Open Letter in Support of the American Studies Association
and in Opposition to President Wim Wiewel's Policy Regarding Israeli Institutions
and in Opposition to President Wim Wiewel's Policy Regarding Israeli Institutions
In early January more than 800 scholars in the American Studies Association (ASA) voted to boycott Israeli universities for their complicity in occupation, discrimination and human rights abuses in Palestine. President Wim Wiewel, speaking on behalf of Portland State University, has recently released a public statement condemning the ASA's landmark resolution.
President Wiewel states that Israel’s course of action “does not even come close to meriting a boycott." He argues that academic boycotts "stifle" the “free and open exchange of ideas and knowledge.” Without any mention of the gross violation of Palestinian academic freedom perpetuated by Israeli policies, Wiewel pledges to increase PSU's ties with Israeli institutions.
As students, alumni, faculty and staff of PSU we declare that Wiewel does not speak for us on this issue. In this open letter we affirm our unqualified endorsement of the ASA resolution and our resolve to continue to oppose any statements and actions from the administration that validate colonialist and racist policies in direct violation of human rights and dignity for all peoples.
The State of Israel has broken countless international laws through its occupation of the West Bank (under military law since 1967) and its siege of the Gaza Strip. Even Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship have second-class access to land and public services. Israeli universities are deeply complicit in these discriminatory and violent practices: Hebrew University has illegally built parts of their campuses in the occupied territories, and Ariel University is entirely built in a mega-settlement deep inside the West Bank. Universities also participate in the State’s military establishment: Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies was responsible for developing “the Dahiya doctrine” which calls for the wholesale flattening of a neighborhood as a “message” to the other side. Israeli universities also engage in their own independent and willful acts of oppression and exclusion: Palestinian applicants to Israeli universities are three times more likely to be rejected than Jewish applicants.
Meanwhile, scholars and students at Palestinian universities are constantly subject to closure of institutions, military obstruction of access, arrests and deportations, the killing and injuring of students and teachers, and attempts to criminalize the Palestinian educational process. Even international scholars seeking to speak or attend conferences at Palestinian universities are frequently denied entry by the Israeli authorities. Finally, Israeli academics have largely stood by in silence: in 2008, a petition for academic freedom in the occupied territories was circulated to more than 10,000 Israeli academics. Only 407 signed – a mere 4% of the total.
Just as it did in 1980s South Africa, today’s boycott of Israel constitutes a peaceful tactic of protest and pressure. The anti-apartheid movement in South Africa was able to end one of the world’s ugliest manifestations of racism in part because students and educators across the world advocated for the boycott of South African institutions, including academic institutions. Today leaders from the South African anti-apartheid struggle, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as well as veterans of the civil rights movement here in the US such as Alice Walker and Angela Davis, have pledged their support for the 2005 Palestinian civil society call for the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israeli institutions.
The ASA boycott is not designed to single out Israeli or US scholars who engage in conversation or collaboration, but rather to expose Israeli institutional complicity with the ongoing and systematic destruction of Palestinian history, lands and people. We ask President Wiewel: Why it is that Israeli rights and privileges, including academic exchange, supersede the protection of Palestinian lives, livelihoods, and liberty? What is academic freedom within a climate of such endemic injustice?
As the recently departed Nelson Mandela famously said, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without that of the Palestinians.”
We the undersigned applaud the courageous efforts of the American Studies Association, alongside the Asian Studies Association and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, in their support for the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. We renounce President Wiewel’s condemnation of the ASA resolution as well as his intention to “strengthen [his] pursuit of academic exchanges between Portland State University and Israeli institutions.”
- Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights (PSU)
If you have any trouble with the survey please don't hesitate to email us at [email protected]. Thanks for your support!
