New Article: Felson and Silk, National Affairs

Felson, Ethan, Mark Silk. “National Affairs.” American Jewish Year Book 115 (2015):89-106.

 

URL: dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24505-8_3

 

Abstract

This chapter details the major events of the past year, international and domestic, and how they impacted the American Jewish community. Tensions between the Israeli prime minister and the American president, the threat of a nuclear Iran, a war in Gaza, rising Islamic radicalism, and the growth of the boycott, divestment and sanction movement consumed the attention of much of the organized Jewish community. Closer to home, racial unrest in several major cities roiled during the year – and the country awaited a Supreme Court decision requiring recognition of same sex marriage nationwide, a move that liberal Jews sought but which raised concerns among more traditional Jews, particularly those who might be called upon to recognize such unions in their businesses and communities.

 

 

New Article: Koren et al, Jewish Life on Campus

Koren, Annette, Leonard Saxe, and Eric Fleisch. “Jewish Life on Campus: From Backwater to Battleground.” American Jewish Year Book 115 (2015):45-88.

 

URL: dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24505-8_2

 

Abstract

The past two decades have witnessed a dramatic shift in the extent and focus of concerns about Jewish life on campus. The Jewish community is increasingly occupied with the education of the next generation and the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment on campus. Outreach to Jewish students—from the expansion of Hillel and Chabad to the flourishing of Birthright Israel, as well as the growth of Jewish and Israel Studies—have engaged formerly uninvolved students with Jewish education and Jewish life. This article describes the situation on campus: the proportion of Jewish students, Israel-related activity, and perceptions of anti-Semitism. It discusses academic programs such as Jewish and Israel Studies and informal programs, such as Hillel and Chabad, that engage students in Jewish life. It also describes organizations and programs, both experiential and advocacy-oriented, that help students identify and combat attempts to delegitimize Israel and intimidate Jewish expression.

 

 

ToC: Israel Affairs 22.1 (2016)

Israel Affairs, Volume 22, Issue 1, January 2016 is now available online on Taylor & Francis Online. This new issue contains the following articles: Articles Sixty-two years of national insurance in Israel Abraham Doron Pages: 1-19 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111632 Rethinking reverence for Stalinism in the kibbutz movement Reuven Shapira Pages: 20-44 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111640 Making war, thinking history: David Ben-Gurion, analogical reasoning and the Suez Crisis Ilai Z. Saltzman Pages: 45-68 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111638   Military power and foreign policy inaction: Israel, 1967‒1973 Moshe Gat Pages: 69-95 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111636 Arab army vs. a Jewish kibbutz: the battle for Mishmar Ha’emek, April 1948 Amiram Ezov Pages: 96-125 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111633 Lip-service to service: the Knesset debates over civic national service in Israel, 1977–2007 Etta Bick Pages: 126-149 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111630 State‒diaspora relations and bureaucratic politics: the Lavon and Pollard affairs Yitzhak Mualem Pages: 150-171 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111637 Developing Jaffa’s port, 1920‒1936 Tamir Goren Pages: 172-188 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111634 University, community, identity: Ben-Gurion University and the city of Beersheba – a political cultural analysis Yitzhak Dahan Pages: 189-210 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111631 The Palestinian/Arab Strategy to Take Over Campuses in the West – Preliminary Findings Ron Schleifer Pages: 211-235 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111639 Identity of immigrants – between majority perceptions and self-definition Sibylle Heilbrunn, Anastasia Gorodzeisky & Anya Glikman Pages: 236-247 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1111635 Book Reviews Jabotinsky: a life David Rodman Pages: 248-249 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.112095 Ethos clash in Israeli society David Rodman Pages: 250-251 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1120967 Nazis, Islamists and the making of the modern Middle East David Rodman Pages: 252-254 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1120968 The new American Zionism David Rodman Pages: 255-257 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1120969 Rise and decline of civilizations: lessons for the Jewish people David Rodman Pages: 258-259 | DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2016.1120970

New Article: McCarthy, Academic Freedom and the Boycott of Israeli Universities

McCarthy, Conor. “Academic Freedom and the Boycott of Israeli Universities: On the Necessity of Angry Knowledge.” College Literature 43.1 (2016): 264-74.

ְְ

URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/college_literature/v043/43.1.mccarthy.html

 

Extract

I should begin this essay by declaring my own background in the discussion. I am a long-time activist in Palestine solidarity, having been a founding member of both the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign in 2001 and of Academics for Palestine, an Irish group working for the academic boycott, in 2014. I have moved from a position of doubt and unease in regard to the academic boycott to one of commitment to it.

