MESA: why supporters of the Palestinian people should oppose it

A most disturbing letter was sent by Nathan Brown to MESA members about the issue of boycott.  He makes the argument that the organization should not engage in politics, but does not explain as to why the MLA or the Asian Studies Association, or even the American Studies Association for that matter, can engage in a political matter DEALING WITH THE MIDDLE EAST but that MESA, which DEALS WITH THE MIDDLE EAST, should not.  The language of the statement is more offensive than anything: he talks about "violence in and around Gaza" thereby employing the language of American Zionist officials who always see symmetry between the violence and terrorism of the occupiers and the resistance of the occupied.  Nathan Brown then employs a personal argument as to why boycott of Israel would be harmful: "Fifteen years ago, I taught as a Fulbright scholar at an Israeli university for a year. At that time, I began a project on Palestinian institution building".  So because he taught at an Israeli university the boycott issue should be disregarded. The worst part in the paragraph is when he implies that because he taught at an Israeli university, the Palestinian people were helped because Nathan Brown wrote on Palestinian matters.  Yet, no one in the pro-Palestinian community in the US or elsewhere has ever counted Brown as a fighter for Palestinian justice, and no academic has ever considered his writings as being in any way conducive to the political interests of the Palestinian people.  By pretending to eschew politics altogether, Brown is in fact being very political, but in the manner that protects Israel and its propaganda from boycott by the one organization that is most qualified to lead the academic boycott of Israel.  An organization that has Brown as it president, is an organization that I would never want to join.  I call on members of MESA to make their rejection of this Zionist argument against boycott by MESA widely known, within and outside the organization.