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ASA’s phone is unlikely to ring

John Kerry and Benjamin Netanyahu look out onto the snow-covered city of Jerusalem during a meeting Dec. 13.REUTERS

In the Dec. 25 news article “US academia split over boycott targeting Israel,” the Globe quotes one defender of the American Studies Association’s absurd boycott of Israeli institutions as saying, “If we get a call from Egyptian society, if we get a call from Chinese civil society, if we get a call from Syrian civil society, we certainly will take a look at that call.”

The American Studies Association is unlikely to get many such calls, since any callers from those societies would be in serious peril of imprisonment or worse. Abhorrent as the occupation is, members of the Palestinian boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement have enough political freedom to call for such boycotts. And they hardly represent a universal consensus among Palestinians. Although your article doesn't mention it, the ASA strangely ignores the fact that the Palestinian Authority itself objects to boycotting Israeli institutions.

William Flesch

Professor of English and
comparative literature

Brandeis University

Waltham