What is the history or background of the boycott movement? It is a subset of the wider campaign for “BDS” or “boycott, divestment and sanctions”—that is, in favor of boycotting Israeli institutions, divesting from Israeli companies, and sanctioning the state until it ceases the Occupation, accepts its obligations to the Palestinian people, and acknowledges its responsibilities vis-à-vis the refugees of 1948 and 1967.

Various ineffective and controversial attempts were made in the United Kingdom as far back as 2002 to instigate boycott of Israeli scholars or institutions. However, the modern BDS campaign has its origin in the call issued in 2005 by a wide array of organizations in Palestinian civil society. The broader context of the call was the collapse of the Oslo peace process of the 1990s and the second intifada, which began in September 2000. The recognition of Oslo’s flaws, and the awareness that these flaws stemmed in part from the corruption and failure of the Palestinian leadership (embodied in such senior figures in Fatah as Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas), was matched by the realization that violent action by guerrilla groups, secular or Islamist, was neither militarily effective nor politically sustainable in the face of Israeli civilian casualties. More specifically, the BDS call was deliberately issued exactly a year after the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on the West Bank Wall, or “separation barrier.” The Advisory Opinion placed obligations on the governments of third countries, but as soon as it became apparent that these governments were not going to take any action regarding the wall, the necessity of civil society action was clear.

In other words, the BDS campaign derives from the realization that politics traditionally conceived had failed Palestinian society and indeed— insofar as the Oslo process installed security apparatuses while not adding to the security of the Palestinian population, and insofar as it did not prevent the expansion of settlement activity and other iniquitous elements of the Occupation—that the “peace process” was actually functioning (as it does to this day) as a fig leaf for further Israeli conquest.

 

 

 

New Book: Rosenfeld, Deciphering the New Antisemitism

Rosenfeld, Alvin H., ed. Deciphering the New Antisemitism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015.

Deciphering the New Antisemitism addresses the increasing prevalence of antisemitism on a global scale. Antisemitism takes on various forms in all parts of the world, and the essays in this wide-ranging volume deal with many of them: European antisemitism, antisemitism and Islamophobia, antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and efforts to demonize and delegitimize Israel. Contributors are an international group of scholars who clarify the cultural, intellectual, political, and religious conditions that give rise to antisemitic words and deeds. These landmark essays are noteworthy for their timeliness and ability to grapple effectively with the serious issues at hand.

 

Table of Contents

Introduction Alvin H. Rosenfeld

Part I. Defining and Assessing Antisemitism
1. Antisemitism and Islamophobia: The Inversion of the Debt – Pascal Bruckner
2. The Ideology of the New Antisemitism – Kenneth L. Marcus
3. A Framework for Assessing Antisemitism: Three Case Studies (Dieudonné, Erdoğan, and Hamas) – Günther Jikeli
4. Virtuous Antisemitism – Elhanan Yakira

Part II. Intellectual and Ideological Contexts
5. Historicizing the Transhistorical: Apostasy and the Dialectic of Jew-Hatred – Doron Ben-Atar
6. Literary Theory and the Delegitimization of Israel – Jean Axelrad Cahan
7. Good News from France: There Is No New Antisemitism – Bruno Chaouat
8. Anti-Zionism and the Anarchist Tradition – Eirik Eiglad
9. Antisemitism and the Radical Catholic Traditionalist Movement – Mark Weitzman

Part III. Holocaust Denial, Evasion, Minimization
10. The Uniqueness Debate Revisited – Bernard Harrison
11. Denial, Evasion, and Anti-Historical Antisemitism: The Continuing Assault on Memory – David Patterson
12. Generational Changes in the Holocaust Denial Movement in the United States – Aryeh Tuchman

Part IV. Regional Manifestations
13. From Occupation to Occupy: Antisemitism and the Contemporary Left in the United States – Sina Arnold
14. The EU’s Responses to Contemporary Antisemitism: A Shell Game – R. Amy Elman
15. Anti-Israeli Boycotts: European and International Human Rights Law Perspectives – Aleksandra Gliszczynska-Grabias
16. Delegitimizing Israel in Germany and Austria: Past Politics, the Iranian Threat, and Post-national Anti-Zionism – Stephan Grigat
17. Antisemitism and Antiurbanism, Past and Present: Empirical and Theoretical Approaches – Bodo Kahmann
18. Tehran’s Efforts to Mobilize Antisemitism: The Global Impact – Matthias Küntzel

List of Contributors
Index

ALVIN H. ROSENFELD holds the Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and is Professor of English and Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University Bloomington. He is editor of Resurgent Antisemitism: Global Perspectives (IUP, 2013) and author of The End of the Holocaust (IUP, 2011), among other books.

