My view of a correspondence between Nir Avieli and Ghassan Hage
Dear Nir and Ghassan,
Thank you, Nir, for forwarding to me the exchange of correspondence between yourself and Ghassan Hage (below). I give my response in italic. I would be grateful if you would favourably consider publishing this Paper in the appropriate section of the Website of our Association.
As you know, I am next to the only one among the membership of the IAA who is a principled supporter of BDS (and needless to say, of Ghassan's declination of your invitation of Ghassan as Keynote Speaker at our forthcoming IAA Annual Meeting).
At the outset I wish to point out that I am in the process of writing piecemeal the first pre-draft of the second volume of my political Autobiography entitled and subtitled BRIDGING THE BORDER: An Autobiography of a Palestinian Who is Not an Arab Including Unfinished Business as well as Personal and Political Contingencies of the Calling of an Anti-Zionist Palestinian of the Hebrew-Speaking Group Originating in the Political-Zionist Invasion of Palestine; sequel to Crossing the Border: An Autobiography of an Anti-Zionist Palestinian Jew (Breirot Publishers (Heb), Tel Aviv, 1994 & (Eng) Books & Books, London 1995).
I take the liberty to attach Chapter Six of the said pre-draft as an Appendix to this document.
I believe you would be one of the first to recognize that the Resolution adopted in the June 2015 IAA Annual Meeting in Ashaqelon1 "condemn[ing] the occupation of Palestine and called upon the Israeli government to stop the military control and human and civil rights abuse and engage in peace talks" was taken (after decades of outright refusal to do so on the spurious ground that the IAA is a "professional" association and as such ought not take "political" positions) largely for manipulative considerations, namely: in a desperate attempt to counter the possibility of the AAA confirming BDS as its official policy – which (correlatively) just goes to show the justice of the BDS position and its efficacy.
In my opinion, had you seriously been sincere with your invitation you (rather than manipulative) you would include in your response to Ghassan (below) that as first step you would apply your position as President to press for the implement his suggestion to the effect that the IAA "fuse to belong to an organisation that symbolically absences Palestine from its name, or to belong to an organization that accepts anthropologists from the settlements among its rank".
I this connection I refer Ghassan and our readers (assuming you are agreeable to publishing this text in the appropriate section of the Website of our Association) to the Appendix appended below.
I am afraid there isn't a square meter within circa 93 percent of the territories of the 1948 ethnically cleansed and occupied Palestinian territories known as "Israel proper"(registered on the name of the State, the Custodian of Absentees Property, the Development Authority and the Jewish National Fund) that does not reek with the stench of the crime-against-humanity of the Palestinian Nakba (the remaining circa 7 percent being registered as private property having been arguably legally purchased under British Mandate land tenure law and regulations). The only antidote against the said stench that I can think of is an Annual Meeting/Business Meeting (regardless of whether held in Ashqelon or Kafr Qasim) that endorses a clear and unambiguous Resolution not just condemning (a) not just the 1967 occupation but(b) first and foremost the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine and(c) correlatively calling for the implementation of the right of all 1948 Palestine refugee families to return and to the repossession of the titles of their properties in all parts of historical Palestine according to UNGA Resolution 194(iii) of 1948 (rather than attempting to whitewash the issue by reverting to deceitful and disingenuous formulations such as: "promoting and implementing a spectrum of dignified, just and effective solutions to the tragedy of Palestinian refugees".2
Best
Uri Davis (Dr)
Erstwhile Associate Professor
Israel Studies Track, Institute of Area Studies
AL-QUDS University, Jerusalem, Abu Dis
Palestinian Authority,Palestine
&
Honorary Research Fellow
Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies
University of Exeter, UK
Cellular: +972 54 452 3838
Tel/fax: +972 2 298 4682
http://www.uridavis-official-website.info
--------------------------------------------------------
Ghassan Hage
September 19 at 7:04pm
I had initially asked the president of the Israeli Anthropological Association who invited me, Nir Avieli, if he wanted his invitation published. As I didn't get an initial response I assumed he didn't. But he has sent me his considered response to my reply. So here they are both for the records. As you can see both my response and Nir's are polite and even cordial despite the differences, and if people want to comment, I'd rather if people keep the same tone of exchange.
