02.07.25
Editorial Note
The 5th International Sociological Association (ISA) is hosting a Forum titled “Knowing Justice in the Anthropocene” at the Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, from July 6 to 11, 2025.
The International Sociological Association (ISA), founded in 1949 under the auspices of UNESCO, is a member of the International Social Science Council and has NGO consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The Forum, the first to be held in the region, is expected to welcome nearly 5000 participants.
In the list of panels, the Palestinian issue and the war in Gaza are amply debated.
For example:
Knowing and Not Knowing about Israel’s Genocide in Gaza. Fahid QURASHI, University of Salford, United Kingdom; On the Monopoly of Violence: Ideal Types of Settler Colonial Violence and the Habitus of Summud Areej SABBAGH-KHOURY, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; Religious Texts and Practices As Tools of Resistance in Occupied Palestine 1948 Marwa KHATIB, PhD student, Israel; Bifurcated Consciousness and the Defense of Colonial Violence Areej SABBAGH-KHOURY, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; Student Camps in Solidarity with Palestine. Protest Against the International Order in Light of a Genocide; Marcela MENESES REYES, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico, Camila PONCE LARA, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic and Olga Alejandra SABIDO RAMOS, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Azcapotzalco, Mexico; War on Gaza: Genocide in the Times of the Anthropocene Sari HANAFI, American University of Beirut, Lebanon; War Narratives for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after 7th of October 2023 Hasan OBAID, co-founder, European Manager and Head of the Research and Studies Department at Visto International for Rights and Development, Palestine; Academic Freedom Under Fire As Gaza Burns Sari HANAFI, American University of Beirut, Lebanon; Palestinian Art after the Nakba Ahmad SA’DI, Ben Gurion University, Israel; Zionist Settler Colonialism, Alienation, and the Racialization of Palestinians David EMBRICK, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA, Johnny WILLIAMS, Trinity College, USA and Manuel RAMIREZ, University of Connecticut, USA; Reimagining Feminism in a Time of Genocide Against Palestinians: Beyond Intersectionality Sherene RAZACK, UCLA, USA; Who Cares? – What It Means to (Continue to) Love and Hope during a Genocide KuanYun WANG WANG, York University, Canada; How the Settler Colonialist Paradigm Prevents Peace in the Middle East Steven SAXONBERG, Södertörn University, Sweden; Decolonizing Genocide in Settler Colonialism: Indigenous Studies to Palestine James FENELON, California State University San Bernardino, USA.
The Forum even issued a statement titled “ISA Solidarity Statement with the Palestinian People” on May 13, 2025, stating that the ISA “has been concerned for some time and condemned the acts of violence that have occurred in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since the beginning of the conflict, the ISA has issued general and critical statements on the conflict and has supported colleagues who have been persecuted and harassed for standing against violence and for defending the human rights and freedoms of the people in these territories.”
The ISA then argued that “Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza has resulted in 52,535 confirmed deaths, although it is estimated that the actual figure could be closer to 300,000.” The statement further accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, adding, “We condemn those universities and higher education institutions in Israel that have played a central role in Israel’s government settler-colonial and apartheid regime, including their links to military intelligence, epistemicide, and scholasticide. We recognize and commend the work of Israeli sociologists, academics, and academic institutions who have consistently campaigned against war and genocide, as well as other pro-peace mobilizations and organizations in the country. We also pay tribute to the academic institutions, colleagues, students, social movements, and organizations that have courageously spoken out against and protested the violation of human rights and the suppression of freedom of expression around the world.”
The ISA calls for “An end to the genocide in Gaza and the escalating violence in the West Bank, and a complete end to Israel’s military occupation and all colonial practices in these territories, as well as in Lebanon and Syria. An end to the apartheid-like conditions faced by Palestinians with Israeli citizenship; the establishment of conditions that enable the return of Palestinian refugees, including ensuring a viable and dignified life upon return; and the urgent, unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid—such as food, healthcare, and water—which is currently being obstructed by Israel’s government. The protection of academic freedom and freedom of speech for all people, especially faculty and students who research, teach, and speak out against Israel´s government’s violent practices, both within Israel and globally.”
