Houston Baker

Baker is a Distinguished University Professor of English and African American Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University (Vanderbilt). 

In March of 2016, Baker submitted a personal statement urging the MLA, of which he is a former president, to adopt a resolution that would boycott Israeli academic institutions. Baker also posted his statement on Facebook. 

In his statement, Baker accused Israel of “pillage” and committing “all manner of atrocity upon the Palestinian people.” Baker also claimed that the establishment of the state of Israel was “illegitimate”. 

During the annual MLA meeting in January 2017, MLA’s delegate council rejected the resolution and instead voted to support Resolution 2017-1 (2017-1), which urged the MLA to refrain from adopting BDS. 

In early 2017, Baker signed a Change.org petition targeting 2071-1. According to the text of the petition, “The very existence of 2017-1 is a blight on the the ethical orientations of the MLA.”

In June of 2017, the MLA adopted 2017-1 by a 2-1 margin following a full membership vote. Baker then signed a statement condemning the MLA’s adoption of the anti-BDS resolution, which it characterized as “support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”   

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.

University Website:https://as.vanderbilt.edu/aads/people/houston-baker.php