Dear Nir
I have spent a bit of time writing this so it is a bit formal. That’s not the intention. It’s more that I want to be as clear as possible about my reasons.
I sincerely appreciate your invitation to give the keynote at the Anthropological Association of Israel. And I accept that it is an invitation made in good faith that emanates from your desire to open up the association to voices that are strongly critical of Israel as it has come to exist in the world today, and that as you say are not heard enough.
I am afraid I have to decline from accepting your invitation. I can’t say I am overjoyed to decline. As I mentioned to you before by temperament I am always inclined and disposed to dialogue, but I have thought hard about what my presence would achieve and I feel that the end result is negative not positive. But in thinking what is positive and what is negative I am thinking of how it impacts on the struggle of the Palestinian people to free themselves of colonialism, not the struggle of Israeli anthropologists to make their society more open minded and receptive. It is a mistake to equate the two even though they might occasionally overlap in terms of interest. You probably don’t want to hear me giving you a full blast of my reasons. And you might even think that you have heard it all before. But I genuinely accept that you want dialogue. And so I want to quickly say why, while I am also all for dialogue, I am not for the dialogue as you are proposing it, even though I am more than flattered about what you say about my work and thankful that you thought of me as a possible keynoter.
Israeli anthropologists face a number of situations that are similar to those we face in other settler colonial environments such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. We are all anthropologists working in a social space that is always already vampirically sucking a native population dry and violently (legally and illegally) blocking its claims to the land. You Israelis have to face the extra situation that your vampiric history is relatively short and new, the population that has been colonised by you is still relatively strong and still making claims of national sovereignty and autonomy over the land. The dominant forces in your society aspire to get to a situation where this will stop being the case. It aims to efface the existence of Palestinians as claimants of sovereignty and it is subjecting them to horrendous inhumane violence of a scale, intensity and permanence that is so beyond acceptable. This is what your own Baruch Kimmerling has beautifully called politicide.
So to me, the beginning of any decolonial anthropology is to be anti-politicidal. It has to be concerned with how to stop this horrendous violence and how to give presence and political and social power to the colonised. It is not about making the anthropologist of the colonising society more liberal and open minded and capable of confronting difference. This I feel is all what me presenting a keynote for your organisation would achieve: some conservatives will be upset. But that’s because they are dumb. Then there will be the intelligent liberals who will leave saying "what a feeling. I have heard a genuinely and authentically anti-Zionist intellectual with really confronting views, and with an Arab background to boot. It was a really enriching experience, I must be so open minded and groovy." This does not and never did help the colonised. There will be a minority however who will fully understand these limitations and who will genuinely want to move towards the territory of decolonising anthropology.
Those, I would love to work with, but I don’t believe the AAI is the best frame for this to be done.
I have many ideas of what a dialogue towards establishing a decolonial Israeli anthropology would entail. The first among them would be for Israeli anthropologists to refuse to belong to an organisation that symbolically absences Palestine from its name, or to belong to an organization that accepts anthropologists from the settlements among its ranks. If I was invited to Israel by an organisation that calls itself the Anthropological association of Israel/Palestine, that would be a good beginning. I will see it as indicating an aspiration to confront the mono-national mono-religious and eliminationist tendencies of the state. I would be happy to meet with Israeli anthropologists who aspire for such a decolonial politics. And it would be a delight for me to discuss with them possible strategies. Given that the numbers in the foreseeable future will be small perhaps we can meet in a Palestinian café and invite some local Palestinian anthropologists to participate in a dialogue about radically different non-colonial directions. I would genuinely be happy to take part in something like this.