 

New Article: Palumbo-Liu, Not so Much Anti-Boycott as Pro-Israel

Palumbo-Liu, David. “Not so Much Anti-Boycott as Pro-Israel.” symploke 23.1-2 (2015): 425-57. [Review essay of Cary Nelson and Gabriel Noah Brahm, eds. The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel (Chicago: MLA Members for Scholars Rights, 2015)].

 
URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/symploke/v023/23.1-2.palumbo-liu.html
 
Extract

Nelson-Brahm’s attack on the boycott stems largely from their characterization of it as anti-Semitic and anti-academic freedom. They feel that the boycott is therefore excessive, especially in the light of what they claim is a much better situation in Israel-Palestine than we imagine, one which must be preserved. They feel that the cost of a boycott includes disrupting a delicate and meaningful relation between Israeli and American academics. But most important is their belief that the boycott aims for the destruction of the State of Israel, and that, above all, warrants a condemnation of the boycott.

Conversely, I will argue, first, that the anti-Semitic charge is weak, even by the authors’ own standards; second, that their advocacy of academic freedom is inconsistent and serves mostly as a pretext to fend off criticism of Israel; third, that their claims regarding the situation of academics in Israel and the Occupied Territories is contradicted by the facts of the present day. I argue that their implacable defense of Israel as a Jewish supremacist state is at the heart of this volume, and that the issues of the boycott’s supposed anti-Semitism and denial of academic freedom are at best ancillary.

The absolute commitment of these authors to the preservation of that specific vision of a Jewish state accounts for their inability to see beyond that aim. They are profoundly unconcerned with precisely what the academic boycott of Israel seeks to help achieve—equal rights for Palestinians. Not only are they unconcerned with those rights, so long as they feel that those rights might lead to the “destruction” of the state of Israel, they are emphatically opposed to them.

 

 

 

Toc: Conflict, Security & Development 15.5 (2015): Special Issue on Israel-Palestine after Oslo

Conflict, Security & Development 15.5 (2015)

Table of Contents

Israel-Palestine after Oslo: mapping transformations and alternatives in a time of deepening crisis

Mandy Turner & Cherine Hussein
pages 415-424

Articles

After Oslo, a paradigm shift? Redefining ‘peoples’, sovereignty and justice in Israel-Palestine

Virginia Tilley
pages 425-453

 

Analysis

The symbiosis between Palestinian ‘Fayyadism’ and Israeli ‘economic peace’: the political economy of capitalist peace in the context of colonisation

Tariq Dana
pages 455-477

Securitised development and Palestinian authoritarianism under Fayyadism

Alaa Tartir
pages 479-502

 

Articles

The demise of Oslo and Hamas’s political engagement

Tareq Baconi
pages 503-520

 

The single-state alternative in Palestine/Israel

Cherine Hussein
pages 521-547

 

Creating a counterhegemonic praxis: Jewish-Israeli activists and the challenge to Zionism
Mandy Turner
pages 549-574

Analysis

Organising the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement: the case of the ‘We Divest’ campaign

Suzanne Morrison
pages 575-593

 

ToC: American Quarterly 67.4 (2015): special issue on Palestine and American Studies

Forum

Introduction: Shifting Geographies of Knowledge and Power: Palestine and American Studies

pp. 993-1006

Rabab Abdulhadi, Dana M. Olwan

Solidarity with Palestine from Diné Bikéyah

pp. 1007-1015

Melanie K. Yazzie

Black–Palestinian Solidarity in the Ferguson–Gaza Era

pp. 1017-1026

Kristian Davis Bailey

Taking Risks, or The Question of Palestine Solidarity and Asian American Studies

pp. 1027-1037

Junaid Rana, Diane C. Fujino

Borders Are Obsolete: Relations beyond the “Borderlands” of Palestine and US–Mexico

pp. 1039-1046

Leslie Quintanilla, Jennifer Mogannam

Labor for Palestine: Challenging US Labor Zionism

pp. 1047-1055

Michael Letwin, Suzanne Adely, Jaime Veve

The Islamophobia Industry and the Demonization of Palestine: Implications for American Studies

pp. 1057-1066

Hatem Bazian

Zionism and Anti-Zionism: A Necessary Detour, Not a Final Destination

pp. 1067-1073

Keith P. Feldman

Throwing Stones in Glass Houses: The ASA and the Road to Academic Boycott

pp. 1075-1083

Bill V. Mullen

New Article: Harlow, Referenda on Recent Scholarship in the Israel–Palestine Conflict

Harlow, Barbara. “‘Be it Resolved …’: Referenda on Recent Scholarship in the Israel–Palestine Conflict.” Cultural Critique 91 (2015): 190-205.

