SWC Reaction to American Anthropological Association Israel Boycott Vote

November 23, 2015

The Simon Wiesenthal Center today blasted the recent vote by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Center’s Associate Dean, said, “This misguided and misleading resolution is nothing more than an assault on Israel’s intellectual and political right to exist. Israeli academic institutions are the bulwark for freedom of thought and expression lacking in so much of the Middle East.

“This immoral exercise comes a time when the civilized world is reeling from the real enemy of peace —Islamist terrorism. When Palestinian terrorists are stabbing and shooting innocent Jewish men, women, and children on the streets and in the synagogues of the Holy Land. By ignoring Palestinian incitement and terrorism, it whitewashes radical extremism and pressures others to accept this distorted and grotesque picture. In doing so the AAA has betrayed its own mission and embraced discrimination,” Cooper concluded.

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).