AAA Pushes for a Boycott of all Israeli Academic Institutions

Last month at its annual conference in Denver, the American Anthropological Association (no relation to the AAA auto club) overwhelmingly passed a resolution of censure [1040 to 36] that calls for the boycott of all Israeli Academic Institutions.

In April, 2016, it will be presented for final approval to the group’s full membership numbering about 12,000.  The proposal calls on members “to officially adopt a boycott to refrain from formal collaborations with Israeli academic institutions, though not of individual academics.”

The resolution fails to explain the paradoxical distinction which it strikes between “Israeli academic institutions” and its members, seeming not to take into account that one cannot exist without the other.

This move is largely the result of efforts by Palestinian groups including the “Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors” and other Palestinian organizations that “have called for an international boycott of Israeli academic institutions.