Welcome to the Forward‘s coverage of BDS – the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which seeks to pressure Israel to change its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
BDS
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Fast Forward N.Y. State Bill Would End Funding to Schools With BDS Ties
A bill introduced in the New York State Assembly would suspend funding to educational institutions which fund groups that boycott Israel. The legislation, introduced earlier this month by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and first reported by Mondoweiss, an anti-Zionist news site, would ban state funding to colleges which fund groups that boycott “in countries that…
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Fast Forward 134 Congress Members Blast ASA for Boycotting Israeli Universities
A bipartisan slate of 134 U.S. Congress members wrote a letter to the American Studies Association protesting its decision last month to boycott Israeli universities. “Academic cooperation can be an important tool to help foster peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but you have chosen the unproductive path of isolation,” said the letter dated Friday, initiated…
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Fast Forward Modern Language Association Votes on Resolution Criticizing Israel
Delegates to the Modern Language Association’s annual convention upheld a resolution accusing Israel of keeping Palestinian academics from entering the West Bank, but rejected another expressing solidarity with academics that boycott Israel. After an hour or so of acrimonious debate in Chicago on Saturday, the MLA’s delegate assembly in a 60-53 vote approved a resolution…
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Opinion Fiction and Farce: Democracy at the MLA
Thinkstock I would love to say that powerful argument won the day. I’d like to claim that intellect and facts persuaded the members, and whether the resolution was won or lost, its decisive outcome was a result of profound and significant reflection. The first resolution before the Modern Language Association’s Delegate Assembly served to censure…
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Opinion First They Came For the Humanities…
Thinkstock This year’s MLA was supposed to be discussing the crisis of affairs in the Humanities. Only a lucky few of the graduate students on the market with their freshly minted PhDs will find jobs in academia — ever. The increasing corporatization of higher education is driving the scholarly agenda, as funders begin to dictate…
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Israel News Israel Battle Roils Modern Language Association as Academic Meeting Kicks Off
The debate over Israel in academia has turned to the Modern Language Association, which hosts a controversial panel on academic boycotts of Israel at its annual convention in Chicago starting today. Jewish groups and some MLA members are mounting a response to the session, which will feature panelists largely sympathetic to the boycott, divestment and…
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Fast Forward Pro-Israel Community Braces Itself for Modern Language Association Vote
(JTA) — Until recently, the rule of thumb in the pro-Israel community was that the bigger the academic group, the less likely it was to consider a boycott of Israeli colleagues. But with the 30,000-member Modern Language Association set to host a panel on BDS at its convention this week in Chicago, the rule may…
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The Schmooze Hogwarts Joins Israel Boycott?
Another famous institution has jumped on the Israel academic boycott bandwagon. A little place known as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry announced that it would “cancel summer student exchange programmes it has in place with several Israeli magical institutes, and withdraw from a Quidditch tournament arranged by the Israeli Tourism Ministry due to be…
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