At its annual conference on Thursday, the Modern Language Association (MLA) will hold a kangaroo-court panel discussion called, “Academic Boycotts: A Conversation about Israel and Palestine.” A few days later the MLA will vote on an anti-Israel resolution that would condemn Israel for the “arbitrary denial of entry to Gaza and the West Bank” of foreign academics.

Panel discussions at conferences are usually gatherings where people with different opinions debate the merits of something. But the MLA, a self-styled advocate of academic freedom and open discourse, will treat the Jewish state by different rules: the panel discussion will actually be a show trial in which Israel’s guilt is foreordained by a group of aggressively anti-Israel panelists. The MLA appears intent to join the ignominious ranks of the Association for Asian American Studies, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, and the American Studies Association, which all recently approved resolutions boycotting Israeli universities.