Ilana Feldman

As of January 2023, Feldman was located in Washington, D.C.

BDS Activism

In 2015, Feldman co-submitted a BDS resolution to the AAA that accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and condemned “Israel’s colonization of Palestine.”

The resolution claimed “anthropological frameworks and methods, ethnographic and archaeological, are actively used by the Israeli state to further occupation and colonization.” It also alleged that Israel used U.S. aid to “purchase weapons used to oppress, maim, and kill Palestinians.”

On November 23, 2015, AAA members reportedly voted at its annual meeting to put a BDS resolution to a vote by the entire AAA membership later that year.

On December 11, 2015, Feldman was interviewed for an article in weavenews.org about the BDS resolution.

In the article, which was republished on the Anthro Boycott website, Feldman said: “The call for the AAA to boycott Israeli academic institutions is a response to a call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel from over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations…”

In August 2016, BDS leader Ilan Pappé admitted that BDS was not initiated by a “call” from Palestinian civil society; rather, it was initiated by a small number of radical anti-Israel extremists.

In the same article, Feldman condemned “dialogue” under the “so-called ‘peace process’” and praised BDS because it “recognizes the need for new political strategies.”

On March 3, 2016, Feldman spoke [00:02:40] in a Youtube livestream hosted by Anthro Boycott to promote its BDS resolution. She told [00:10:32] listeners “make sure that your AAA membership is up-to-date and vote for the resolution from April 15 to May 31.”

Feldman also alluded to academic boycott being part of a broader array of tactics to attack Israel, saying [00:09:56]: “Boycott is a political act and not just a statement of position. In voting for boycott... we have an opportunity to pursue tactics that are appropriate for our location, an academic organization; enacting academic boycott, whose effects are amplified by being part of an array of other located tactics …”

On April 21, 2016, Feldman posted to Facebook a photo of herself holding a sign supporting the resolution, that claimed: “I voted for #ANTHROBOYCOTT The most effective way for the AAA to support Palestinian rights.” She commented in the post: “AAA boycott supporters! Please take a photo of yourself holding a sign saying why you voted in favor and tag with #anthroboycott!”

On June 7, 2016, the AAA reportedly announced that the BDS resolution failed in an online vote.

Demonizing Israel

On July 18, 2014, Feldman co-signed a letter that referred to Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE) against Hamas as “the wholesale slaughter of a civilian population.”

Israel commenced OPEin July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.

Throughout the summer of 2014, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE), Hamas used civilian infrastructure for military purposes, which included homes, schools, hospitals and mosques.

Hamas also launched numerous rocket attacks against Israeli civilian population centers and they encouraged Gazans acting as human shields to ignore Israeli warnings in order to frustrate Israeli efforts to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza.

On July 28, 2014, Feldman wrote a post in the Stanford University Press Blog in which she claimed: “Palestinians living in Gaza’s ‘open air prison’ are not only targeted for attack, but also victimized by enforced immobility. Through years of policies of increasing control, closure, and blockade, Israel has created this vulnerability and is now deploying immobility as a lethal weapon.”

Israel and Egypt implemented a United Nations-approved [pp. 39–41] joint blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2011 to stop Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated rockets.

In 2017, Feldman authored an article in the journal Cultural Anthropology titled: “Humanitarian Care and the Ends of Life: The Politics of Aging and Dying in a Palestinian Refugee Camp.”

Feldman wrote: “There has been no implementation of most of the many United Nations resolutions on the displacement of Palestinians. Key among these unfulfilled ideals is the right of return, a central feature of refugee political thought and claims.”

The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel. International law mandates no absolute right of return and UN Resolution 194, which defined principles for “refugees wishing to return to their homes,” was unanimously rejected by Arab nations following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

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

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ilana.feldman

University Page 1:https://elliott.gwu.edu/ilana-feldman 

University Page 2: https://anthropology.columbian.gwu.edu/ilana-feldman