 

URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cultural_critique/v091/91.harlow.html

 

Extract

Be it resolved that the MLA urge the United States Department of State to contest Israel’s denials of entry to the West Bank by United States academics who have been invited to teach, confer, or do research at Palestinian universities.

—MLA Resolution 2014-1

 

Resolution 2014-1 of the Modern Language Association (MLA), calling for relief from Israel’s rigidly discriminatory restrictions on the “right to entry” for U.S. academics into Israel and its occupied Palestinian territories, following contentious debate in the weeks preceding, was passed by the organization’s Delegate Assembly at its annual meeting in January 2014. Six months later, in June, the resolution was ultimately not ratified in a referendum put, according to MLA procedure, to the full membership of the influential academic association representing faculty and students involved nationally and internationally in modern language studies. While differing significantly from the even more vociferously debated resolutions passed by related organizations in the previous year (2013) that called for a full academic boycott of Israeli institutions of higher education on the grounds of their complicity—both direct and indirect—in Israel’s “apartheid” policies of occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza and systemic discrimination against Israeli Arabs, the MLA resolution on the “right to entry” nonetheless engaged the same pressing questions of academic freedom and the legitimacy—and legality—of boycott as a political tactic in the popular struggle against colonialism, both neo- and settler, and on behalf of international human rights. Unlike the boycott resolutions of the Association for Asian American Studies, the American Studies Association and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, the MLA resolution had focused most specifically on a right to movement—the right, that is, of academics to travel to destinations in Israeli-occupied Palestine for the purposes of teaching, conferring, and/or conducting research in collaboration with Palestinian and other international colleagues. Such purposes necessarily entailed, however, other rights—such as the civil and political rights to freedom of expression and of association as well as the economic and social right to education, all enshrined in international rights covenants—and their recognition, as well as an acknowledgement of their abridgement under Israeli law for Palestinians and their supporters.

 

 

New Article: Yazbak-Abu Ahmad et al, Intergroup Dialogue as a Just Dialogue

Yazbak-Abu Ahmad, Manal, Adrienne B. Dessel, Alice Mishkin, Noor Ali, and Hind Oma. “Intergroup Dialogue as a Just Dialogue: Challenging and Preventing Normalization in Campus Dialogues.” Digest of Middle East Studies 24.2 (2015): 236-59.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dome.12067

 
Abstract

The tensions from the Israeli occupation of Palestine reach around the globe and heated debates over the struggles of these two peoples are evident on U.S. college campuses. The power imbalance represented in the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis is replicated on college campuses. BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) is a response to this inequality, is a movement to end the occupation, and has raised the issue of normalization. Teaching about this conflict presents particular challenges for faculty who negotiate this highly contested issue in classrooms or campus communities, and intergroup dialogue is an important pedagogy that can be used. It is critical to address normalization in intergroup dialogue. We discuss examples and themes of normalization in intergroup dialogue, and present pedagogical and other strategies to prevent and address normalization in intergroup dialogue and in other similar intergroup contact approaches with Arab or Palestinian and Jewish or Israeli participants.

 

 

 

New Book: Burla and Lawrence, eds. Australia and Israel

Burla, Shahar, and Dashiel Lawrence. Australia and Israel. A Diasporic, Cultural and Political Relationship. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2015.

 

 

Australia and the State of Israel have maintained a cordial if at times ambiguous relationship. The two countries are geographically isolated: strategic, economic and cultural interests lie increasingly with Asia for one, and with the US and the EU for the other. But for all that divides the two states, there is also much they share. Australia played an important role in the Jewish state’s establishment in 1948, and is home to the most Zionist centered Jewish diaspora globally. Jewishness for most Australian Jews has been shaped and defined by engagement with and support for Israel. At the heart of this engagement is a small but thriving Israeli community within the larger multicultural Australia.

Australia and Israel: A Diasporic, Cultural and Political Relationship draws attention to the important historical and contemporary nexus between this diaspora and its imagined homeland. The collection also considers the ways in which these two states mobilise national myths and share environmental challenges. In recent time relations between the two states have been tested by the illegal use of Australian passports in 2010, the mysterious death of dual national Ben Zygier, and growing disquiet within the ranks of the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens over Israel’s handling of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. One prominent world-wide issue is the Palestinian BDS (Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions) movement, which has attracted sympathy and support that has brought about substantive differences of opinion regarding its legitimacy within the Jewish Australian community. These issues demonstrate the multifaceted and complex picture of two very different nations, that nevertheless share an abiding connection.