This situation actually reminds me a bit of the politics of positive discrimination. When you are aiming for structural change, your politics can be incommensurate with individual interests and unfair to genuinely nice people. That is, you can be aiming for more women in management and you end up discriminating against a genuinely charming feminist guy. Likewise, I want to participate in dialogues that open up the space for more Palestinian anthropologists to be as subjects and participants in shaping the future of anthropology in Israel/Palestine, even if I have to forgo interacting with excellent, open-minded and charming Israeli anthropologists.
Best wishes,
Ghassan
----------------------------------------------------------
Dear Ghassan
Thank you for your frank mail.
I am disappointed but I am certainly not surprised by your decision to decline my invitation.
Colleagues I consulted in Israel and abroad told me that inviting a Palestinian and/or Middle Eastern anthropologist as a keynote for the Israeli Anthropological Association (IAA) annual meeting would be futile if not foolish: “no self-respecting Palestinian or Arab intellectual would accept such invitation”, they said. “Yes”, they added, “Edward Said came. But that was Said and the visit took place in a very different time”. Previous IAA presidents also confided in me that they made genuine efforts to invite prominent Arab anthropologists in the past: invitations that were declined.
As I wrote in my original email, I do hope my invitation was not too bold, or indeed, insensitive. But because we intend to hold the annual meeting in Kfar Qasim, an Arab town known for its tragic history – I thought this might indicate our serious intentions to create genuine dialogue, rather than simply feature you as a fig-leaf for liberal minded pious anthropologists.
I also felt that not even trying to invite you would be yet another indication of how we in the academic community have succumbed to the ruling regime. Giving up without even trying seems to plague the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is especially the case when we consider the death of the “the Israeli left” over the past decades, whose members once struggled for peace and reconciliation, but have now lost all political power and hope. We now make an invisible, silent few – the academia is perhaps the last bastion.
In this sense, I hope our email exchange was a forgone conclusion, though I respect and understand your decision. To be honest, I don’t think we really disagree on the fundamentals: The IAA has officially condemned the occupation of Palestine and called upon the Israeli government to stop the military control and human and civil rights abuse and engage in peace talks.
And as you convincingly argue:
Israeli anthropologists face a number of situations that are similar to those we face in other settler colonial environments such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. We are all anthropologists working in a social space that is always already vampirically sucking a native population dry and violently (legally and illegally) blocking its claims to the land.
Indeed, you and I face similar difficulties and dilemmas (for instance, working in public universities in Israel or Australia). The way I understand it, our privileged position demands that we critically engage in discussing sociopolitical problems, however intractable. I also feel that this is our only way of influencing others (our students or, at least, some of them) and, perhaps, having an impact.
I also agree with you that the main question at hand is what would be the most effective way of assisting the Palestinians in their struggle for freedom and independence. In a week in which the US administration committed 37 BILLION DOLLARS of the US tax payers money in military assistance to Israel, the largest ever sum of money given by the US to any foreign country, it is clear that the occupation of Palestine is an American interest and that the occupation is fuelled by American tax payers. It is, of course, also maintained politically by the US and its allies, not least ‘Fortress Australia’: perhaps the most loyal of US allies.
The way I understand it, the most effective way of assisting the Palestinians in their struggle is by demanding that the US and its allies stop supporting the occupation. I realize that anthropologists anywhere have very little political power, but this is probably the only way to help the Palestinians.
Talking to Israeli anthropologists might not be very effective, but I do believe it can generate a productive discussion, to the chagrin of the ruling power.
