Pošljemo odgovornemu uredniku Thomasu Teu sporočilo, da podpiramo njuno pobudo? Maša & Tina vem, da sta se z vprašanjem palestinskega osvobodilnega gibanja pri nas največ ukvarjali, bi morda lahko pripravili osnutek?
Theory & Psychology Editorial Board
We were removed from the Theory & Psychology Editorial Board by Thomas Teo, the new editor of the journal, at the end of January 2025. This was just over a month after we had sent an email to all members of the Editorial Board (on 23 December 2024), raising the issue of Palestine and BDS. We acknowledge we sent this email just as the Western academic world was approaching a holiday period, and we were hoping for more responses in the new year.
We are reproducing our original email below, an email which attracted only a few responses from colleagues on the Board. Those responses, once again, blurred the distinction between institutional boycott, which we were arguing for, and boycott of individuals, which we were not. The responses pointed to good critical work done by some Israeli academics, which we consider to be beside the point, while the incoming editor rehearsed the German ‘Staatsräson’ argument for the ostensibly philosemitic importance of allying with the Israeli state. On this point, we recommend the recent article by Pankaj Mishra (see:
https://www.theguardian.com/.../israel-and-the-delusions...). We repeat our plea to remaining Editorial Board colleagues, who have until now largely remained silent, to take up this issue and stand with Palestinians, respecting their call for BDS.
This was the original email setting out our position:
This journal has been a valuable resource for ‘critical’ debates in psychology for over thirty years, both those that are conceptual and those that are decidedly more explicitly critical, i.e. political. We have been involved in the journal in one way or another from the beginning. We were happy to hear that the new editor is to be Thomas Teo, who is well known for his work on ‘decolonial’ perspectives, and very happy to be invited by him to put together a special issue on radical research. We got as far as discussing this possibility with Palestinian colleagues.
However, a problem became apparent, which we raised in an email exchange with Thomas. A member of the current editorial board has as their institutional designation ‘The University of Haifa, Israel’. This citation of an Israeli university affiliation is counter to the call by Palestinian civil society organisation calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and gives legitimacy to the Israeli apartheid state, a state that is now intensifying its genocide in Gaza (see:
https://bdsmovement.net/academic-boycott).
Thomas, in response argued that BDS does not target individuals, but institutions. We agree, and we suggested that a way forward would be that the institutional affiliation for that individual be removed. (A similar procedure has been used in other academic forums, and there have been occasions when Israeli academics have been willing to publish their work in places that adhere to BDS without their institutional designation.) Thomas refused to explore this possibility.
Israeli academic institutions are an integral part of the apparatus of apartheid, dispossession and genocide, something discussed in detail (and including reference to the University of Haifa as a case in point) by Maya Wind, in her recent study Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom (2024, Verso). Wind, a Jewish Israeli academic, calls in the book for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli state institutions.
BDS was an important part of the worldwide movement of resistance and solidarity against the apartheid state in South Africa. It puts questions of history, context, identity and standpoint to the fore, making the social conditions in which we speak and write salient rather than hidden, erased. This implementation of BDS is positive action. Far from being a prohibition on speaking, BDS promotes debate and discussion about what is happening in Palestine and enables conditions for psychology that is liberating, rather than collusive or oppressive.
We are asking you all, Editorial Board colleagues, to take up this issue, and stand with Palestinians, respecting their call for BDS. There has been pressure, sometimes successful, and resignations also, unfortunately, from other academic journals recently over the question of BDS. If there are those among you willing to take collective action on this, we would like to discuss this possibility and pursue it further. As things stand at the moment, we cannot remain on the Editorial Board of a journal that gives institutional legitimacy to Israeli state institutions and so normalises occupation, apartheid and genocide.
Erica Burman and Ian Parker