Condemning the Boycott of Israeli Academics ...

The on-line petition created by Penn's Jeff Weintraub asks academic and scholarly associations to support the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) condemnation of the British Association of University Teachers' (AUT) boycott of two Israeli universities, Haifa and Bar-Ilan, and blacklisting of their faculty members. Mechal Sobel, one of Cliopatria's Contributing Editors, is a faculty member at Haifa. I have signed the petition and urge others to consider doing so.

Among the 4500 persons who have signed the petition are: Robert Abzug, Eric Alterman, Joyce Appleby, Stanley Aronowitz, Omer Bartov, Gail Bederman, David Beito, Robert Bellah, Peter Berkowitz, David Bernstein, Michael Berube, Burton J. Bledstein, Harold Bloom, Miriam Elizabeth Burstein, Ian Buruma, David L. Carlton, Oscar Chamberlain, Juan Cole, James R. Davila, David Brion Davis, Morris Dickstein, Sherman Dorn, Jonathan Dresner, Ellen Carol DuBois, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Henry Farrell, John Lewis Gaddis, Herbert Gans, Norm Geras, Todd Gitlin, Nathan Glazer, Steven Horwitz, KC Johnson, Tony Judt, Ira Katznelson, Michael Kazin, Margaret L. King, Harvey Klehr, Mark A. R. Kleiman, Jacob T. Levy, Deborah Lipstadt, Ralph E. Luker, Charles Maier, Elaine Tyler May, Joanne Meyerowitz, Richard Rorty, Roy Rosenzweig, Vicki Ruiz, Hugo Schwyzer, Christine Stansell, Michael Walzer, Jon Wiener, Leon Wieseltier, and Alan Wolfe.

The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) has issued a statement condemning the AUT boycott/blacklist. The American Political Science Association (APSA) has done the same, explicitly endorsing the AAUP statement. Jon Wiener and I have asked the executive committees of the AHA and the OAH to support the AAUP's position. In Sunday's Washington Post, is one of the first pieces covering this issue in the American press. See also: Juan Cole at Informed Comment, Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber, David Velleman at Left2Right, Hugo Schwyzer, and Sharon Howard and KC Johnson at Cliopatria.