American Studies Association endorses boycott of Israeli universities

NEW YORK // The American Studies Association has endorsed a boycott of Israeli universities, the largest group of US scholars to do so.

About one-third of the group’s more than 3,800 members voted, approving the boycott by 66 per cent on Monday. Last April, the smaller Association for Asian American Studies, which has about 800 members, became the first scholarly group in the US to support an academic boycott of Israel.

“The ASA condemns the United States’ significant role in aiding and abetting Israel’s violations of human rights against Palestinians and its occupation of Palestinian lands through its use of the veto in the UN Security Council,” the American Studies Association said.

The vote, which is largely symbolic, is nonetheless a sign of the increasing momentum of the international boycott movement against Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians. While the movement — which presses for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel — has scored some successes in Europe and elsewhere, it has had far less influence in the US, Israel’s closest and most important ally.

“The reason this is so significant is that it’s a victory within the United States within a mainstream academic association and it was overwhelmingly supported,” Noura Erakat, a Palestinian-American human rights attorney who is a member of the American Studies Association.

Israeli officials have denounced the campaign as an attempt to delegitimise their country. They also argue that companies with ties to states with horrendous human rights records are not similarly targeted. Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, declined to comment on Monday’s announcement by the American Studies Association, referring reporters to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, which did not comment.

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if you go

The flights
The closest international airport to the TMB trail is Geneva (just over an hour’s drive from the French ski town of Chamonix where most people start and end the walk). Direct flights from the UAE to Geneva are available with Etihad and Emirates from about Dh2,790 including taxes.

The trek
The Tour du Mont Blanc takes about 10 to 14 days to complete if walked in its entirety, but by using the services of a tour operator such as Raw Travel, a shorter “highlights” version allows you to complete the best of the route in a week, from Dh6,750 per person. The trails are blocked by snow from about late October to early May. Most people walk in July and August, but be warned that trails are often uncomfortably busy at this time and it can be very hot. The prime months are June and September.

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.