 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Why the Book?
Shahar Burla and Dashiel Lawrence

Part One Australia and Israel – Diasporic Relationship

1 Rewriting the Rules of Engagement: New Australian Jewish
Connections with Israel
Dashiel Lawrence

2 The Personal, the Political and the Religious: Bnei Akiva
Australia and its Relationship with Israel
Ari Lander

3 Israeli Government and Diaspora Mobilisation: The Flotilla
to Gaza and the Australian Jewry as a Case Study
Shahar Burla

4 The Place of Hebrew and Israel Education in Australian
Jewish Schools
Suzanne Rutland and Zehavit Gross

5 The Ausraeli Approach: the Diasporic Identity of Israelis
in Australia
Ran Porat

Part Two Australia and Israel – Political and Cultural Relationship

6 Overcoming Water Scarcity and Inequity in Arid Lands:
Comparing Water Management in Australia and Israel
Dominic Skinner and Stephanie Galaitsi

7 Ben Zygier’s Story and Australia–Israel Relations
Ingrid Matthews

8 A Fight Worth Having: Rudd, Gillard, Israel and the
Australian Labor Party
Alex Benjamin Burston-Chorowicz

9 An Alliance of Forgetting: National Narratives of Legitimacy
on the Occasion of Israel–Australia’s Joint Stamp Issue
Commemorating the Battle of Beersheba
Micaela Sahhar

Part Three Australia, Israel and the Boycott Divestment and
Sanction Scheme

10 The Australian Greens and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
Philip Mendes

11 Academic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: Implications
for Australian–Israeli Relations
Ingrid Matthews and James Arvanitakis

Conclusion: First Cousinhood, Political Unease, and the Limits
of Comparison
Fania Oz-Salzberger

The Editors and Contributors
Index

 

Shahar Burla is a research Associate at the Sydney Jewish Museum. He is the author of Political Imagination in the Diaspora: The Construction of a Pro-Israeli Narrative (2013). He has received several awards, including a President’s Fellowship for outstanding PhD student, Bar-Ilan University and the Menahem Begin Foundation academic award.

Dashiel Lawrence is a doctoral candidate at the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne. His research interests include Jewish diaspora–Israel contemporary relations, and Jewish critics of Israel.

 

 

New Article: Silverman, Free Speech Implications of US Anti-Boycott Regulations

Silverman, Matthew E. “The Free Speech Implications of US Anti-Boycott Regulations.” International Trade and Business Law Review 18 (2015): 1-30.

 
URL: http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/itbla18&div=4

 
Abstract

This article provides an analysis of s 2407(a)(1)(D) of the Export Administration Act and its implications on Americans’ free speech rights. Section 2407(a)(1)(D) is a significant US anti-boycott regulation that prohibits American persons and companies from complying with unsanctioned foreign boycotts. This article analyses s 2407(a)(1)(D) within the context of the development and application of US anti-boycott legislation which grew out of a response to the Arab League Boycott of Israel. As well, this article examines the relevant First Amendment jurisprudence involving both commercial and political speech and argues that s 2407(a)(1)(D) should be subject to a strict-scrutiny analysis in order to account for the social and political interests often inherent within economic-boycott activity. This article concludes that the government interest in enforcing s 2407(a)(1)(D) is outweighed by the significant restrictions imposed on Americans’free speech rights, and thus, there is no justification for this regulation to be constitutionally upheld and enforced.

 

 

New Article: Shindler, Disagreeing with Israel: A British and American History

Shindler, Colin. “Family Politics. Disagreeing with Israel: A British and American History.” Jewish Quarterly 62.2 (2015): 48-51.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0449010X.2015.1051707

 

Excerpt

The BDS mantra appeals to those who vehemently oppose the occupation. Yet what is the meaning of their doctrine of anti-normalisation? Some will see this as a necessary pressure to force Israel to the negotiating table and relinquish territory. Others understand anti-normalisation in terms of delegitimisation—rooting out a poisonous Zionist weed growing on Arab land. Netanyahu’s policies and the acquiescence of many British Jews therefore suit the latter. If a new Rabin were to arise, and sign a fair agreement with the Palestinians, this would produce such political fissures that the BDS movement would be consigned to an irrelevant limbo once more. Like many a Jewish leader in the UK, the advocates of BDS fear a different narrative that draws confused Jews away from their orbit.