I could have written now that “I look forward for better times”, but this would be just another self-righteous and meaningless phrase. For lack of better words I’ll just say that I’ll keep on trying…
Sincerely
Nir Avieli
President, The Israeli Anthropological Association
https://www.facebook.com/ghahagea/posts/10153926262337963?comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22O%22%7D
Appendix
Uri Davis Comments In Respect of Nir Arieli/Ghassan Hage Exchange
Pre Draft Chapter Six: Israeli Anthropological Association3
In 2009 the Israeli Anthropological Association (IAA) held its 37th Annual Meeting/Conference on 22 and 23 April 2009 at the Kinneret Academic College,Tzemah. The theme of the Conference was "Anthropology of Kinship, Family and Relationships", where I submitted a Paper entitled "Uri Davis, Family, Nationality and the State: Against Gellner - A Case Study of One Hybrid Palestinian Family (the Author's)".4
In the wake of the said Conference I sent the the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) an e-mail5 to the effect that the IAA membership "business meeting" convening in the wings of the said Annual Meeting/Conference debated my draft resolution below and that following the debate [those members present] were called to vote.
The results of the vote was as follows:
In favour: 3
Abstentions: 4
Against: 20
However, when I reintroduced the resolution a year later (at the 38the General Meeting of the IAA on 28.4.2010 convened at the Campus of the Open University in Ra'anana) the vote was still more dismal with 19 against, 3 abstentions and onl1 1 in favour.6
Professor Uri Davis
Motion Submitted to the 37th Annual General Meeting
The Israeli Anthropological Association [IAA]
The Kinneret Academic College. Tzemah, 22-23 April 2009
DRAFT RESOLUTION
This Annual General Meeting of the Israeli Anthropological Association, convening at the Kinneret Academic College. Tzemah in the year 2009, the 61st year mourning commemoration of the crime against humanity of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine (the Palestinian Nakba), and in the shadow of the Israeli aggression of the war knows as “Molten Lead”; the war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli in the Gaza Strip; and the results of the recent elections for the 18th Israeli Parliament (the Knesset) endorse[s] the local, regional and international mobilization known as BDS, namely, boycott of Israeli industrial, cultural, academic and scientific institutions (including our own Association), divestment in Israel, and imposing UN sanctions against the rogue Government of the State of Israel. We support BDS as above until such time as the Government of the State of Israel [implements] the right of all 1948 Palestine refugees and their descendants to return and to the repossession of the titles to their properties inside the State of Israel, pointing out that our said endorsement refers to BDS against Israeli institutions – not individuals.
We further propose that insofar as individuals are concerned, only individuals who are willing to pen their signature to a statement such as suggested below be exempted from the BDS above:
I, (Name/ID/Passport No), herewith declare my personal and professional commitment to the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and such standards of international law as are compatible with the said values; unreservedly condemn Israeli violations of the said values and standards, notably the consistent refusal of all Israeli governments to implement the right of all 1948 Palestine refugees and their descendants to return and to the repossession of the titles to their properties inside the State of Israel, which is a fundamental human right (see UDHR, Article 13), international legal right (see UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) of 1966); and an established political right (see UNGA Resolution 194 of 1948); and call upon such bodies of which I am a member to append their signature to the call issued on 9 July 2009 by the Palestinian civil society (http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=66_0_1_10_M11) to enforce boycott of, apply divestment in, and impose sanction on the State of Israeli until such time as the State of Israel subject its institutions to the standards of international law and the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Additionally we resolve to change the name of our Association from the “Israeli Anthropological Association” to the “Anthropological Association in Israel”7, and call upon the relevant authorities of this academic campus to consider removing the current name of the campus given in commemoration of the crime against humanity of the ethnic cleansing perpetrated under the cover of the 1948-49 war, namely, the expulsion of the Palestinian Arab inhabitants of the Arab village of Samakh in April 1948 in the hands of the militias of political Zionism, and rename this academic college after the late Warsaw Ghetto survivor and human rights defender Professor Israel Shahak.
Uri Davis (Prof Dr)
P O Box 4364, Ramallah
Palestinian Authority, Palestine
Cellular: +972 54 452 3838
Tel/fax: +972 2 298 4682
Six years later, at the business meeting of the IAA (the professional organization of anthropologists in Israel currently incorporating 102 members) which took place in Ashkelon as part of the 2015 43rd IAA Annual Meeting/Conference, could no longer evade facing the growing momentum of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions/BDS as represented in the petition calling anthropologists to support the boycott of Israeli academia, which at the time of the said Conference (June 2015) had over 1300 signatories, additional to having to countenance discussion of a boycott of Israeli academic institutions at the December 2014 American Anthropological Association/AAA Annual Meeting in Washington DC.
