Yvonne Haddad
Overview
Yvonne Haddad [Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad] is an advocate for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.Haddad is a former president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), which is considered the most important association of Middle East Studies.
In February 2017, Haddad was a signatory to a letter in support of a bylaw amendment that would remove the word “non-political” from MESA’s self-description. The amendment passed in March 2017. This was reportedly done in order to enable MESA to amend its bylaws to endorse BDS.
Promoting BDS
In 2014, Haddad signed a letter calling on “scholars and librarians within Middle East studies to boycott Israeli academic institutions.”The letter pledged “not to collaborate on projects and events involving Israeli academic institutions, not to teach at or to attend conferences and other events at such institutions, and not to publish in academic journals based in Israel.”
Haddad also signed a 2014 open letter calling on Israeli academics who believed it “urgent” to “act to end the illegal occupation in Palestine” and Israeli “atrocities” to sign a petition. The petition was closed to overseas signers after only 83 Israeli professors signed on.
In 2013, Haddad signed a letter calling on academics to boycott a history conference at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
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://explore.georgetown.edu/people/haddady/
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Georgetown
- Organizations:
- BDS
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- Omar Shakir,
- Elliott Colla,
- Melani McAlister,
- Fida Adely,
- Judith Tucker,
- Rachel Kuykendall,
- John Esposito,
- Jonathan Brown,
- Louis Seidman,
- Ramah Kudaimi,
- Osama Abi-Mershed,
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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