After months of debate which at times turned vitriolic, Modern Language Association (MLA) members voted to condemn Israel’s discriminatory border policies.
But the 1,560-1,063 vote on the resolution was not ratified because 10 percent of MLA members have to affirm the vote for a measure to count. The resolution fell short of ratification by 830 votes. Only 2,623 members of an association that counts nearly 30,000 people voted.
In an e-mail to Mondoweiss, David Lloyd, an MLA member and English professor at the University of California, Riverside, said the meager turnout was evidence of “the apparent apathy of American scholars rather than about the merits of this quite modest and far from radical resolution.” But Lloyd, a supporter of the academic boycott of Israel, added that the affirmation of the resolution by those who voted showed that “on the battleground of ideas, Israel and its supporters are continuing to lose ground… The façade of openness and normality that Israel has tried to present to the world continues to crack and it is becoming ever more impossible for liberal-minded individuals to endorse it.”
The first vote on the resolution took place at the MLA’s January convention in Chicago, where the Delegate Assembly voted 60-53 in favor. The measure criticizes Israel’s denials of entry to academics of Palestinian descent and calls on the State Department to “contest Israel’s denials of entry to the West Bank by United States academics who have been invited to teach, confer, or do research at Palestinian universities.”
Then the resolution went to the full membership. In the run-up to the vote, a leaked internal discussion revealed a raging debate over Israel’s occupation that included accusations of anti-Semitism and discussion about the influence of the Israel lobby.
Reactions to the full vote came in fast, with pro-Israel groups celebrating that the resolution would not be ratified. “Reason and truth have triumphed over the hatred and hypocrisy at the core of the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement against Israel,” American Jewish Committee head David Harris told Haaretz. Opponents of the resolution sought to link it to BDS, though it made no mention of boycotting Israel. Still, some supporters thought a vote in favor could lay the groundwork for a future BDS resolution.
While the resolution was not ratified, it did turn more attention to Israel’s border policies. Israel’s denial of entries to Arab- and Palestinian-Americans have been one of the main impediments to the country’s entry into the visa-waiver program with the U.S. In March, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said that “the Department of Homeland Security and State remain concerned with the unequal treatment that Palestinian Americans and other Americans of Middle Eastern origin experience at Israel’s border and checkpoints, and reciprocity is the most basic condition of the Visa Waiver Program.”
The vote was decisive: 59.5% (=1560/2623) of those voting supported the measure.
The problem was turnout. If turnout were higher, it would have passed, unless those not voting were radically different from those voting, and there’s no evidence of that.
I expect the supporters to try again next year, but with more attention paid to GOTV (get out the vote).
another ‘victory’ snatched out of the jaws of ‘defeat’ by the standards of BDS. good job. must be doing something right to keep gaining such support.*
*oh, and to the ‘scholarly english prof., D.Lloyd’, I’d really like to know how he arrived at his conclusion that the 27,000+ members that did not vote were apathetic ? How does he know that they didn’t want to take part in the vote for entirely different reasons? Polling data please? I wouldn’t really belabor the point but if he wants to imply that had members been convinced to vote it would have gone differently he should back this up with some semblance of proof. Otherwise, folks like me will just say he’s a sour grape because he lost. And thats not fair is it?
“But Lloyd, a supporter of the academic boycott of Israel, added that the affirmation of the resolution by those who voted showed that “on the battleground of ideas, Israel and its supporters are continuing to lose ground…”
With less than 10% of the voting body giving a flying fart? Doesn’t sound like a victory cry.
“Opponents of the resolution sought to link it to BDS, though it made no mention of boycotting Israel.” Vs. “But Lloyd, a supporter of the academic boycott of Israel…”.
So the resolution wasn’t an explicit move to boycott, but it’s obvious where the urge comes from. People can read below the surface of words, and conversation amongst members surely brought pro-boycott philosophy up. In the end, my guess is 90%+ didn’t think boycotting was even worth discussing. As my grandmother once said, “Debating someone about nonsense only makes them sound more intelligent than they really are.”
Anyone who remembers what it was like to take the anti-discrimination stand wrt Israel even ten short years ago recognizes already the fact this issue even came to VOTE, let alone gathered an outright majority, is a huge victory. At this point, we were really only gauging the DEGREE of victory.
The days of the fear of being labelled self-hating or antisemitic for simply opposing what is so obviously against human values, Jewish or otherwise, are l-o-o-o-ong gone. The Palestinian narrative is clearly and finally coming out, with a concomitant shifting of which “side” must bear the “lunatic fringe” label relative to the mainstream.
Great job, MLA, for stoking the fire of debate on a national level – a debate that was unthinkable on this scale all too recently.
This outcome is not surprising. It says that over 90% of the membership of MLA do not care enough about the IP issue to vote their opinion. What is interesting of those who do care, the pro-Palestinian position wins 60/40 over pro-Israel one.
If Israel is going to claim a victory because over 90% do not care what happens to Israel then it seems Israel is in deep doodoo.