Signatories say they oppose a boycott of Israel proper but call for settlements to be excluded from U.S. trade benefits and tax exemptions.

By Haaretz | Sep. 25, 2016 | 9:12 PM |  21

Over 70 American intellectuals and academics have published an open letter calling for a "targeted boycott" of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank, as well as of goods and services from the settlements,

The signatories of the letter, which was published in the New York Review of Books, included academics Bernard Avishai, Michael Walzer, Peter Brooks and Deborah Dash Moore, author and journalist Adam Hochschild and Haaretz columnist Peter Beinart.

The writers of the letter wrote that, while they are opposed to an economic, political or cultural boycott of Israel proper, within the June 4, 1967 borders, they believe that the settlements and all their produce should be boycotted.

The called on the United States government to "exclude settlements from trade benefits accorded to Israeli enterprises, and to strip all such Israeli entities in the West Bank from the tax exemptions that the Internal Revenue Service currently grants to American nonprofit tax-exempt organizations."

"It is our hope that targeted boycotts and changes in American policy, limited to the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, will encourage all parties to negotiate a two-state solution to this long-standing conflict," the letter stated.