- Jeanne St. John, Retired Faculty
- Bill Resnick, Retired Faculty
- Anna Gray, Current Faculty
- Meg Storey, Current Faculty
- Maria DePriest, Current Faculty
- Ethan Johnson, Current Faculty
- DeEtte Waleed, Current Faculty
- Alicia Imbody, Current Student
- Virginia Saez, Current Student
- Sara Swetzoff, Current Student
- Ashlie Denton, Current Student
- Christina Kane, Current Student
- Henry Polacek, Current Student
- Erin Schick, Current Student
- Raumene Rahatzad, Current Student
- Jenka Soderberg, Current Student
- Quinne Salameh, Current Student
- Sofia Fridman, Current Student
- Jacqueline Treiber, Current Student
- Daniel Mazuz, Current Student
- Payton Rhodes, Current Student
- Laila Taraghi, Current Student
- Melissa Iglesias, Current Student
- Sarah Abuelkhair, Current Student
- Eireann Young, Current Student
- Justin Floyd, Current Student
- Elona Trogub, Current Student
- Gina Barghouti, Current Student
- Lamarra Haynes, Current Student
- Monica Parisa Rabii, Current Student
- Layal Abdel-Jawad, Current Student
- Dana Mustafa, Current Student
- Emily Langston, Current Student
- Meredith Sutton, Current Student
- Eva Soto, Current Student
- Taylor Raffa, Current Student
- Evan Leamer, Current Student
- Neil Loehlein, Current Student
- Matthew Lang, Current Student
- Mathew Brazil, Current Student
- Ariana Barajas, Current Student
- Lana Abu-Alia, Current Student
- Dana Ghazi, Current Student
- Mary Ellen Hannigan, Current Student
- Jeana Harris, Current Student
- Gasim Al Sardi, Current Student
- Wienta Mebrahtu, Current Student
- Yousef Khalfan, Current Student
- Matthew Denny, Alumni
- Greg Miles, Alumni
- Wael Elasady, Alumni
- Susan Vander Heide, Alumni
- Ann Huntwork, Alumni
- Eleanor Pearson, Alumni
- Val OKeefe, Alumni
- Jody De La Vergne, Alumni
- June Forsyth Alumni
- Patricia McKniff, Alumni
- Heather Dorfman, Alumni
- Sally Ann Wells, Alumni
- Val Wallace, Alumni
- Gilbert Schramm, Alumni
- Carol Rasmussen Schramm, Alumni
- Aesha Lorenz Al-Saeed, Alumni
- Brian A Barnet, Alumni
- Lorie Wood, Alumni
- Francisco, Alumni
- Kim McCoy, Alumni
- Richard Anders, Alumni
- Hanny Selbak, Alumni
- Deb Smith, Alumni
- Grant Booth, Alumni
- Tasha Triplett, Alumni
- Rosa Navarro, Alumni
- Sandra Siegner, Alumni
- Maria Sause, Alumni
- Beriah Empie, Alumni
- Valerie OKeefe, Alumni
- Sarah Hassouneh, Alumni
- Muna Ahmad, Alumni
- Christopher H. Riser, Alumni
- Amira J. El-Jamal, Alumni
- Aseel Nasir Dyck, Retired Staff
- Elizabeth Moore, Evergreen SJP, Student Group
- Ned Rosch, Jewish Voice for Peace-Portland, Community Group
- William Singer, Jewish Voice for Peace-Portland, Community Group
- Michel Bolsey, Jewish Voice for Peace-Portland, Community Group
- Kaye Exo, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Jewish Voice for Peace-Portland, Community Group
- Rev. Catherine L. Alder, Tree of Life Conference, Portland Palestine Solidarity Coalition, Community Group
- Sydney I McKenzie, Americans United for Palestinian Equal Rights, Community Group
- Joan McClellan, Oregon Fellowship for Reconciliation, Portland Palestine Solidarity Coalition
- Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights, Community Group
- Cristy Murray, Community Member
- Tony Vander Heide, Community Member
- Anne Lampert, Community Member
- Diane Adkin, Community Member
- Thomas Beilman, Community Member
- Linda Sawaya, Community Member
- Soham Darwish, Community Member
- Kelly Lynn, Community Member
- Michael Horner, Community Member
- Herschel Soles, Community Member
- Milena Petrovic, Community Member
- Lauren Kael, Community Member
- Sarah Farahat, Community Member
- Maya Rotem, Community Member
- Lee Knightly, Community Member
- Peter Miller, Community Member
- Richard Toll, Community Member
- Mary Faye Bennet, Community Member
- Joel Sjerven, Community Member
- Maxine Fookson, Community Member
- Marilynn Burke, Community Member
- Paul LaRue, Community Member
- Pamela Allee, Community Member
- Donald Searcy, Community Member
- Paul Dean, Community Member
- Gerson Robboy, Community Member
- Tim Calver, Community Member
- Kit Kittredge, Community Member
- Ginny McFarland, Community Member
- Kirk Rea, Community Member
- Christian Richmond, Community Member
- Paul Reid, Community Member
- Cynthia Garibay, Community Member
- Valori Akers, Community Member
- Hokooka AlEnsan, Community Member
- Amanda Ayesh, Community Member
- Carol Mazer, Community Member
- Andrea Macias, Community Member
- Darrin Hoop, Community Member
- Alissa Derubeis, Community Member
- Ruba Leech, Community Member
- Kate Fricke, Community Member
- Sarah Farahat, Community Member
- Hyung Nam, Community Member
- Mohammed Nabil, Community Member
- Sarah Levy, Community Member
- Saed Bannoura, Community Member
- Mike Tabor, Community Member
- John Nettleton, Community Member
- Manford Hotchikiss, Community Member
- Jonathan Irwin, Community Member
- Annette White-Parks, Community Member
- Kathryn Behel, Community Member
- Donna Boyd, Community Member
- Sandy Stienecker, Community Member
- Rodger, Community Member
- Laurie Solomon, Community Member
- Thomas H Nelson, Community Member
- Herk Martens, Community Member
- Bibi Walton, Community Member
- Eileen Rence, Community Member
- Kamal C Hassan, Community Member
- Sylvan Grey, Community Member
- Mark Trolan, Community Member
- Kate Madison, Community Member
- Pamela Allee, Community Member
- Tina Brown, Community Member
- Martha Shade, Community Member
- Mario Marwan Digrato, Community Member