Apparently, in its attempts to stem the tide, the IAA to scheduled earlier in the Conference a plenary session to discuss possible responses to the continuing violation of Palestinians’ human rights as well as the calls for an academic boycott of Israel. In the wake of the said discussion the business meeting (attended by 31 members, some 30% of the of IAA 102 registered members) debated at length the issues at hand and passed the questionable resolution below (by secret ballot) with a vote count that indicated 74% (23 Votes) support for the resolution, 16% (5 votes) against, 10% (3 votes) abstain. (Israeli Anthropological Association e-mail correspondence 29 October 2015 00:45:12 EET), virtually reversing its 2009 vote.8
It may be the case that the said discussion and subsequent vote were also prompted as a response to the arrival the month before (May 2015) of the AAA official Task Force to Israel and the West Bank to evaluate the state of affairs in the region and to help form the Association’s position on matters related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While a putative academic boycott does not explicitly feature in the Task Force’s terms of references, it featured centrally in meetings and discussions the Task Force held.
It was, by and large, expected that at the upcoming AAA annual meeting, which will take place in Denver in November 2015, a motion supporting the boycott of Israeli universities could be presented for vote.
Thus, six years later, already prior to the publication of the Report to the Executive Board The Task Force on AAA Engagement on Israel-Palestine dated October 1, 2015 (http://s3.amazonaws.com/rdcms-aaa/files/production/public/FileDownloads/151001-AAA-Task-Force-Israel-Palestine.pdf) recommending a range of possible courses of action available to the AAA Executive Board to intervene on behalf of academic freedom and the rights of Palestinians where No 1 Recommendation (No action) is a possibility not recommended the IAA seems to have realized that the American Anthropological Association/AAA could feasibly endorse a resolution endorsing the application of the measures of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions/BDS at its next (2016) Annual General Meeting/AGM in respect of Israeli academic institutions (including the Israeli Anthropological Association/IAA) – and the said 43rd business meeting of the IAA resorted to what I regard to be a desperate and manipulative move. Having failed to suppress a discussion on the subject of BDS-ing Israel at the said 2015 Annual Meeting of the AAA (See Appendix XXXXX, below, it and issued the Resolution quoted hereunder:
IAA Resolution, June 11 2015
End the Occupation, Oppose Academic Boycott, Support Dialogue
1. Upholding human rights, the quest for justice and a hope for a viable future for Israelis,Palestinians, and the Middle East at large, the IAA calls upon the Israeli government to follow UN resolutions and adhere to the initiative of many in the international community by:
A. ending the siege of Gaza and cooperating with the Palestinian leadership, Egypt and the international community in a genuine effort to reconstruct the Gaza strip after the damages inflicted on it in 2014, while safeguarding security for Israelis;
B. negotiating in good faith with the Palestinians towards a just and final settlement of the conflict based on Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967;
C. recognizing the rights of Palestinian and Bedouin Citizens of Israel to full equality, and doing everything necessary to fulfill this right;
D. promoting and implementing a spectrum of dignified, just and effective solutions to the tragedy of Palestinian refugees.
2. Recognizing the important role that moderate segments in Israeli society, including academics, have played over the years in the difficult struggle for peace in the region, the IAA calls on anthropologists and academics abroad to resist conflating academic institutions with government policies and actions, and to oppose initiatives to boycott universities in Israel. Associating academic institutions with the political regimes they operate in flies in the face of anthropology's most enduring contribution to intellectual and political sensibilities: its ability to recognize and articulate nuance, deal with social and cultural complexity and avoid essentialization.
