13, December 2013
Dear Editor, Israel’s Growing Isolation
It took a massive shift in human consciousness and awareness to isolate and dismantle apartheid South Africa after many decades of propping up the regime. Now there is growing momentum to isolate Israel and intensify international pressure against its settlement expansion and appalling treatment of the Palestinians.
As Chris Hedges, former New York Times foreign correspondent, so eloquently stated, “Israel is morally bankrupt by the sanctification of victimhood, which it uses to justify an occupation that rivals the brutality and racism of apartheid South Africa”. He observed that “many of Israel’s most enlightened and educated citizens—1 million of them—have left the country.”
In a major show of academic activism, the association of American professors (AMP) with almost 5,000 members voted to endorse an academic boycott of Israeli colleges and universities, making it the largest academic group in the United States to back a growing movement to isolate Israel and exert pressure for it to embrace policies of inclusiveness and respect for human rights. The ASA sited that “Israeli institutions of higher education are a party to state policies that violate human rights."
The association’s boycott vote follows similar actions taken by the leadership council of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association and the Association for Asian American Studies.
The Presbyterian Church supports BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel. The World United Methodist Church resolution went much further by advocating a complete withdrawal of military and economic aid.
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