Lisa Lowe
Overview
Lisa Loweis a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, demonized Israel and defended disgraced anti-Israel Professor Steven Salaita.As of January 2020, Lowe was the Samuel Knight Professor of American Studies and Director of Graduate Studies at Yale University (Yale). She was formerly the Distinguished Professor of English and Humanities and Director of the Center for Humanities at Tufts University (Tufts).
Supporting BDS
At a 2016 MLA Conference, Lowe co-presented an essay which “considers the articulations of the US settler state with the Israeli settler state and the ways they are mutually constitutive” and went on to argue that “the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement has enabled broader alliances in an international movement to end Israeli apartheid.”In January 2017, the MLA Delegate Assembly approved a resolution (2017-1) acknowledging “the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel contradicts the MLA’s purpose” and conflicted with another resolution (2002-1), that condemned boycotts against scholars. Therefore, the Assembly “resolved that the MLA refrain from endorsing the boycott.”
On February 2, 2014, Lowe shared on Twitter an op-ed in support of BDS by Omar Barghouti.
Barghouti, the founder of the BDS movement, has claimed [00:04:28] that international law grants everyone with Palestinian ancestry the unqualified right to settle in Israel. Barghouti has also insisted [01:18:21]that the demands of BDS are “inflexible” and “non-negotiable,” and if people object, then “tough.”
Lowe signed an open letter to former United States President Barack Obama and the American Congress, demonizing Israel and calling for an end to foreign aid.
The July 31, 2014 letter, addressed to former U.S. President Barack Obama and the American Congress, called “to suspend US military aid to Israel, until there is assurance that this aid will no longer be used for the commission of war crimes.”
The letter was in response to Operation Protective Edge (OPE), which Israel commenced in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
Lowe signed her name to a list of individuals endorsing the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).
In 2013, Lowe published a statement in support of the American Studies Association (ASA) resolution to join the academic boycott of Israel, in which she argued that “The collective practice of non-cooperation with institutions has a long distinguished international history, and the ASA resolution on the academic boycott of Israel situates itself squarely in this tradition.”
At the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) Annual Conference in April of 2013, Lowe signed the proposed resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions which it alleged have “been directly and indirectly complicit in the systematic maintenance of the occupation.”
The resolution called for the AAAS to join in “opposing US military occupation in the Arab world and U.S. support for occupation and racist practices by the Israeli state” and went on to call upon the organization to “honor the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”
On December 22, 2013, Lowe tweeted: “Rabbi Brant Rosen Explains Support for the ASA Academic Boycott of Israel wp.me/p1Xax-3Js via @RabbiBrant” and linked to a piece in support of the ASA resolution by Rabbi Brant Rosen, Midwestern Regional Director for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).
Demonizing Israel
On March 30, 2018, Lowe tweeted: “Round table discussion on Palestinian scholarship in Israel, in honor of Land Day @TuftsUniversity” and shared a photo from the round table event.The discussion Lowe tweeted about referred to “Palestinian Land Day,” the day “Palestinians in the Gaza strip organized protest marches to the Gaza border.”
The day before, on March 29, 2018, Lowe promoted the round table discussion on Twitter and tagged fellow Tufts professor Amahl Bishara. According to the image that Lowe tweeted about the event, Bishara was scheduled to be the moderator. Bishara has expressed support for terrorists, demonized Israel and is a supporter of the BDS movement.
Later on during the Gaza riots, on May 17, 2018, Lowe tweeted an article in support of the violent protesters, titled: “In America's news headlines, Palestinians die mysterious deaths.” The article claimed that the media was not sufficiently blaming Israel for the deaths of rioters during the protests.
Anti-Israel professor Rashid Khalidi, formerly the spokesperson of the PLO under Yasir Arafat, has reflected “upon how the term ‘Eretz Israel’ intrinsically perpetuates Zionists' eternal claim to the Holy Land for Jews.”
Defending Steven Salaita
Lowe signed a petition published on August 21, 2014 by the BDS movement titled: “A Call to People of Conscience Not to Speak at the University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Until Chancellor Wise Honor [sic] the Contract to Hire Professor Steven Salaita.”In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.
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
Twitter:https://twitter.com/driftinghouseUniversity Website: https://ase.tufts.edu/english/people/lowe.htm
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Tufts
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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