The US Middle East Studies Association (MESA) officially endorsed the boycott of Israel academically on Wednesday in a resolution signed by hundreds of professors and scholars worldwide.
Over the course of a 50-day vote 768 of MESA members voted in favor of the resolution while 167 voted against it and 22 others abstained.
The resolution also supported the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as a means of effectively holding Israel accountable for human rights violations.
According to MESA its board of directors will work in consultation with its committee on academic freedom to enforce it in a manner consistent with the organizations’ bylaws as well as relevant US federal state and local laws.
The resolution calls for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions for their “complicity in Israel’s violations of human rights and international law through their provision of direct assistance to the military and intelligence establishments” but it will not target individual students or scholars and affords individual MESA members the choice of whether to participate in an academic boycott.
“Our members have cast a clear vote to answer the call for solidarity from Palestinian scholars and students experiencing violations of their right to education and other human rights” MESA president Eve Troutt Powell said.
“MESA’s board will work to honor the will of its members and ensure that the call for an academic boycott is upheld without undermining our commitment to the free exchange of ideas and scholarship” he added.
The MESA resolution cited violations against the right to education such as “restricting freedom of movement for Palestinians; isolating undermining or otherwise attacking Palestinian educational institutions; harassing Palestinian professors teachers and students; harassing Israeli professors and students criticizing Israeli policies; destroying confiscating or otherwise rendering Palestinian archival material inaccessible; and maintaining inequality in educational resources between Palestinians and Israelis.”