Interestingly, the BDS Movement threatens to boycott the ISA Forum. In a public letter, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) “calls upon academics standing in solidarity with the inalienable rights of the Indigenous people of Palestine, to pressure the International Sociological Association (ISA) to cancel the participation of academics de facto representing Israeli institutions complicit in Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime in the 5th ISA Forum of Sociology.” Because “This participation is a violation of the BDS movement’s academic boycott guidelines and the anti-normalization guidelines that apply to the Arab region. Should the ISA fail to cancel the participation of scholars representing complicit Israeli academic institutions, we call for boycotting the ISA 5th Forum.”
For PACBI, the ISA 5th Forum, “contradicts itself by including broad participation from complicit Israeli universities, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion University, Bar-Ilan University, the Open University of Israel, and Tel Aviv University.”
PACBI ended its demand by bringing the BDS movement’s anti-normalization guidelines which state: “ensuring that joint projects and activities between Arabs and Israelis do not undermine the principle that the struggle for the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights is an Arab struggle is certainly not the same as a boycott of Israeli individuals because of their Israeli identity. Indeed, the BNC has never called for or condoned the latter. What anti-normalization principles reject are attempts to represent Israel alongside Arab countries as if it were a normal part of the region, not a settler-colonial and apartheid state. This stance emerges from the particular context of this struggle and the centuries-old intimate relationship between Palestinians and other Arab peoples of the region.”
The ISA Forum responded to the threat in a statement, “ISA Response to the Call for Boycott of the 5th ISA Forum of Sociology,” authored, “with respect and in solidarity,” by the ISA President and Vice-President. They stated, “Both individually and in our roles at the ISA, we share the global outrage over the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Since October 2023, the ISA has released three public statements expressing our profound concern for the suffering of the Palestinian people and calling for an immediate end to war and violations of human rights. In those statements, the ISA officially called for: An end to the genocide in Gaza and the escalating violence in the West Bank, and a complete end to Israel’s military occupation and all colonial practices in these territories, as well as in Lebanon and Syria; An end to the apartheid-like conditions faced by Palestinians with Israeli citizenship; the establishment of conditions that allow for the return of Palestinian refugees, and the urgent, unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid—currently obstructed by Israel’s government; The protection of academic freedom and freedom of speech for all, especially faculty and students who research, teach, and speak out against the Israeli government’s violent practices, both within Israel and globally.”
They continued that the ISA has “consistently defended the academic freedom of scholars persecuted for their views on this issue, including Israeli sociologists who have condemned the war and faced serious professional and personal consequences, including exile. These individuals are among those named in PACBI’s call for boycott. Sociologists around the world have long stood at the forefront of social movements and political critique. The ISA Forum in Rabat continues this tradition. Several major panels will be dedicated to the Palestinian cause. Solidarity with Palestine and with Palestinian colleagues is central to our mission and will be clearly visible throughout the Forum. Palestinian scholars have been offered free registration, and we are working to support those unable to travel. The opening and closing ceremonies will reaffirm our condemnation of the genocide in Gaza and our solidarity with communities facing systemic violence and dispossession.”
In particular, they stated that “The ISA maintains no institutional relationship with Israeli universities or with the Israeli government. We welcome participation from individual Israeli scholars… on the basis of academic freedom. The Israeli Sociological Society, a non-governmental body, has opposed settlement expansion and supported Palestinian colleagues.”
They ended by saying, “We are deeply concerned that, rather than amplifying Palestinian voices, this boycott call may end up silencing them—especially those Palestinian scholars who plan to share their research and testimonies with a global audience in Rabat. Our commitment to Palestine has been visible throughout the organization of the Forum. Ironically, it is precisely this commitment that now makes the Forum a convenient target for pressure, despite its role as a rare and open space for critical reflection and solidarity. We respect the right of civil society organizations to express disagreement and to call for boycotts. However, the ISA remains committed to its founding purpose: to offer a platform where sociologists—regardless of nationality, institutional affiliation, or political stance—can engage in meaningful, open, and critical dialogue. We therefore respectfully ask those calling for a boycott to reflect on whether this particular Forum—organized for the first time in the Arab world, with a strong presence of Palestinian voices and a commitment to justice and decolonial knowledge—is the most appropriate target for such a campaign.”
