海角大神

A major US academic association has joined the boycott against Israeli educational institutions, marking a key victory for the Palestinian-led movement and instantly drawing fire from critics.

The 5,000-member聽American Academic Studies Association (ASA), comprised in large part of US university professors, announced Monday that its members approved a resolution to support a decade-old movement to boycott Israeli academic institutions in protest of Israeli treatment of Palestinians. The resolution is nonbinding, but it is a significant victory for the growing movement.聽

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel has lobbied since 2004 to pressure Israel to correct what it says are injustices against Palestinians by disrupting collaboration between Israeli academic institutions and聽the global academic community. The rationale is explained in the movement鈥檚 call to action, posted on its website:

Because the movement reinforces an explicit comparison between Israel鈥檚 policy and apartheid-era South Africa, the recent death of Nelson Mandela helped spur the ASA's vote, The Guardian wrote today.

The ASA said in a statement posted online that the resolution was passed by a roughly 2-1 margin in a vote by 鈥渢he largest number of participants in the organization鈥檚 history.鈥� Here is how ASA explained its decision:

Although the resolution calls for ASA members to cease collaboration with Israeli academic institutions, it is 鈥減rimarily symbolic,鈥� The New York Times reports. It is not binding for the association鈥檚 members and only targets Israeli colleges and universities, not individual scholars, who may continue working with their American counterparts on an individual basis. 聽

But the resolution immediately drew angry responses from Israeli officials and American critics, CBS News reports, not least because it is the first such decision by an American organization, marking聽a clear shift of the movement鈥檚 momentum, which previously lagged in the US. (It has claimed several recent victories in Europe, most notably swaying celebrated physicist Stephen Hawkins to pull out of a high-profile conference, as The Guardian reported last May.)

Critics cried foul over what they said was the intellectual dishonesty and anti-Israel bias embodied by the resolution, receiving some聽fervent voices of support. The first viewpoint was passionately argued by Larry Summers during an appearance last week on the Charlie Rose Show:聽

Speaking with The New York Times, Curtis Marez, ASA president and an associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California 鈥� San Diego, acknowledged that numerous states, including many of Israel's neighbors, are much more egregious human rights abusers, but said,聽鈥渙ne has to start somewhere鈥�:聽