to boycott Israeli institutions that participate in and benefit from the occupation of Palestinian lands. This is an intellectual guidebook for the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) movement." Vijay Prashad, editor, Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War and Occupation "A specter is haunting Israel the specter of a new anti-apartheid movement, working to end occupation, home demolitions, illegal settlements, detentions, relentless state violence, and the complicity of its most respected institutions in the brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people. Against Apartheid is its text, its manifesto. It is at once a powerful indictment of Israeli apartheid and the university's role in designing, maintaining, and protecting the system, and an inspiring history of how Palestinian activists, artists, and intellectuals turned a global appeal into a global movement." Robin D. G. Kelley, Gary B. Nash Professor of U.S. History at UCLA "The explosive growth of the BDS movement on US campuses has been one of the sparks that is firing the critical exit of business from Israel's illegal West Bank settlements, and it owes much of its weight to many of the writers of this book. There is already a sea change in attitudes around the world to Israel's decades long record of impunity for the violent dispossession of Palestinians, the assassinations of their leaders, the deaths of their children, the theft of their land and water, the denial of dignity and hope in their shameful refugee camps across the region. Key to this book's intervention is its demonstration of the silent complicity between Israeli universities and the military establishment. This alone is enough to force a rethink for those who still think boycotting Israeli universities is an issue of freedom of speech." Victoria Brittain, author, Shadow Lives: The Forgotten Women of the War on Terror "This book is a tour de force: a must read that belongs on the nightstand of every decent human being on this earth concerned with peace and justice. Superbly edited, it brings together the most powerful and cogent cases ever made for BDS: the now widely global, non-violent civil disobedience that Palestinians and their supporters have launched against the vicious monstrosity of Zionist theft of their homeland. BDS is the civilized people's response to the barbarity of Israeli colonial occupation of Palestine and Against Apartheid provides a relentlessly persuasive body of brilliant scholarship to prove the point. Do not miss it!" -Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in the City of New York "Voices resound through this book with the reasoned argument that Israeli apartheid must be ended - and the way for intellectuals and artists to participate in this struggle is to boycott Israeli institutions that participate in and benefit from the occupation of Palestinian lands. This is an intellectual guidebook for the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) movement." -Vijay Prashad, editor, Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War and Occupation "A specter is haunting Israel-the specter of a new anti-apartheid movement, working to end occupation, home demolitions, illegal settlements, detentions, relentless state violence, and the complicity of its most respected institutions in the brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people. Against Apartheid is its text, its manifesto. It is at once a powerful indictment of Israeli apartheid and the university's role in designing, maintaining, and protecting the system, and an inspiring history of how Palestinian activists, artists, and intellectuals turned a global appeal into a global movement." -Robin D. G. Kelley, Gary B. Nash Professor of U.S. History at UCLA "The explosive growth of the BDS movement on US campuses has been one of the sparks that is firing the critical exit of business from Israel's illegal West Bank settlements, and it owes much of its weight to many of the writers of this book. There is already a sea change in attitudes around the world to Israel's decades long record of impunity for the violent dispossession of Palestinians, the assassinations of their leaders, the deaths of their children, the theft of their land and water, the denial of dignity and hope in their shameful refugee camps across the region. Key to this book's intervention is its demonstration of the silent complicity between Israeli universities and the military establishment. This alone is enough to force a rethink for those who still think boycotting Israeli universities is an issue of freedom of speech." -Victoria Brittain, author, Shadow Lives: The Forgotten Women of the War on Terror