The ripples of this situation will continue to be felt in the UK, the US, and the wider Diaspora for the foreseeable future. Jewish organisations will continue to be seen as merely appendages to the official view, despite the inner turmoil of many a Jewish leader. Public relations in Britain will be a welcome diversion from public reality in Israel. Howard Jacobson’s “ashamed Jews” and the US equivalent will continue to verbally flagellate themselves in public. The traditional approach of debate, discussion and dissension will not disappear. But it will take a period of calm, and a disappearance of provocative acts in the Middle East, to allow the peace camps in both Israel and Palestine to once more gain the upper hand from the reactionaries in progressive clothing. Only then will British Jews, American Jews, and all Diaspora Jews, have a genuine role to play in securing a just peace.

 

New Article: Garasic & Keinan, Boycotting Israeli Academia

Garasic, Mirko D., and Shay Keinan. “Boycotting Israeli Academia: Is Its Implementation Anti-Semitic?” International Journal of Discrimination and the Law (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1358229115571814

 

Abstract

In recent years, a campaign run by the BDS movement to boycott and silence Israeli academics has gained some support worldwide. Academics choosing to take part in the boycott are often accused to be moved by a new form of anti-Semitism – an allegation they fervently deny. A recent case in Australia saw Jake Lynch, a professor at the University of Sydney, taken to court and accused of breaching Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act for rejecting an application from an Israeli academic for a visiting professor position. In this paper, we want to analyse such situations from a philosophical and legal perspective. We will argue that apart from being anti-scientific and counterproductive, such boycotts are also unlawful and – indeed – anti-Semitic. Boycott supporters often replace a person’s nationality with a person’s “institutional affiliation” to avoid being accused of racism and discrimination. We argue that this terminological disguise does not succeed in hiding the fact that often such boycotts illegitimately discriminate against individual Jews.

ToC: Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs 9,1 (2015)

Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, in its first publication with Routledge, is pleased to announce a new issue:

 

From the Editor

Dr. Laurence Weinbaum, Chief Editor

pages 1-2

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1019215

Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” in Europe: From Controversial Theory to Grim Reality

Oded Eran

pages 3-6

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1015093

 

Israel  Affairs

Israel’s National Security: Challenges and Assets

Dan Schueftan

pages 7-28

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1015300

The Delegitimization of Israel: Diplomatic Warfare, Sanctions, and Lawfare

Matthew S. Cohen & Charles D. Freilich

pages 29-48

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1015095

Middle Eastern Currents

Cracks in the Crescent: The Looming Sectarian Clash between Khilafah and Imamah

Dimitar Mihaylov

pages 49-61

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1003455

Iran and the Arab Gulf States: Change amidst Continuity

Yoel Guzansky

pages 63-74

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1006432

Bilateral Relations

Israel and Cuba: A New Beginning?

Margalit Bejarano

pages 75-85

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1005450

Reflections on Czech–Israeli Relations in Light of EU Policies

Lubomír Zaorálek

pages 87-89

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1015094

Jewish Affairs

Holocaust Restitution: The End Game II?

Aharon Mor

pages 91-97

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1004610

Reviews

The Journey to the Arab Spring: The Ideological Roots of the Middle East Upheaval in Arab Liberal Thought, by David Govrin

Nir Boms, Research Fellow

pages 99-102

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1008958

Egyptian Foreign Policy from Mubarak to Morsi: Against the National Interest, by Nael M. Shama

Terry Newman

pages 103-106

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1002062

The Next War between Israel and Egypt: Examining a High-intensity War between two of the Strongest Militaries in the Middle East, by Ehud Eilam

David Rodman

pages 107-108

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.994327

Iranian Foreign Policy during Ahmadinejad: Ideology and Actions, by Maaike Warnaar & Iranian Foreign Policy since 2001: Alone in the World, edited by Thomas Juneau and Sam Razavi

Aryeh Levin

pages 109-115

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1004795

The Hague Odyssey: Israel’s Struggle for Security on the Front Lines of Terrorism and Her Battle for Justice at the United Nations, by Richard D. Heiderman

Howard M. Weisband

pages 117-121

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2014.996968

Uncivil War: The Israel Conflict in the Jewish Community, by Keith Kahn-Harris

Robbie Sabel

pages 123-126

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.998004

Britain’s Moment in Palestine: Retrospect and Perspectives, 1917–48, by Michael J. Cohen

Aharon Klieman

pages 127-131

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.996840

Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, by Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz

Matthias Küntzel

pages 133-137

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1003360

Diary of a Foreign Minister, by Bob Carr

Jeremy Jones

pages 139-142

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1000563

Jews and the Military: A History, by Derek J. Penslar

Stephen G. Fritz

pages 143-145

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.994330

Armed Political Organizations: From Conflict to Integration, by Benedetta Berti

Rashmi Singh, Lecturer

pages 147-150

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.995891

Dynamics of Asymmetric Territorial Conflict: The Evolution of Patience, by Uri Resnick