Another boycott threat came from the Global Sociologists for Palestine (GSP), which issued a call titled “Global Sociologists for Palestine Join Palestinian Calls To Boycott ISA 5th Forum Over Ties to Complicit Israeli Institutions.” The GSP states that “due to the ISA’s continued refusal to exclude academic representatives of Israeli institutions complicit in occupation, apartheid, and genocide. This is not a call against individual Israeli scholars who have taken a principled stand for Palestinian national liberation. Rather, it is a call to boycott the Israeli Sociological Association and institutional representation, in line with the ethical framework of the academic boycott.”
The GSP declares that this “call has also been supported by the Palestinian Sociological and Anthropological Association (PSAA), a member of the International Sociological Association, and our colleagues in Morocco, including the Moroccan Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.”
The GSP call claims that ISA “has categorically refused to take similar action against the Israeli Sociological Society (ISS),” despite: “The well-documented entanglement of Israeli academia with the military and intelligence apparatus; and The ISS’s complete silence—its failure to condemn, or even acknowledge, the genocide unfolding in real time. This silence is not neutrality—it is an active form of complicity. For instance, the Israeli Sociological Society maintains a dedicated ‘Army & Security’ subgroup that has worked in close coordination with the Israeli military and intelligence establishment, a clear example of how Israeli academic institutions directly contribute to military operations against Palestinians. Moreover, Israeli adults are subject to a compulsory draft and serve in the military reserves after their draft, including many academics who may have directly participated in or enabled war crimes. In this context, the ISS’s refusal to take clear action on this matter raises serious ethical and political concerns about the organization’s integrity. There is no place in our academic institutions for the normalization of regimes engaged in occupation, apartheid, and genocide.”
They ended by urging, “We invite you to stand in active solidarity with Palestinians, Moroccan civil society, and all those resisting academic complicity in colonial violence. Join efforts to organize alternative panels.”
The ISA then issued a statement, “ISA Executive Committee Decision on the Israeli Sociological Society,” reiterating its declaration that, “as part of its public stance against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, it has no institutional relationships with Israeli public institutions. We regret that the Israeli Sociological Society has not taken a clear position condemning the dramatic situation in Gaza. In a decision that reflects the extraordinary gravity of the current situation, the Executive Committee has decided to suspend the collective membership of the Israeli Sociological Society.”
Worth noting that the Forum does not include any reference to the role of Hamas in the destruction of the Palestinian society in Gaza, aimed at world condemnation of Israel.
REFERENCES:
ISA Executive Committee Decision on the Israeli Sociological Society
The ISA reiterates its declaration that, as part of its public stance against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, it has no institutional relationships with Israeli public institutions.
We regret that the Israeli Sociological Society has not taken a clear position condemning the dramatic situation in Gaza. In a decision that reflects the extraordinary gravity of the current situation, the Executive Committee has decided to suspend the collective membership of the Israeli Sociological Society (ISS).
Adopted on June 29, 2025.
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ISA Forum of Sociology
Knowing Justice in the Anthropocene
The 5th ISA Forum of Sociology will take place in Rabat, Morocco on July 6-11, 2025. This is the first ISA Forum to be held in the region and specifically in a country that is known for being at the crossroads of civilizations spanning the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Africa. This unique geographic location, and the campus of Mohammed V University where we will be hosted, is the perfect setting for the intense intellectual debates that are foreseen around the theme “Knowing Justice in the Anthropocene”. The dates of the Forum provide us with the opportunity to engage these debates in our Forum and in a sociological film festival that will be open to the public, just before the city will turn its gaze from sociology to football as host of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.