The IAA urges colleagues abroad to strengthen anthropological research, debate, and teaching in the region; to mobilize anthropological insight and moral integrity for renewed dialogue between willing parties on either side; to help terminate the occupation and to nudge reluctant leaders towards peace. (http://isranthro.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IAA-resolution-June-2015-Press-Release.pdf)
No wonder that Anthropologists for Boycott of Israeli Academic Institution correctly welcomed the said Task Force Report report on American Anthropological Association (AAA) engagement on Israel/Palestine and endorsed the Task Force’s unanimous conclusion that “there is a strong case for the Association to take action” on the situation in Israel/Palestine and its conclusion that the time has come for the AAA to take action in light of the association’s principles, including its commitment to human rights and its critical awareness of U.S. complicity in abuses abroad and importantly, the Task Force’s note that a statement censuring Israel by itself would be an “insufficient course of action” given the gravity of the situation in Palestine.
Although the Task Force does not take a position on the boycott of Israeli academic institutions, I fully share the position of Anthropologists for Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions to the effect that the said Task Force Report and recommendations support the position that the most effective course of action available to the AAA is to honor the Palestinian civil society call for such a boycott, and that any boycott adopted by the AAA should apply only to Israeli academic institutions, not individual Israeli scholars. Moreover, it ought to be pointed out that Anthropologists for Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions call for the AAA to adopt the boycott as an association, leaving individual anthropologists free to determine whether and how to apply the boycott in their own professional practice.
It may be proper to conclude with the quote below:
Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions appreciates the diligence with which the Task Force discharged its mandate. Although we diverge from the report on some issues, we strongly endorse the principles for action that it lays out. We believe the report provides a strong basis for building a consensus in the Association in favor of implementing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions at the AAA Annual Meeting in Denver this November.
The Task Force report is indispensable – if sobering – reading for anthropologists, concerned scholars, and all those committed to justice in Israel/Palestine.
The full text of the Task Force Report is available here:
http://www.aaanet.org/cmtes/commissions/upload/151001-AAA-Task-Force-Israel-Palestine.pdf (From: Anthropologists Boycott anthroboycott@gmail.com, Subject: AA Task Force on Israel/Palestine, Date: 8 October 2015 18:55:16 EET)
My intervention at the 37th Annual Meeting/Conference of the IAA convening at the Kinneret Academic College. Tzemah in the year 2009 was preceded by a somewhat more empathic intervention at its preceding Annual 36th Annual Meeting/Conference at Beit Berl (Kazenelson) Academic College dating 21-22 May 2008, where I was scheduled to present David Wesley book, State Practices and Zionist Images: Shaping Economic Development in Arab Towns in Israel.
Israeli Anthropological Association 2008 Annual Meeting/Conference bag.
However, I did not get to present the book.
It being the month, the month of May 2008, the month where decent individuals and organizations mourn the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba and protest the ethnic cleansing of Palestine under the cover of the 1948-49 war, I felt that it would not be appropriate for my professional society (the IAA) to conduct "business as usual" at its Annual Meeting/Conference in this particular year and in month.
It was thus my intention, after presenting my said review, to add a comment regarding the above; point out that the flag of the political-Zionist movement, which became the flag of the apartheid State of Israel, has for the past 60 years of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and 40 years of the post-1967 occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip been displayed, inter alia, on top of Israeli torture centers, concentration camps, apartheid check-posts, barriers, and military vehicles; and underline my comment from the podium by taking a sample of the said flag from my pocket, and set a lighter to the offending object. (Based on e-mail 11 May 2008 22:09:07 EEST)
Since I would not do that without David’s explicit permission – which was denied – I settled for a surrogate stage. Standing next to one of the olive trees surrounding the Ramallah residence of Miyassar Abu Ali (subsequently to become my wife)
I asked her to take a photograph of my setting on fire a specimen of the Zionist flag of apartheid Israel, and commissioned a T-Shirt printed incorporated the said image (below). Wearing the said T-Shirt, I personelled a literature table I placed at the entrance to the Conference hall stacked with Salman Abu Sitta's The Return Journey and my Apartheid Israel. The text of my Draft Resolution submitted to the business meeting is also given below.