Melanie Carina Schmoll

pages 151-153

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.999426

Letters

Letters by Daphna Sharfman, Simon Geissbühler, and Yisrael Medad

pages 155-160

DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2015.1016655

New Article: Yi and Phillips, The BDS Campaign against Israel: Lessons from South Africa

Yi, Joseph E. and Joe Phillips. “The BDS Campaign against Israel: Lessons from South Africa.” PS: Political Science & Politics 48.2 (2015): 306-310.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1049096514002091

 

Abstract

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel is animated by a pragmatic strain that views external sanctions as effective pressure against a small democratic state and by a moralistic Manichean strain that portrays Israelis as oppressors. Both strains hearken back to the earlier campaign against apartheid in South Africa. We argue that doing so misreads the lessons of South Africa. Sanctions may have contributed to ending apartheid, but they operated in conjunction with improved security and interpersonal trust among negotiators. Key contenders moved from a discourse of oppression to one that humanized one another as partners with legitimate concerns. These conditions are missing from the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Both sides consider their security to be precarious and they are locked in competing narratives of victimization, which further erode mutual trust and security. Measures to improve the parties’ security and trust would contribute to mutual concessions and greater justification for sanctions if the Israeli government is intransigent.

ToC: Biography 37.2 (2014); special issue: Life in Occupied Palestine

Volume 37, Number 2, Spring 2014

Table of Contents

Life in Occupied Palestine

Guest Editors: Cynthia G. Franklin Morgan Cooper& Ibrahim G. Aoudé

Dedication

p. v

Editor’s Introduction

Life in Occupied Palestine: Three Cafés and a Special Issue

pp. vii-xlviii

Cynthia G. Franklin, Morgan Cooper, Ibrahim G. Aoudé

Articles

Section One: Borders, Journeys, Home

Exiled at Home: Writing Return and the Palestinian Home

pp. 377-397

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Sarah Ihmoud

After the Nakba in Nuba: A Palestinian Villager’s Diary, 1949

pp. 398-450

Alex Winder

Not Just a Picnic: Settler Colonialism, Mobility, and Identity among Palestinians in Israel

pp. 451-473

Magid Shihade

Locked Out

pp. 474-475

Lina Hesham AlSharif

Once Upon a Border: The Secret Lives of Resistance—the Case of the Palestinian Village of al-Marja, 1949–1967

pp. 476-504

Honaida Ghanim

Section Two: Invasions, Incarcerations, and Insurgent Imagination

Incidental Insurgents: An Interview with Ruanne Abou Rahme

pp. 507-515

Morgan Cooper

Towards a New Language of Liberation: An Interview with Raja Shehadeh

pp. 516-523

Cynthia G. Franklin

Gaza Writes Back: Narrating Palestine

pp. 524-537

Refaat R. Alareer

Write What You Know

pp. 538-539

Lina Hesham Alsharif

Dreaming of Never Land

pp. 540-555

Sonia Nimr

“Food is not our issue”: Reflections on Hunger Striking

pp. 556-559

Sa’ed Omar

Section Three: Reciprocal Solidarities and Other Revolutionary Relations

From the West Bank: Letters and Acts of Resistance

pp. 563-605

Yassmine Saleh Hamayel, Islah Jad

Life in Abu Dis Continues Quietly

pp. 606-663

Rima Najjar

Traveling as a Palestinian

pp. 664-679

Yousef M. Aljamal

Reciprocal Solidarity: Where the Black and Palestinian Queer Struggles Meet

pp. 680-705

Sa’ed Atshan, Darnell L. Moore

Section Four: Forging a Just Future

The “I” in BDS: Individual Creativity and Responsibility in the Context of Collective Praxis — an Interview With Omar Barghouti and Falastine Dwikat

pp. 709-719

Ibrahim G. Aoudé, Morgan Cooper, Cynthia G. Franklin

---

Contributors

pp. 720-723

New Article: Gordon and Pardo, The European Union and Israel’s Occupation

Gordon, Neve and Sharon Pardo. “The European Union and Israel’s Occupation: Using Technical Customs Rules as Instruments of Foreign Policy.” Middle East Journal 69.1 (2015): 74-90.

 

URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_middle_east_journal/v069/69.1.gordon.html

 

Abstract

This article describes the rules of origin dispute between the European Union and Israel, and argues that these technical customs rules are also instruments of foreign policy. Although the rules have had no direct impact on Israel’s industry in the Occupied Territories, they have bolstered the European Union’s self-identification as a “normative power” while constituting an important legal precedent that has served to legitimize other actions against Israel’s occupation.

