Avery Gordon

Overview

Avery Gordon [Avery F. Gordon] is a leader within the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has endorsed the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).

Gordon served as a National Council member of the American Studies Association (ASA) when the Council unanimously adopted a resolution in December 2013, singling out Israeli universities for academic boycott. .

In a December 16, 2013 interview, former ASA President Curtis Marez acknowledged that the ASA never before called for an academic boycott of any nation’s universities, but claimed “one has to start somewhere.” No other academic boycott of any other nation has since been introduced at the ASA.

On April 20, 2016, a lawsuit was filed by ASA members against Gordon and other ASA officers who advanced the anti-Israel boycott. The plaintiffs accused the defendants of hijacking the ASA for personal political purposes and perverting their duties as officials of the ASA.

Gordon also signed a 2014 open letter calling on Israeli academics who believed it “urgent” to “act to end the illegal occupation in Palestine” and Israeli “atrocities” to sign a petition. The petition was closed to overseas signers after only 83 Israeli professors signed on.

Gordon is a professor of Sociology at UCSB, and a Visiting Faculty Fellow at Goldsmiths College in London. Since 1997, Gordon has hosted a weekly public affairs radio program called "No Alibis."

Demonizing Israel

In 2014, Gordon signed a 2002 open letter suggesting that Israel would use the “fog of war” in Iraq to engage in "full-fledged ethnic cleansing" against Palestinians. No retractions were ever issued for the letter after its claims failed to materialize.

In November 2015, Gordon signed a Statement by individuals calling themselves the “BDZ Group” (BDZ), demanding the boycott of the Zabludowicz Collection — a London-based art trust. BDZ targeted Zabludowicz as “financially associated with companies that are active in Israel and that provide maintenance and services to the Israeli Airforce [sic.].” A March 2016 BDZ statement claimed that “ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is an integral, not accidental, part of the Israeli state.”

In December 2006, Gordon signed an open letter, published in The Guardian, titled “Israel Boycott May Be the Way to Peace.” The statement implied that Israel practices apartheid and claimed that “the situation of the Palestinians is worse than that of black South Africans under apartheid.”

BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true. 

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”  

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.

BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.

Social Media and Weblinks

Website:http://www.averygordon.net/

Radio Show:http://www.averygordon.net/radio-sound/no-alibis/