The Forum will bring together sociologists from around the world to unpack this complex theme. Our point of departure lies in the recognition of the Anthropocene and the environmental concerns that accompany it. This word entered our lexicon at the turn of the Millennium when geologists first began to identify what they considered to be irreversible geological traces of human societies on the planet. In March 2024, the ‘scientists’ (according to a New York Times reporter) decided that no, we were not really in a new geological epoch. But the journalist noted that the term had already gained so much importance in anthropology and history that it will most likely stay relevant in societies. This situation of contested knowledges is precisely what we will tackle in Rabat.
What does it mean to “know” in the context of the Anthropocene? Whose knowledge counts? What forms of knowing (understood in its feminist and relational sense) are prioritized, and with what consequences, in societal change? While some sub-disciplines have been actively contributing to academic and public debates, sociology writ large has not been at the center of these debates regarding the conditions of living with and in the Anthropocene. How might engaging the sociological imagination in discussions of the Anthropocene better equip sociologists and citizens to contribute to these public debates about our individual and collective capacities to live together in such an epoch?
This brings us to the question of justice. How do we know what is fair and just? Can we forge new understandings of justice for the Anthropocene? What can sociology contribute to how we know justice among knowledges (ontological and epistemic justice) or about aspects of our social worlds, such as environmental justice, legal justice, transitional justice, land justice, water justice, interspecies justice, racial justice, ethnic justice, or gender justice? What new questions are opened about these types of relations when the conditions of the Anthropocene are taken seriously?
This broad theme provides a space for dialogue within and across ISA’s 67 Research Committees (RCs), Working Groups (WGs), and Thematic Groups (TGs). We invite all sociologists from all walks of life and all corners of the earth to join us in Rabat in 2025!
Allison Marie Loconto
Vice-President for Research & 5th ISA Forum President
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ISA Solidarity Statement with the Palestinian People
The International Sociological Association (ISA) has been concerned for some time and condemned the acts of violence that have occurred in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since the beginning of the conflict, the ISA has issued general and critical statements on the conflict and has supported colleagues who have been persecuted and harassed for standing against violence and for defending the human rights and freedoms of the people in these territories (ref. ISA Statements & the article by former ISA President Michael Burawoy). This has been done through letters to their academic institutions and issuing public statements. The ISA has also endorsed statements by other organizations and disseminated them through its social media platforms.
The violation of human rights has been increasing exponentially and sustained over time. We observe with great indignation the deterioration of the situation and the deepening and widening of this conflict beyond any limits we could have imagined and are therefore compelled to issue a new declaration.
Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza has resulted in 52,535 confirmed deaths, although it is estimated that the actual figure could be closer to 300,000. Around 70% of those killed were women and children. And 118,491 Palestinians have been injured (as of March 4th, 2025). Since the 7 October attack that killed 1,200 Israelis, the world has witnessed the Israeli military’s indiscriminate bombardment of hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, churches, and areas that the Israeli government has designated as ‘safe zones’ across Gaza, including after the declared ceasefire.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Médecins Sans Frontières, the International Federation for Human Rights, and the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories have all concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Despite formal ‘ceasefire’ declarations in January 2025, the Israeli military has continued to bomb Gaza, also cutting off electricity and restricting access to water and food.
The continued assault on Gaza is accompanied by a wave of violence and forced displacement in the West Bank, where more than 50,000 Palestinians have been displaced, as well as murderous attacks against Palestinians in Israel. The Israeli government has also expanded its military operations in Lebanon and Syria and carried out bombings in Iran and Yemen.
We condemn those universities and higher education institutions in Israel that have played a central role in Israel’s government settler-colonial and apartheid regime, including their links to military intelligence, epistemicide, and scholasticide.
We recognize and commend the work of Israeli sociologists, academics, and academic institutions who have consistently campaigned against war and genocide, as well as other pro-peace mobilizations and organizations in the country.
We also pay tribute to the academic institutions, colleagues, students, social movements, and organizations that have courageously spoken out against and protested the violation of human rights and the suppression of freedom of expression around the world.
The ISA therefore calls for:
- An end to the genocide in Gaza and the escalating violence in the West Bank, and a complete end to Israel’s military occupation and all colonial practices in these territories, as well as in Lebanon and Syria.