Opinions: Braiterman on Middle East Scholars & Librarians Now Boycotting Israel

Zachary Braiterman (Department of Religion, Syracuse University) writes in his blog on questions about Middle East Scholars and Librarians boycotting Israel.

 

URL: http://jewishphilosophyplace.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/jewish-studies-israel-studies-questions-about-middle-east-scholars-librarians-now-boycotting-Israel/

 

 

Excerpt

As an organization, it would seem that MESA understands in sharper perspective than do the individual signatories to the boycott the purpose of its association, which would be the study of the Middle East in all its varied ramifications. With or without too much hope, my own view is that professors of Jewish Studies and Israel Studies should continue to seek common cause with those colleagues amenable to professional and personal contact and exchange. Especially given the fact that MESA as an organizational body opposes BDS, the best course of action would seem to me to be ones that isolate the phenomenon and contain the damage, to listen carefully to and when possible to heed colleagues, morally and politically. Certainly one should also push back where one thinks one should, while avoiding direct confrontation and the appearance of confrontation. Any act carries its own consequence. More often than not, the best course of action is not to act at all in an obviously hostile way. On the ground, Israel and Hamas prove again and again that each are their own worst enemies. Armed resistance against Israeli civilians has turned out to be a self-destructive act that only further isolates the Palestinian people. For its part, with the ongoing and deepening occupation of the 1967 territories, Israel does more to undercut its own moral, political, social, and national standing than any act of BDS by individual scholars who, by every measure, appear to hate the country with what can be shown to be an extreme prejudice.

 

ToC: Journal of Palestine Studies 43.3 (2014)

Table of Contents Alert

University of California Press is happy to notify you that the new issue of Journal of Palestine Studies is now available. The online issues of this journal are hosted on JSTOR on behalf of University of California Press.

Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 43, No. 3, Spring 2014 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies

Cover Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3 Front Matter Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3 Table of Contents Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3 FROM THE EDITOR Rashid I. Khalidi Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 5. REFLECTION A Tribute to Eyad al-Sarraj Sara Roy Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 6-8. ARTICLE Colonialism, Nationalism, and the Politics of Teaching History in Mandate Palestine Elizabeth Brownson Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 9-25. ESSAY French Intellectuals and the Palestine Question Farouk Mardam-Bey Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 26-39. COMMENTARY: THE KERRY NEGOTIATIONS Chronicles of a Death Foretold Rashid I. Khalidi Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 40-42. Behind Israel’s Demand for Recognition as a Jewish State Diana Buttu Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 42-45. The Debate about Kerry’s Economic Initiative: Pitfalls, Benefits, and Risks Raja Khalidi Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 45-49. Implications of the Kerry Framework: The Jordan Valley Samia Al-Botmeh Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 49-51. It’s Not Over until It’s Over Mouin Rabbani Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 51-55. SPECIAL DOCUMENT FILE Academic Boycott of Israel: The American Studies Association Endorsement and Backlash Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 56-71. RECENT BOOKS Recent Book: The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge by by Ilan Pappé Review by: Gilbert Achcar Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 72-74. Recent Book: Communism and Zionism in Palestine during the British Mandate Communism and Zionism in Palestine During the British Mandate by by Jacob Hen-Tov; Isaiah Friedman Review by: Shira Robinson Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 74-75. Recent Book: Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel by by Max Blumenthal Review by: Steven Salaita Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 76-77. Recent Book: Jil Oslo: Palestinian Hip Hop, Youth Culture and the Youth Movement Jil Oslo: Palestinian Hip Hop, Youth Culture and the Youth Movement by by Sunaina Maira Review by: Loubna Qutami Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 77-80. Recent Book: Land of Progress: Palestine in the Age of Colonial Development, 1905-1948 Land of Progress: Palestine in the Age of Colonial Development, 1905-1948 by by Jacob Norris Review by: Max Ajl Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 80-81. Recent Book: Back Stories: U.S. News Production and Palestinian Politics Back Stories: U.S. News Production and Palestinian Politics by by Amahl Bishara Review by: Mike Berry Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 82-83. SELECTIONS FROM THE PRESS Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 84-103. PHOTOS FROM THE QUARTER Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 104-109. PALESTINE UNBOUND Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 110-117. UPDATE ON CONFLICT AND DIPLOMACY Ben White Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 118-139. CONGRESSIONAL MONITOR Paul Karolyi Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 140-185. DOCUMENTS AND SOURCE MATERIAL Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 186-208.