November 22, 2015
The B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) has denounced the vote by The American Anthropological Association (AAA) to boycott Israeli academic institutions. The resolution prohibits the AAA from “formal collaborations or other relationships with Israeli academic institutions” and will result in Israeli institutions being barred from accessing the AAA’s anthropology database. According to reports, the boycott will not apply to individual Israeli scholars.
Dr. Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the ADC, issued the following statement:
“Once again, we see a scholarly organisation that shamefully has chosen to affiliate itself with a campaign that seeks to punish and malign Israel through boycotts and other discriminatory tactics. This resolution, which sacrifices the ideal of collaboration and the unfettered flow of knowledge on the altar of the politics of demonisation, is an appalling display of double standards. This is an attack on every Jewish person who supports Israel and its universities, and the AAA, through this one sided vote, is violating the principles of academic freedom and stoking the flames of division and discord. The anti-Semitic aim of the BDS movement is to tar the name of the only Jewish state on earth and to ultimately destroy Israel. The AAA should know that such counterproductive and despicable resolutions will not bring Israelis and Palestinians together. Rather, they only aid and abet in the spreading of hatred and in harming of the cause of peace in the region.”
For more information, please contact Dr. Dvir Abramovich on, 03 9272-5677