- An end to the apartheid-like conditions faced by Palestinians with Israeli citizenship; the establishment of conditions that enable the return of Palestinian refugees, including ensuring a viable and dignified life upon return; and the urgent, unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid—such as food, healthcare, and water—which is currently being obstructed by Israel’s government.
- The protection of academic freedom and freedom of speech for all people, especially faculty and students who research, teach, and speak out against Israel´s government’s violent practices, both within Israel and globally.
May 13, 2025
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ISA Response to the Call for Boycott of the 5th ISA Forum of Sociology
Both individually and in our roles at the ISA, we share the global outrage over the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Since October 2023, the ISA has released three public statements expressing our profound concern for the suffering of the Palestinian people and calling for an immediate end to war and violations of human rights.
In those statements, the ISA officially called for:
- An end to the genocide in Gaza and the escalating violence in the West Bank, and a complete end to Israel’s military occupation and all colonial practices in these territories, as well as in Lebanon and Syria;
- An end to the apartheid-like conditions faced by Palestinians with Israeli citizenship; the establishment of conditions that allow for the return of Palestinian refugees, and the urgent, unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid—currently obstructed by Israel’s government;
- The protection of academic freedom and freedom of speech for all, especially faculty and students who research, teach, and speak out against the Israeli government’s violent practices, both within Israel and globally.
The ISA has consistently defended the academic freedom of scholars persecuted for their views on this issue, including Israeli sociologists who have condemned the war and faced serious professional and personal consequences, including exile. These individuals are among those named in PACBI’s call for boycott.
Sociologists around the world have long stood at the forefront of social movements and political critique. The ISA Forum in Rabat continues this tradition. Several major panels will be dedicated to the Palestinian cause. Solidarity with Palestine and with Palestinian colleagues is central to our mission and will be clearly visible throughout the Forum. Palestinian scholars have been offered free registration, and we are working to support those unable to travel. The opening and closing ceremonies will reaffirm our condemnation of the genocide in Gaza and our solidarity with communities facing systemic violence and dispossession.
The ISA maintains no institutional relationship with Israeli universities or with the Israeli government. We welcome participation from individual Israeli scholars—as we do from Russian scholars—on the basis of academic freedom. The Israeli Sociological Society, a non-governmental body, has opposed settlement expansion and supported Palestinian colleagues. The Palestinian Sociological Association, a collective ISA member, has not called for a boycott of the Forum, and several Palestinian colleagues have explicitly supported our position.
The ISA Forum, held every four years, is organized by 68 Research Committees composed of individual ISA members. These committees do not represent countries or governments. The 2025 Forum in Rabat will welcome nearly 5,000 participants from over 100 countries.
We are deeply concerned that, rather than amplifying Palestinian voices, this boycott call may end up silencing them—especially those Palestinian scholars who plan to share their research and testimonies with a global audience in Rabat. Our commitment to Palestine has been visible throughout the organization of the Forum. Ironically, it is precisely this commitment that now makes the Forum a convenient target for pressure, despite its role as a rare and open space for critical reflection and solidarity.
We respect the right of civil society organizations to express disagreement and to call for boycotts. However, the ISA remains committed to its founding purpose: to offer a platform where sociologists—regardless of nationality, institutional affiliation, or political stance—can engage in meaningful, open, and critical dialogue.
We therefore respectfully ask those calling for a boycott to reflect on whether this particular Forum—organized for the first time in the Arab world, with a strong presence of Palestinian voices and a commitment to justice and decolonial knowledge—is the most appropriate target for such a campaign.
With respect and in solidarity,
Geoffrey PLEYERS, ISA President
Allison-Marie LOCONTO, President of the 5th ISA Forum of Sociology & ISA Vice-President for Research
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Global Sociologists for Palestine Join Palestinian Calls To Boycott ISA 5th Forum Over Ties to Complicit Israeli Institutions
- Published28-06-2025
- Author infoPalestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
Dear colleagues and participants of the 5th ISA Forum in Rabat,
This call comes at a critical and urgent time. As the genocide in Gaza continues, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians killed, displaced, or starved, we write to reaffirm and amplify the call for boycott issued this week by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). PACBI is a founding member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society leading the global BDS campaign.
