The staunchest opponents have used silencing tactics rather than debate to challenge BDS efforts. These tactics are often heavy-handed and include threats of legal action, cessation of donor funding, and even the intervention of the political establishment. None of these tactics demonstrate or represent popular opposition to BDS.
In January 2013, Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz spearheaded a campaign to force Brooklyn College to cancel a talk about BDS. Then, BDS opponents rallied several New York politicians to openly threaten rescinding funding for the public school if it proceeded with the lecture. The threats backfired as faculty members, Brooklyn College’s president, as well as Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the sanctity of academic freedom. In response to their divestment efforts, Berkeley students endured and withstood a Department of Justice Title VI investigation alleging that they created a hostile climate on campus for Jewish students. An Olympia, Washington, co-op successfully defended itself against a lawsuit that sought to block enforcement of a boycott of Israeli goods and to collect monetary damages from the co-op board for breaching its fiduciary duties.
The opposition to the ASA resolution has been no different. Dershowitz penned an open letter threatening ASA members, "For those of you for whom shame is not enough, please understand that a vote for a boycott will expose you and your association both for legal and academic consequences."
This threat was not lost on the ASA’s membership that gathered on 23 November 2013 to discuss the resolution at an open forum. Of the forty-four speakers randomly selected to speak for two minutes each, thirty-seven began their comments by affirming their support for the resolution. Several of them recounted how they endured violations of their own academic freedom to critique Israel. One speaker, a former student of the late Professor Edward W. Said, recalled how his office was firebombed in an effort to intimidate and silence him. Another recalled the politicized tenure battles waged against Professors Joseph Massad, Nadia Abu al Haj, and Norman Finkelstein, who contravened the unspoken truism among scholars that you do not speak about Palestine until you have secured the safeguards of tenure. Every academic and student who spoke, knew that by supporting the resolution for academic boycott of Israel, they were placing themselves in the line of fire. This knowledge among ASA’s membership, coupled with the fact that an overwhelming majority among it was ready to speak anyway, contributed to a sense of victory for the boycott effort regardless of the official vote by the Executive Committee. According to Professor Nadine Naber, associate professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois - Chicago,
Because the open discussion about Palestinian human rights that happened [at the ASA meeting] rarely happens in the US, people called the meeting historic…This is just one way the resolution creates new openings for academic freedom and the perspectives that dominant US and Israeli discourses systematically ignore, crush, and silence.
Significantly, no one took to the microphone to defend Israel’s practices (although one speaker did explain how he has “a Palestinian friend” who thinks the biggest problem facing Palestinians is Palestinian corruption and violence). Opponents of the boycott resolution argued that the resolution should go to a membership-wide referendum (the petition in support of the resolution garnered 1,008 signatures and the one against approximately 400). They argued that they were blindsided by the proposal (it was proposed and made public a year ago). They also argued that Israel is not unique for its violations (i.e., China and the US have an equal, if not worse, track record). All seven naysayers objected to the resolution on procedural grounds rather than challenging the substance of Israel’s violations.
Turning Corners: Mainstreaming Scrutiny of Israel
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/15346/toward-an-ethic-of-legitimate-dissent_academic-boy
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