In 2015, after the end of Operation Protective Edge, the Israeli Anthropological Society held its annual conference. Anthropologists can be trusted within whose people they live, and therefore the Society published the following reflections ahead of the conference: "What is the role of social responsibility in anthropology? (...) How should anthropologists study and act in situations of inequality and political conflict? To what extent does anthropology have responsibilities in conflict zones, and what actions should anthropologists take—beyond academic writing—in situations that require speaking truth to those in power?
"Shared life on campus is constantly threatened, as a result of the college's location near the Gaza Strip and the volatile security situation on the ground. The fragile face of the other and the responsibility towards him in this context is a deep anthropological dilemma, which we will also seek to delve into at the conference."
The conference was held at Ashkelon Academic College, a city that suffered 233 rockets during Operation Protective Edge, as part of Gaza's well-known policy of mass-killing Jews as a positive value.
Mayor of Ashkelon: "Kibinimat, I've been shouting for 7 years" // Photo: Knesset Channel
Nonetheless, Israeli anthropologists chose to define this murderousness as a "volatile security situation," lamenting the difficulty of living together on campus, rather than the basic difficulty of living, in the sense of subsisting, under blind murderousness. And to compile a mitzvah and adorn themselves with the feathers of humanism, see their enemies as a fragile "other" to be held accountable.
Perhaps the conference gave Israeli scholars an opportunity to prove that they, unlike the Ashkelons, possessed special sensitivity, extraordinary compassion and, of course, a transcendent capacity for blindness and detachment. They lived in an imagined, global community of academics like themselves, with the same concepts, values and worldview. None of this helped when the American Anthropological Association blatantly ignored the moral beauty of the Israeli Society and decided overwhelmingly to boycott it.
"Inheriting a longstanding tradition of research on colonialism, (the resolution) affirms that the central problem is the existence of a colonialist settler regime based on Jewish supremacy and Palestinian dispossession," the boycott organizers stated, adding that its goal was "to protest the cooperation of Israeli academic institutions in these unacceptable acts."
Israeli anthropologists were shocked, and some tried to explain that there had been an unfortunate misunderstanding. Prof. Dan Rabinowitz of Tel Aviv University tried to explain what the boycott problem is: "Such acts play into the hands of the Israeli right, which will see them as further proof that 'the whole world is against us'"; The association stressed that the decision would only "encourage Israeli intransigence and deepen the occupation of Palestinian lands, which has been going on since 1967." And what is the goal of the Anthropological Association in Israel, if not to end the occupation and refute the claims of the right?
At public expense
But the Israelis fought back. In 2016, after a year of struggles and efforts, the scales were tipped with 51% of members of the American Anthropological Association voting against the boycott. Public Security and Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan called it "a dramatic change in trend" and congratulated "the Israeli and American anthropologists who acted against the decision." This enabled Israeli anthropologists to continue their academic work to study the fragile other and end the occupation, like real academics. At the expense of the entire Israeli public, of course.
After the threat of boycott was lifted, our anthropologists turned to their routine research: sensitivity and vulnerability among rappers, the connection between nature conservation and colonialism, International Fairy Day, heterosexuality, anomaly and queer masculinity, and of course – the regime coup. Like their colleagues in Israeli academia, anthropologists continued to impose their values on students and preach to the general public on all matters.
They were not alone: the Hebrew University awarded a scholarship to a BDS activist, in which lecturers from B'Tselem, Adalah, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel taught. A lecturer in the Department of Literature was outraged by the presence of uniformed soldiers on campus, and a lecturer active in Ta'ayush at Tel Aviv University called decorating the library with Israeli flags on Independence Day a "disease."
Ashkelon, for its part, dealt with its own affairs. And in 2021, when Israeli Arabs rioted violently in mixed cities and on southern roads, accompanied by more rocket rains from Gaza, it snatched 704 of them. "A dramatic change in trend"? Not necessarily. All in all, more evidence of the fragile face of the other from Gaza.
And what about the American Anthropological Association? Last July, she again voted to boycott Israeli universities. 70% of voters supported. About half of the members of the association did not bother to vote. Perhaps they were afraid to express support for their beautiful friends from Israel. "An outcome that was quite expected," the Israeli anthropologists humbly accepted the decree, adding: "Today there is already a boycott of Israel by many American anthropologists, which may now become stronger, but how this decision will affect in practice is still not entirely clear." Well, it's actually quite clear.
For years, Israeli academia promoted left-wing values and Marxist theories, and suppressed and silenced right-wing and nationalist voices. All this was supposed to provide her with some solidarity from her overseas colleagues. And now, even after the massacre, the best universities in the United States stand and spit in its face, one after the other. They compare Israel to Hamas, find it difficult or unwilling to protect Jewish students attacked by pro-Hamas students, and prove what any normal person should have understood long ago: Western academies have become centers of intellectual and moral misery.
Even at the cost of alienation
Anthropologists are not alone: American sociologists have also sided with Hamas and condemned Israel's "colonialism" and "genocide." They didn't even bother to pay lip service in the form of condemning the massacre and kidnapping of civilians. Israeli sociologists, like anthropologists, are also shocked by the betrayal. As if they hadn't ingratiated themselves for years with this broken group, preferring the International Academic Club even at the price of alienation from Israeli nationalism. Even the singing of "Hatikvah" at graduation ceremonies became controversial in their eyes.
Only Ashkelon as usual does. Since the outbreak of the Iron Sword War, it has hijacked more than 1,000 rockets from Gaza. It's not as glamorous as a degree in the social sciences, but in order to understand what Israel is, who the Palestinians are, and what academia is, you don't need a doctorate – it's enough to be Ashkeloni, or just an ordinary Israeli.
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