Read PACBI’s full statement here: PACBI Statement on the ISA Forum
PACBI has called for a boycott of the 5th ISA Forum in Rabat (July 6–11, 2025) due to the ISA’s continued refusal to exclude academic representatives of Israeli institutions complicit in occupation, apartheid, and genocide. This is not a call against individual Israeli scholars who have taken a principled stand for Palestinian national liberation. Rather, it is a call to boycott the Israeli Sociological Association and institutional representation, in line with the ethical framework of the academic boycott.
This call has also been supported by the Palestinian Sociological and Anthropological Association (PSAA), a member of the International Sociological Association, and our colleagues in Morocco, including the Moroccan Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (MACBI), who highlight how ISA’s refusal to act aligns with the Moroccan regime’s broader normalization agenda with Israel, at a time when Israel is committing grave war crimes across Palestine and military expansionism in the region. Maintaining business-as-usual with Israeli institutions in this context renders ISA actively complicit in that agenda.
We believe that attending the Forum without challenging these conditions not only normalizes Israeli war crimes and occupation but also undermines the ethical and political integrity of our scholarly community and contradicts the values at the core of our discipline.
ISA’s Double Standards
The ISA’s position reflects a deeply troubling double standard. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the ISA:
- Relocated its meeting out of Russia,
- Froze the membership of the Russian Sociological Association, and
- Declared it would pause dialogue “until just peace prevails.” (ISA statement on Ukraine)
Yet, it has categorically refused to take similar action against the Israeli Sociological Society (ISS), despite:
- Israel’s ongoing mass atrocities and genocidal violence in Gaza;
- The well-documented entanglement of Israeli academia with the military and intelligence apparatus; and
- The ISS’s complete silence—its failure to condemn, or even acknowledge, the genocide unfolding in real time.
This silence is not neutrality—it is an active form of complicity.
For instance, the Israeli Sociological Society maintains a dedicated “Army & Security” subgroup that has worked in close coordination with the Israeli military and intelligence establishment, a clear example of how Israeli academic institutions directly contribute to military operations against Palestinians.
Moreover, Israeli adults are subject to a compulsory draft and serve in the military reserves after their draft, including many academics who may have directly participated in or enabled war crimes. In this context, the ISS’s refusal to take clear action on this matter raises serious ethical and political concerns about the organization’s integrity.
There is no place in our academic institutions for the normalization of regimes engaged in occupation, apartheid, and genocide. At this moment of profound political, humanitarian, and moral emergency, we must uphold the principle that there is no academic business as usual with institutions complicit in such crimes.
We invite you to stand in active solidarity with Palestinians, Moroccan civil society, and all those resisting academic complicity in colonial violence. Join efforts to organize alternative panels (including panels currently scheduled for the Forum) and scholarly spaces in Rabat, in coordination with our local Moroccan colleagues, independent civil society and the Global Sociologists for Palestine network. These spaces will allow us to continue our academic engagement in a principled and just manner.
For more information, please contact us at globals4p@proton.me. Also, consider joining our mailing list (global-s4p@googlegroups.com) and following us on our website: www.gs4p.org/
In solidarity,
Global Sociologists for Palestine
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PACBI: ISA MUST EXCLUDE ISRAEL AND ITS COMPLICIT INSTITUTIONS FROM ITS 5TH FORUM OR FACE A BOYCOTT
- Published24-06-2025
- Author infoPalestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a founding member of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society that leads the global BDS movement, calls upon academics standing in solidarity with the inalienable rights of the Indigenous people of Palestine, to pressure the International Sociological Association (ISA) to cancel the participation of academics de facto representing Israeli institutions complicit in Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime in the 5th ISA Forum of Sociology, scheduled to take place at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, from July 6–11, 2025. This participation is a violation of the BDS movement’s academic boycott guidelines and the anti-normalization guidelines that apply to the Arab region.
