Resolution

Whereas,
SEM convenes scholars, educators, students, musicians, activists, curators, and other professionals across different countries, disciplines, and institutions around the principles that ethnomusicologists “support diversity and oppose discrimination and harassment” and to “do no harm” when it comes to the practice of torture; and SEM is dedicated to “fostering academic freedom and supporting the freedoms of scholars working under repressive government and colonialist regimes,” as specified in SEM’s Position Statement on Anti-Discrimination, Anti-Harassment, and Sexual Diversity (2012), Ethics Statement (2018), and Position Statement on Torture (2007);

Whereas,
SEM has issued official statements against antisemitism, anti-black racism, caste discrimination, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine; the SEM’s president issued an unofficial Statement Regarding the Ongoing Violence and Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Gaza, noting “Musical life and infrastructure, and the study of these fields, have … come under brutal attack in this war… [and] this systematic destruction of Gaza’s human and cultural heritage breaches several international conventions,” SEM has yet to make an official statement as an organization, call for a full membership vote, or propose a resolution;

Whereas,
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued an Advisory Opinion, Summary Judgement, and Order condemning the State of Israel for unlawfully violating Palestinian self-determination, for practicing racial, religious, and ethnic discrimination, and has called on states and organizations “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”;

Whereas,
Israel has been accused of the systematic commission of war crimes, including collective punishment resulting in massive disproportionate civilian death; the widespread use of torture at its detention centers, including sexual assault and rape; the destruction of Gaza’s farmland and pollution of its soil and groundwater with munitions and toxins, which may constitute ecocide as proscribed under both the Rome Statute and the Geneva Convention; and the systematic destruction of educational facilities and the killing of professors, teachers, and students in Gaza, which several UN experts suggest may amount to scholasticide;

Whereas,
The United States, where SEM is based, plays a significant role in funding the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the expansion of illegal settlements and separation wall, the systematic discrimination against Palestinians, and the recurring military operations in Gaza, especially that which began in October 2023 and which amounts to genocide;

Whereas,
Israeli universities have been and continue to be complicit in the oppression of Palestinians, including by providing material support to the military through research and development of military and surveillance technologies used against Palestinians; and by providing no protections for academic freedom, campus speech in support of Palestinian human and political rights, or freedom of association of Palestinian students on their campuses;

Whereas,
Academic institutions and scholarly societies like SEM facilitate the normalization of Israeli apartheid by engaging in academic exchanges with Israeli universities, and otherwise maintaining close, extensive and privileged ties with Israeli universities despite their involvement in the Israeli state’s war crimes;*​​​​​​​

Be it resolved that the Society for Ethnomusicology endorses and will honor the call of Palestinian civil society** for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions until such time as these institutions end their complicity in violating Palestinian rights as stipulated by international law; and

Be it further resolved that this boycott pertains to Israeli academic institutions only and not to individual scholars or students; and

Be it further resolved that SEM discloses its financial investments to the membership and, should it hold investments in any of the Israeli institutions and any international institutions or companies complicit in the ongoing violation of Palestinian human and civil rights,*** to withdraw investments immediately;

Be it further resolved that the SEM supports members’ academic freedom, including but not limited to defending the rights of all students and scholars everywhere to engage in research, public speaking, and cultural events critical of Israeli occupation of Palestine;

Be it further resolved that SEM leadership, in accord with the governance procedures of the Society’s bylaws, is charged with implementing the boycott and divestment guidelines outlined here, and determining how to do so with reference to the Society’s own mission; and

Be it further resolved that SEM post online resources by which scholars can instruct students about Palestine expressive culture, centering Palestinian voices; and

Be it further resolved that individual members of SEM are free to determine whether and how they will apply the boycott in their own professional practice.

* See Wind, Maya. Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom. (Verso 2024).​​​​​​​

** The sector of Palestinian civil society that signed onto the BDS call includes the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), the General Union of Palestinian Women (GUPW), the General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT), the Palestinian​​​​​​​ Federation of Unions of Palestinian Universities’ Professors and Employees (PFUUPE),​​​​​ and hundreds of others of non-governmental organizations. For more details see https://bdsmovement.net/call.

*** Such companies are named in the updated databases of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the American Friends’ Service Committee.