Martin Manalansan

Overview

Martin Manalansan [Martin F. Manalansan IV] is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has defended disgraced anti-Israel Professor Steven Salaita.

He is the department head and an associate professor of Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign (UIUC).

Supporting BDS

Manalansan signed the 2014 American Anthropological Association’s (AAA) boycott of Israel, which accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing, colonization, discrimination, and military occupation” and called upon the AAA to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

Manalansan served as a National Council member and former President of the American Studies Association (ASA) when the council unanimously adopted a resolution in December 2013, exclusively 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 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.

Defending Steven Salaita

On July 28, 2015, Manalansan co-authored an article with fellow professor, Ellen Moodie, expressing support for disgraced anti-Israel Professor Steven Salaita.

In the article, the authors described a conspiracy whereby Salaita’s dismissal was “part of a larger effort designed not just to silence critics of Israel or censor critics of powerful monied interests, but also to remake the (public) university in a neoliberal corporate framework.”

The authors stated that they were “active in the Urbana-Champaign campus faculty coalition that emerged last August” to first “exchange information, and then to plan a series of actions and protests.”

The authors detailed efforts as “part of the overall BDS movement.”

Manalansan also signed a open letter whitewashing Salaita’s anti-Semitic rhetoric to UIUC Chancellor Phyllis Wise, President Robert Easter and the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, published on October 30, 2014.

Signatories of the letter condemned the decision to withdraw Salaita’s tenured position offer, claiming that of Salaita’s anti-Semitic tweets, “None of the statements that we have seen represents an attack on any racial or ethnic group, unless one accepts the disingenuous equation of the state of Israel and Jewish people generally.”

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

University Website: http://www.asianam.illinois.edu/people/manalans