Back of T-Shirt
Right: Flames lapping the Zionist flag of apartheid Israel against the background of an olive tree.
Left: Poster commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba depicting a roll of 1948 Palestine refugees British Mandate TABU papers with the stamp “Not for Sale”.
Front of T-Shirt
Statement: Remember the crime against humanity [of] the ethnic cleansing of Palestine
(At the literature placed at the entrance to the 2008 IAA Annual Meeting/Conference hall. Photograph courtesy of one of the Conference attendants)
Additionally my contribution took the form of an (regrettably unsuccessful) attempt to dissuade the designated guest speaker, Professor Maichel Lambek of the University of Toronto XXXXX from accepting the invitation extended to him to present the Keynote Address at the said Conference.
From: Uri Davis <uridavis@actcom.co.il>
Date: 7 March 2009 08:00:08 GMT+02:00
Subject: Establishing e-mail contact
Dear Professor Michael Lambek,
My name and coordinates are given below. You may wish to consult my website www.uridavis.info for additional information.
I am a member of the Israeli Anthropological Association, and I am scheduled to submit the motion drafted below for vote its 37th Annual Conference, where you are billed to give the Keynote Address. I also give a Paper entitled "Family, Nationality and the State: Against Gellner - A Case Study of One Hybrid Palestinian Family (the Author's)" at one of its Sessions.
I was given to understand that for moral and political reasons you had expressed some hesitation before finally giving your consent to give the Keynote Address at the said 37th Annual Conference of the Association. I subscribe to the (hitherto) small minority among the membership of the Association who have much sympathy to your hesitation (assuming the hearsay that came my way is accurate), and, in this connection, wonder whether you would give the text of my draft Resolution below due consideration and agree to extend your public support of this text, inter alia, in your Keynote Address.
You would probably be aware that I expect the said draft Resolution to be voted down at the business meeting of the Association - but with the support of your Keynote Address, who knows?
With all good wishes
Sincerely
Uri Davis (Prof Dr)
P O Box 4364
Ramallah
Palestinian Authority
Palestine
Cellular: +972 54 452 3838
Tel/fax: +972 2 298 4682
No matter.
I would be vindicated eight years later when some half of American Anthropological Association/AAA’s 9,359 voting-eligible members (AAA’s total membership being circa 12,000) who participated in the boycott vote endorsed the vote of the 2015 AAA Business Meeting in favour of an academic boycott of Israeli institutions (and lost by the ridiculous margin of 39 votes).
Summary Biographical Note 2016
Dr Uri Davis is a Palestinian of the Hebrew language group, citizen of the alleged constitutional monarchy of the UK and of the apartheid State of Israel, born in Jerusalem in 1943. He has been at the forefront of the defence of human rights in Israel, notably Palestinian rights, since 1965 and has pioneered critical research on Zionism and the State of Israel since the mid-1970. As a PhD Graduate of the Department of Anthropology, the New School for Social Research he has published extensively in these fields (additional to numerous research and conference papers), including Israel: An Apartheid State (Zed Books, London 1987 & 1990; abridged edition, MRN, Laudium, 2001); (associate author with Walter Lehn, author), The Jewish National Fund. Kegan Paul International, London and New York, 1988; Crossing the Border (An Autobiography of an anti-Zionist Palestinian-Jew), Breirot Publishers (Heb), Tel Aviv, 1994 & (Eng) Books & Books, London 1995.
Citizenship and the State: Comparative Study of Citizenship Legislation in Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon (Ithaca Press, Reading, 1997); Citizenship and the State in the Middle East: Approaches and Applications (co-ed) (Syracuse University Press, 2000) and most recently Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within (Zed Books, London, 2003; abridged Arabic edition, Dar al-Sorok, Amman & Ramallah, 2015); (with Ricky Romain), A Secular Anti-Zionist COMPANION of an Abridged Passover Haggadah (forthcoming).
