On Mar. 22, members of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) approved a resolution endorsing the BDS platform.
MESA is a nonprofit academic professional association that publishes the journals The International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) and The Review of Middle East Studies (RoMES).
MESA has been critical of Israel, arguing in 2021 that the state’s “purposeful and systematic privileging of Jewish Israelis while dominating and oppressing the Palestinian people amounts to apartheid.”
The organization also ran a statement in support of “Palestinian liberation” that same year.
“We recognize that there can be neither academic freedom for Palestinians nor their full enjoyment of the right to education so long as racism and apartheid undergird the logic of Israeli rule over Palestinian lives,” the statement reads.
In addition to Middle East affairs, MESA’s advocacy has focused on American politics.
In 2021, MESA published its “Joint Statement on Legislative Efforts to Restrict Education about Racism in American History” in conjunction with 80 other scholarly and academic organizations.
The statement’s language refers to legislation banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory in schools.
Accordingly, MESA publicly states its “dual commitment to scholarship and advocacy” on its website.
Campus Reform reached out to MESA for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