Should the ISA fail to cancel the participation of scholars representing complicit Israeli academic institutions, we call for boycotting the ISA 5th Forum.
At a time when Israel, supported by the colonial West, is perpetrating the world’s first livestreamed genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, and in line with international law, Israel should be isolated and expelled from all international fora.
Following the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 determination that Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is entirely illegal and that it is violating the prohibition against apartheid, dozens of UN human rights experts called on all states to “cancel or suspend economic relationships, trade agreements and academic relations with Israel that may contribute to its unlawful presence and apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territory” [Emphasis added].
By accepting Israeli institutions to be represented in a conference held in an Arab country* the ISA and its members are in breach of the Palestinian civil society picket line that refuses to normalize with Israel within all fields, including academic normalization. Israeli academics participating in conferences in the Arab world can only be seen as representatives of their country and institution – as representing their “flags,” so to speak – rather than as private individuals.* This violates the BDS movement’s anti-normalization guidelines.
It is precisely this representation, which comes in the context of Israeli academics at complicit Israeli institutions establishing relations with Arabs and the Arab region, that creates a situation of normalization because it attempts to present Israel and its institutions as a normal part of the region. It also serves to further colonize people’s minds with a deceptive normalcy and a false premise of symmetry/parity between the oppressors and the oppressed, ultimately perpetuating the oppressive status quo. Such normalization undermines the struggle for Palestinian liberation and self-determination as well as the international solidarity movement’s inspiring efforts to cut the links of state, corporate, institutional, and academic complicity in Israel’s regime of colonial oppression.
Recognizing the deep complicity of all Israeli universities in the state’s regime of illegal occupation and apartheid, international law experts at the University of Antwerp in Belgium published a legal opinion in August 2024 calling on universities and research institutions in Belgium and beyond to meet their legal obligations by ending “all collaborations with [Israeli] academic and other institutions directly or indirectly implicated in the violations of international law.” Severing all links with Israel – including with its complicit institutions – that aid or assist in maintaining its occupation and apartheid regime is a legal, not just moral, duty.
The ISA 5th Forum, which is held under the theme of “Knowing Justice in the Anthropocene,” contradicts itself by including broad participation from complicit Israeli universities, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion University, Bar-Ilan University, the Open University of Israel, and Tel Aviv University. Can sociologists claim “knowing justice” when their own academic association is criminally complicit in systems of injustice?
Israeli higher education institutions have long played a role in planning, implementing, and justifying Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies while maintaining a uniquely close link to the Israeli military and security apparatus. Much of Israel’s military arsenal and patently criminal and dehumanizing doctrines are developed in deep collaboration with Israeli universities. There is also institutionalized racial discrimination against Palestinians throughout Israel’s education system, including higher education institutions.
To give a few examples of this deep criminal complicity of Israeli universities, the Hebrew University Mount Scopus campus is partially built on land illegally expropriated from Palestinian owners in Israeli occupied Jerusalem directly serving the ongoing land theft and dispossession of Palestinians; it also hosts a military base on campus to offer academic training to Israeli soldiers. Ben Gurion University (BGU) hosts the Homeland Security Institute whose partnerships include Israel’s top weapons companies and the Israeli Ministry of Defense. The Israeli military is building a technology campus next to its campus aimed at furthering the ties between the military and BGU to “reinforce the army’s operational capabilities.” Tel Aviv University runs joint centers with the Israeli military and Israel’s arms industries; it also hosts the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), which developed the so-called Dahiya Doctrine, or doctrine of disproportionate force. This doctrine, adopted by the Israeli military, calls for “the destruction of the national infrastructure, and intense suffering among the [civilian] population.”
Furthermore, the representation of complicit Israeli universities strengthens and solidifies their presence in the Arab region, which seems to contradict ISA’s much appreciated recent statement in solidarity with the Palestinian people in which it condemns “those universities and higher education institutions in Israel that have played a central role in Israel’s… settler-colonial and apartheid regime, including their links to military intelligence, epistemicide, and scholasticide.”
