An Urgent Call to the Heads of Academia in Israel

BY HANK REICHMAN On May 25, the Black Flag Action Group, formed by scholars at Israeli colleges and universities, issued an important Urgent Call to Action demanding the heads of Israeli academic institutions “speak out” and “act immediately” to stop the war on Gaza.  By May 31 the Call had collected over 1,400 signatures.  As…

crowd rallying with Palestinian flags

Why Academics Should Care about the Oppression of Palestinians

BY DAVID G. EMBRICK AND JOHNNY E. WILLIAMS While Israel is actively erasing Palestinians’ land, livelihoods, stories, personhoods, and histories, the United States is providing Israel with funding, technical assistance, hardware, and even language to carry out its ongoing brutal and violent absorption of Palestine into Israel. Though this violation of international law is widely…

What Would the Proposed Israel Boycott Law Actually Do?

BY HANK REICHMAN Earlier today Martin Kich posted a piece on legislation being considered in Congress that, according to an account by Glen Greenwald, “would make it a felony for Americans to support the international boycott against Israel.”  While I think this legislation is unnecessary, ill-advised and frustratingly vague, I am skeptical that it is, as Marty argues,…

A Transnational Occupation

This is a guest post by Kamala Visweswaran. She is a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California–San Diego. She is the editor of Everyday Occupations: Experiencing Militarism in South Asia and the Middle East (University of Pennsylvannia Press, 2013). My current Academe article, “Palestinian Universities and Everyday Life Under Occupation,” is not an article that describes causes, but rather the consequences of…

Interview with Matthew Abraham

Matthew Abraham’s new book, Out of Bounds: Academic Freedom and the Question of Palestine, examines intellectual freedom and the Israel-Palestine debate in America. Illinois Academe editor John K. Wilson conducted this interview via email with Abraham, who has served on the Illinois AAUP Council and the Illinois AAUP’s Committee A.

Larry Summers Wants to Boycott Academic Freedom

I’ve always had some ambivalent feelings about boycotts. I agree with the AAUP’s strong and principled opposition to academic boycotts, and I think engagement in almost every case is better than a boycott. On the other hand, I believe that individuals have the right to engage in boycotts, that institutions have the right to urge…