5,000 US teachers and scholars support anti-Israel boycott.

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The American Studies Association (ASA) has become the largest US group of scholars to boycott Israel. The scholars' group of more than 5,000 US teachers and researchers voted to launch an academic boycott of Israeli colleges and universities in a move condemned by the World Jewish Congress as "moral bankruptcy." Israeli officials have denounced the campaign as an attempt to delegitimize the Israeli state.

The group, which is devoted to the study of American culture and history, announced Monday that its nearly 5,000 members voted in favor of the boycott by a 2-to-1 margin on Sunday night. A total of 1,252 members voted on the issue, with 66 percent voting "yes" and 30 percent voting "no." Three percent abstained from voting altogether.

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With a membership in the thousands, the group has become the largest academic collective to protest Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. It is only the second time a US academic organization has voted to boycott Israeli universities. Last April, the much smaller Association for Asian-American Studies also approved an academic boycott.

"The resolution is in solidarity with scholars and students deprived of their academic freedom and it aspires to enlarge that freedom for all, including Palestinians," the association said in a statement. It cited "Israel's violation of international law and UN resolutions; the documented impact of the Israeli occupation on Palestinian scholars and students; (and) the extent to which Israeli institutions of higher education are a party to state policies that violate human rights."

ASA announced that "the resolution is in solidarity with scholars and students deprived of their academic freedom and it aspires to enlarge that freedom for all, including Palestinians."

The movement to single out Israel’s academic institutions has not come without critics. Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), released a statement Monday condemning the ASA. Foxman deemed the act a "shameful, morally bankrupt and intellectually dishonest attack on academic freedom."

"Targeting Israeli institutions solely because they are in Israel – the only democratic country in the Middle East where scholarship and debate are encouraged and flourish – is based on a myopic and fundamentally distorted perspective of Israel and the conflict and is manifestly unjust," he said. "We commend those members of the ASA who boldly spoke out and voted against this shameful resolution."

Israeli officials have denounced the boycott campaign as an attempt to delegitimize the Israeli state.

World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said the vote "shows the Orwellian anti-Semitism and moral bankruptcy of the American Studies Association."

He criticized the move as unfair and biased in the wider context of the Middle East, where uprisings in a number of Arab countries have left tens of thousands dead.

"The American Studies Association singles out the Jewish state, the one Middle Eastern country that shares American values, for opprobrium? No wonder many Americans dismiss the academy as deeply biased and disconnected with reality," Lauder said.

The vote, however, is mostly symbolic since the ASA has no power to compel members or any US institution to abide by it. The far larger American Association of University Professors, which has more than 48,000 members, opposes a boycott of Israel.

 Fox News, New York Times, AFP, RT