Margaret Ferguson

Overview

Margaret Ferguson [Margaret W. Ferguson] is an activist within the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and attempted to push the Modern Language Association (MLA) to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

In June of 2016, Ferguson attended a “fact-finding” mission in Israel and co-authored a report about the trip. The stated purpose of the trip was to “advocate for a boycott resolution by the MLA.”

Ferguson is a distinguished professor of English at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis).

Promoting BDS

Ferguson has publicly endorsed the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI). 

She has also signed a statement arguing that a boycott of Israeli settlements is insufficient, because Israel must be boycotted entirely. 

On November 14, 2014, Ferguson signed and shared a petition on Facebook calling on UAW 2865 — a union representing 13,000 Academic Student Employees (ASEs), including teaching assistants, tutors and graders, at the nine teaching campuses of the University of California — to adopt BDS.

On August 8, 2016, Ferguson was interviewed by anti-Israel activist David Lloyd. The interview, titled “Apartheid in South Africa and Israel: A Radio Interview with Margaret Ferguson,” featured Ferguson promoting the analogy of Israel with Apartheid South Africa (10:00) and discussed her contributions to BDS (21:30).

Pushing the MLA to Boycott Israel

In 2014, Ferguson used her position as president of the Modern Language Association (MLA) to promote BDS and has signed a resolution calling on the MLA to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

During the annual MLA meeting in January 2016, Ferguson presided over a debate panel organized by MLA Members for Justice in Palestine, titled “Boycotting Israeli Academic Institutions.”

During the annual MLA meeting in January 2017, Ferguson chaired a discussion titled “‘Association Presidents’ Perspectives on Boycott” that featured pro-BDS speakers. 

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

In June of 2017, the MLA adopted 2017-1 by a 2-1 margin following a full membership vote. 

Ferguson 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.” 

Pro-BDS Israel Trip

In June of 2016, Ferguson participated in an MLA “fact-finding” mission in Israel alongside anti-Israel activists Rebecca Comay and David Lloyd. 

According to a Facebook post by the Hamas-dominated Birzeit University, where the delegation held a meeting, the “six-member visit to Palestine was made as part of attempts to advocate for a boycott resolution by the MLA that will be proposed next winter.” 

Following the trip, Ferguson co-authored “A Report by MLA Members on Higher Education in Palestine,” which contextualized data through an ideologically anti-Israel position.

The report misrepresented a number of facts, alleging that Palestinian citizens of Israel “are citizens but not ‘nationals’,” that “all university entrance exams are taken in Hebrew” and that financial aid is unavailable to Arab Palestinians.  

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/margaret.w.ferguson

University Website:http://english.ucdavis.edu/people/mwfergus

Radio Interview: http://archive.kpfk.org/mp3/kpfk_160808_153015rintifada.MP3