Rhoda Kanaaneh

Overview

Rhoda Kanaaneh [Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh] was a leader in the effort to push the American Anthropological Association (AAA) to boycott Israeli academic institutions. She is also a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Kanaaneh has published books and articles demonizing Israel and accusing the state of ethnic cleansing.

Kanaaneh is a professor in the Department of Anthropology and serves on the editorial committee of the Journal of Palestine Studies at Columbia University (Columbia).

Pushing the AAA to Boycott Israel

Kanaaneh was one of several AAA members who submitted “Resolution #2: Resolution to Boycott Israeli Academic Institutions.”

The resolution claimed that the “Israeli state has denied Palestinians -- including scholars and students -- their fundamental rights of freedom, equality, and self-determination through ethnic cleansing, colonization, discrimination, and military occupation.”

The resolution then went on to state that “This resolution calls for the AAA -- as an Association -- to implement an academic boycott of Israeli institutions. If the boycott is adopted, the AAA will refrain from any formal collaborations or other relationships with Israeli academic institutions.”

On June 5, 2017, Kanaaneh penned an essay in support of the resolution for the AAA to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

Kanaaneh concluded the essay with a call to action: “On the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation…  it is high time that anthropologists join this resistance.”

Kanaaneh also signed the AAA resolution published on June 10, 2017, calling for the academic boycott of Israel.

In June of 2016, the AAA announced that the resolution was defeated but that there are “other actions planned.”

The AAA vote on the anti-Israel resolution took place from April 15 to May 31, 2016, with approximately half of the AAA membership voting on the resolution. Of the half that voted concerning the resolution, 50.4% voted against it, meaning that only one quarter of AAA’s membership — at most — voted in favor of the resolution.

Supporting BDS

On August 27, 2013, Kanaaneh signed an open letter titled “Call to Boycott the Oral History Conference at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.”

The letter urged scholars and academics to withdraw their participation from an upcoming conference because it was being held at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (HUJI).

Signatories of the letter claimed that “Israeli universities are deeply complicit in the occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid.”

The letter concluding by stating “We call on our colleagues to treat Israel exactly the same way that most of the world treated racist South Africa – or indeed any other state that legislates and practices apartheid: as a pariah state.”

On August 6, 2014, Kanaaneh signed a petition of Middle East scholars and librarians, calling for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

The petition accused Israel of carrying out an “ongoing siege” and “ongoing massacres” and concluded with a “pledge not to collaborate on projects and events involving Israeli academic institutions, not to teach at or to attend conferences and other events at such institutions, and not to publish in academic journals based in Israel.”

On May 15, 2015 Kanaaneh published an article in which she described “the apartheid rules enforced in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” and alleged that Palestinian villages were “ethnically cleansed.”

Kanaaneh concluded her article writing that “One of the glimmers of hope on the horizon… is the growing solidarity with us embodied in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.”

Demonizing Israel

In 2010, Kanaaneh co-authored a book titled “Displaced at Home: Ethnicity and Gender among Palestinians in Israel.”

On December 28, 2011, the authors gave an interview about the book, in which they stated that “The Israeli state is invested in keeping the collective memory of the Holocaust alive, which it uses to legitimize its policies.”

Kanaaneh also published a book in 2009 titled “Surrounded: Palestinian Soldiers in the Israeli Military.” According to an article, published on September 28, 2009, Kanaaneh’s conclusion in the book was that “In the end, the military, like all other [Israeli] state institutions, is a tool the dominant majority wields to preserve Jewish privilege.”