The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association logo.

JNS.org – The council of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, mirroring the recent move by the American Studies Association.

“As the elected council of an international community of Indigenous and allied non-Indigenous scholars, students, and public intellectuals who have studied and resisted the colonization and domination of Indigenous lands via settler state structures throughout the world, we strongly protest the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and the legal structures of the Israeli state that systematically discriminate against Palestinians and other Indigenous peoples,” read a Dec. 15 declaration by the NAISA.

The NAISA declaration ignores the fact that Jews are the indigenous people of the land of Israel.

“By attempting to portray the Palestinians as the ‘indigenous people’ of the territory on which the State of Israel and the administered territories exist and the Jews as the colonial settlers, they are perpetrating the big lie of Palestinian history,” wrote Jonathan Tobin, senior online editor of Commentary magazine.

“Jews are not foreigners in Israel as Europeans were in Africa. They happen to be the indigenous people of their ancient homeland and efforts to deny this isn’t scholarship. Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and those who would deny them the same rights accorded other peoples are practicing bias, not scholarship.”