Although the primary responsibility falls upon the ISA, Israeli participation in a forum hosted by a public Moroccan university further demonstrates the Moroccan authoritarian regime’s complicity in Israel’s oppression and crimes against Palestinians. During Israel’s ongoing genocide, Moroccan ports have facilitated U.S. military equipment transfers to Israel’s army. The regime has also chosen ElbitSystems—Israel’s leading arms company that is directly implicated in Israel’s genocide and other atrocity crimes against Palestinians—as a primary arms supplier, and hosted joint military exercises with Israeli forces involved in the Gaza genocide.
In this context, Moroccan universities, all under direct regime control, have engaged in persistent attempts at normalization through partnerships with Israeli academic institutions despite firm mass opposition from thousands of Moroccan students and academics, not to mention Moroccan society at large. These normalization actions reflect the regime’s disregard for the people’s will and expose its role in enabling Israel’s academic whitewashing. By engaging in this normalization, the ISA aligns itself directly with the despotic Moroccan regime, its policies of normalization with the Israeli state, and its complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. By being a party to this normalization, the ISA places itself in opposition to the struggle waged by Palestinian and Arab civil society, including academic unions and associations, against normalizing Israeli settler-colonialism. In this context of the Arab region, we call on the ISA to do no harm.
PACBI also calls for pressure to be exerted on Mohammed V University to respect the Palestinian boycott call and to align with the academic boycott and anti-normalization guidelines.
PACBI demands the cancellation of the participation of Israeli academics affiliated with complicit universities that have, for decades, played a central role in sustaining Israel’s system of oppression, unless the following conditions are met:
- The Israeli participant publicly and unequivocally recognizes the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights under international law, foremost among them the right of return for Palestinian refugees and an end to Israel’s illegal military occupation and apartheid;
- The Israeli participant’s presentation falls within the framework of co-resistance to oppression and not coexistence under oppression, and if they state the Israeli universities to which they are affiliated, ISA must add a land acknowledgement* and a brief description of those universities’ complicity;
- The conference organizers investigate all Israeli participants to insure that they have not been directly or indirectly involved—including through incitement or dehumanizing justification—in Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian rights, particularly war crimes, crimes against humanity (including apartheid), or genocide.
Finally, PACBI calls on all Palestinian, Arab, and international academics to boycott the ISA 5th forum entirely should it fail to meet the above demands.
* Upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the BDS movement condemns racism and discrimination (according to the UN criteria) in all its forms. It rejects the exclusion of national/ethnic minorities in the Arab region as well as all discrimination or persecution against them. It understands “Arabism” not in its narrow ethnic or national sense, but rather in its progressive and inclusive sense of democratic citizenry that considers national/ethnic minorities as an integral part of the composition of the Arab region and its peoples.
* The BDS movement’s anti-normalization guidelines state: “ensuring that joint projects and activities between Arabs and Israelis do not undermine the principle that the struggle for the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights is an Arab struggle is certainly not the same as a boycott of Israeli individuals because of their Israeli identity. Indeed, the BNC has never called for or condoned the latter. What anti-normalization principles reject are attempts to represent Israel alongside Arab countries as if it were a normal part of the region, not a settler-colonial and apartheid state. This stance emerges from the particular context of this struggle and the centuries-old intimate relationship between Palestinians and other Arab peoples of the region.”
/news/bds-movement-anti-normalization-guidelines
* Upholding the United Nations’ 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ISA must acknowledge the inalienable rights of Indigenous peoples, including Palestinians, to “the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired” (Article 26), in all its events and publications.
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In March, I registered for the 5th ISA Forum of Sociology.However, BDS has launched a boycott (see link). As a supporter of the BDS movement, the only consequential decision for me is to withdraw my participation unless BDS’s demands are met #FreePalestine
PACBI: ISA must exclude Israel and its complicit institutions from its 5th Forum or face a boycott
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597 – Alienation, Racial Capitalism, and Palestine
Oral Session
- SJES009 (Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences)
- EDavid EMBRICK
- University of Connecticut
- LLauren Langman
- Loyola University
israel-academia-monitor.com 
