(Interestingly I had to pull this letter out of my SPAM reject file!)
February 3 2009
Dear All,
Last
week, with initial hesitation but finally strong conviction, I endorsed
the Call for a U.S. Cultural and Academic Boycott of
Israel. HYPERLINK "http://usacbi.wordpress.com/" http://usacbi.wordpress.com/ I’d like to offer my reasons to friends, family and comrades. I have tried in fullest conscience to think this through.
My
hesitation: I profoundly believe in the visible/invisible liberatory
social power of creative and intellectual boundary-crossings. I’ve
been educated by these all my life, and by centuries-long
cross-conversations about human freedom, justice and power—also, the
forces that try to silence them.
As an American Jew,
over almost 30 years, I’ve joined with other concerned Jews in various
kinds of coalition-building and anti-Occupation work. I’ve seen the
kinds of organized efforts to stifle—in the US and elsewhere--
critiques of Israel’s policies--the Occupation’s denial of Palestinian
humanity, destruction of Palestinian lives and livelihoods, the
“settlements,” the state’s physical and psychological walls against
dialogue—and the efforts to condemn any critiques as
anti-Semitism. Along with other activists and writers I’ve been named
on right-wing “shit-lists” as “Israel-hating” or “Jew-hating.” I
have also seen attacks within American academia and media on Arab
American, Muslim, Jewish scholars and teachers whose work critically
explores the foundations and practices of Israeli state and society.
Until
now, as a believer in boundary-crossings, I would not have endorsed a
cultural and academic boycott. But Israel’s continuing, annihilative
assaults in Gaza, and the one-sided rationalizations for them have
driven me to re-examine my thoughts about cultural exchanges.
Israel’s blockading of information, compassionate aid, international
witness and free cultural and scholarly expression has become extreme
and morally stone-blind. Israeli Arab parties have been banned from
the elections, Israeli Jewish dissidents arrested, Israeli youth
imprisoned for conscientious refusal of military service. Academic institutions
are surely only relative sites of power. But they are, in their
funding and governance, implicated with state economic and military
power. And US media, institutions and official policy have gone along
with all this.
To boycott a repressive military state should not
mean backing away from individuals struggling against the policies of
that state. So, in continued solidarity with the Palestinian people’s
long resistance, and also with those Israeli activists, teachers,
students, artists, writers, intellectuals, journalists, refuseniks,
feminists and others who oppose the means and ends of the Occupation,
I have signed my name to this call.
Adrienne Rich
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Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
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