Boycott Theory and the Struggle for Palestine

Lucid, logical, and nuanced, this is a must-read for all those people of good will whose natural aversion to shunning has kept them, thus far, from endorsing the single most effective project of Palestinian civil society, the best hope for a non-violent solution in the Middle East, the three most misunderstood letters in contemporary politics: BDS.

A fascinating and timely book by a courageous academic that points the way that academics and intellectuals should be taking right now in support of one of the most just causes in modern history. Bottom-to-top policy is the lesson BDS activists have learned from South Africa: first you call for a Boycott, then Divestment from apartheid and from entities benefiting from it, until you reach the top echelons of the government and call for Sanctions since that is the right thing to do!

As the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement gains momentum, one of its most controversial aspects is the academic boycott of Israel. Nick Riemer argues that a boycott of Israeli academic institutions is both justified and essential to the success of the movement, and that it also supports the rights of indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups throughout the world.

In Boycott Theory and the Struggle for Palestine, Nick Riemer brilliantly makes the case for the Palestinian campaign for an academic boycott of Israel. He offers a sophisticated rebuttal of the liberal politics behind the notion of academic freedom and an analysis of how it can work to sustain oppression of Palestinians and other racialised groups. In doing so, he invites us to rethink our political vocabulary and to reflect on academic boycotts also in relation to the struggle to remake our universities

Nick Riemer's Boycott Theory and the Struggle for Palestine is a vitally important book because it uses the anti-Zionist BDS movement as a springboard from which to reflect more generally on the boycott as a legitimate practice within today's academic humanities. A neglected but central topic springs to life.

The impressive breadth of Nick Riemer's original analysis of the institutional academic boycott of Israel combines thought and action, theory and praxis, leaving no aspect unexplored. A wide range of readers, not only scholar-activists, will be swayed by this necessary persuasive analysis of the academic boycott as both intellectual and political.