Minkah Makalani

Makalani is an associate professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas, Austin (UT Austin).

Supporting BDS

On June 29, 2016, Makalani tweeted “Normative black politics at work, trying to destroy #BDS & support for Palestine.” Makalani’s tweet linked to an article published by the anti-Israel publication, Mondoweiss, titled “Clinton marshals African-American surrogates against BDS to stop pro-Palestinian influence ‘in the public narrative’.”

The article described a conspiracy, whereby the pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), infiltrated the Democratic party in order to defeat BDS. 

On July 29, 2016, Malakani tweeted: “AIPAC's cultivation of black college students' support 4 Isreal against #BDS & #Palestine working like they planned.”

Makalani signed an open letter condemning “the disproportionate harm that the Israeli military, which the United States has armed and supported for decades, is inflicting on the population of Gaza.”

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.”

Demonizing Israel

Makalani signed a July 1, 2013 petition, published by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, titled “African Americans Affirming the Jim Crow analogy in Palestine/Israel.”

Signatories of the statement alleged “The list of the discriminatory treatment Palestinians face, which fits the definition under international law of the crime of apartheid, seems endless.”

The letter went on to claim that “the treatment Palestinians face shares much in common with what African Americans experienced under Jim Crow segregation in the USA” and concluded with a call for singer Alicia Keys to join the BDS movement and cancel her upcoming concert in Israel. 

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/minkmak

Blog:https://mmakalani.wordpress.com/

University Website: https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/aads/faculty/mm64278