Dr Uri Davis is member of the Palestine National Council (PNC), member of the Revolutionary Council of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (FATH) and member of the Council of FATH Commission of Foreign Relations; erstwhile Associate Professor at AL-QUDS University, Institute of Area Studies (IAS), Israel Studies Programme, Jerusalem/Abu Dis, Palestine; co-Founder of the Exeter-based Palestine Studies Trust and University Fellow in the College of Social Sciences and International Studies (Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies/European Center for Palestine Studies), University of Exeter, UK; member of the Middle East Regional Committee of the international Journal Citizenship Studies; critical member of the Israeli and American Anthropological Associations; Honorary Member of the Mental Health Families and Friends Society, Ramallah, Palestine; and Chairperson of (since his election to FATH Revolutionary Council the now latent) AL-BEIT: Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Israel.
1 The settler-colonial city of Ashqelon is built on the lands of the ethnically cleansed Palestinian town of Majdal/'Asqalan, The ethnic cleansing of the population of Majdal continued into 1951, well after the 1948-49 war
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Gaza/al-Majdal-Asqalan/SatelliteView.html and https://chronicle.fanack.com/ar/israel/history-past-to-present/the-way-to-partition/al-nakba/
2 The catastrophe of ethnically cleansed is not (in the first instance) a "tragedy" but a consequence of the crime-against-humanity of the settler-colonial/political-Zionist/apartheid Israel ongoing ethnic cleansing of historical Palestine. To my understanding only a rights-based solution (including the standards of international law, all UN resolutions relevant to the question of Palesine informed by the values of the Universal Declaration of Human rights) can hope to achieve "a spectrum of dignified, just and effective solutions" to their catastrophe.
3 All references to the Israel Anthropological Association have been corrected to read: the Israeli Anthropological Association.
4 In subsequent years I abandoned the reference to "Hybrid" families (Palestinian or other) and to advocating "bi-nationalism" in a future one democratic (and hopefully socialist) federal State of Palestine, replacing them instead with the reference to Arab and not-Arab families (Palestinian or other) and with advocating tri-lingual future one democratic (and hopefully socialist) federal State of Palestine. Thus the title as presented at the (IAA) held its 37th Annual Meeting/Conference above and its Abstract (The Paper proposes to briefly consider the basic terms of the title (namely, "Family", "Nationality", "State", "Palestinian" and “Hybrid”); document as an indicative case study the case of the marriage of one Palestinian family (my own) established in the shadow of the post-1967 Israeli occupation, against the backdrop of the Palestinian Nakba and underpinned by 1948 apartheid Israel; illustrate what happens when an apartheid system interfaces with a non-apartheid marriage document; and suggest possible roles of hybrid Palestinian families in the continuing struggle for Palestinian return and sovereignty. The Paper will also address the banal question of possible roles of hybrid Palestinian families in the continuing struggle for Palestinian return and sovereignty) are to be regarded as caduc.
5 From: Uri Davis uridavis@actcom.co.il; Subject: Israeli Anthropological Association (IAA) and BDS; Date: 29 April 2009 09:41:05 EEST; To: PACBI boycottisrael@palnet.com; Cc: Haim Bresheeth Haim@Haimbresheeth.com; Bcc: Iian Pappe <I.Pappe@exeter.ac.uk>, Stellan Vinthagen <stellan.vinthagen@gmail.com>
6 The only one who raised her hand in support of the suggested Resolution was Peninah Motzafi-Haller of Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
7 Only Peninah Motzafi-Haller of of Ben Gurion University of the Negev raised her hand in support of the suggested Resolution.
8 It so happened that I did not make it to the vote. My vintage 1973 VW Beetle developed engine troubles on my way from Ramallah to the said business meeting of the IAA Annual Meeting/Conference in Ashkelon and I was stranded in Tel Aviv. Had I made it to the vote, I would have abstained.