10.09.25
Editorial Note
Founded in 2000, the European Society of Criminology (ESC) aims to bring together persons actively engaged in research, teaching, and/or practice in the field of Criminology. The 2025 conference of the EUROCRIM took place in Deree in Agia Paraskevi, Greece, (September 3-6, 2025).
This year’s topics were diverse, including crimes committed during times of war; the psychological impact of the October 7 Hamas attack; sentencing of Palestinian defendants in military courts’ terrorism cases; collective war trauma, the effects of extreme terror events on children; and, the memorialization of the Supernova Trance Festival; among others. A total of sixteen Israeli academics took part in the event, of whom at least seven were affiliated with Ariel University.
Ahead of the conference, PACBI—the founding body of the Palestinian BDS movement—issued a statement on August 20, 2025, accusing the ECS of “normalizing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.” PACBI protested against the fact that the conference included Israeli scholars affiliated with what it called “complicit Israeli universities,” including those from the “illegal, settlement-based Ariel University.” For PACBI, “it is shockingly immoral for a conference that has among its topics ‘Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes’ to welcome scholars and an institution participating in, justifying, and whitewashing the very same crimes.” The statement concluded by endorsing the work of Criminologists for Palestine and their motion urging the conference organizers to “end complicity in Israel’s crimes.” PACBI further issued a warning: “Should ESC fail to exclude from its EUROCRIM 2025 conference the Israeli scholars knowingly participating in war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the illegal, genocide-supporting institution to which they are affiliated, we urge keynote speakers, panelists, presenters, and participants to boycott the conference.”
On the opening day of the conference, a group of pro-Palestinian activists gathered outside Deree to protest what they described as “cultural cleansing” facilitated by Israeli participation. The demonstrators were affiliated with organizations such as Agia Paraskevi Blows Against, BDS Greece, Mothers Against Genocide, and other pro-Palestinian groups.
An Israeli attendant, Dr. Yosef Zohar, shared his observations in an article titled “Boycott in the Guise of Academic Freedom.” Zohar wrote that during the General Assembly, the ESC board declared that an academic boycott of Israel was unconstitutional and could not be put to a vote, yet, BDS activists were given a vast space to operate inside and outside the conference halls. Flyers and brochures were distributed, filled with accusations of “genocide,” “apartheid,” and “war crimes.” “Discussion circles” were organized, demonstrations staged, and Israeli scholars targeted by attempts to interrupt their presentations.
One of the scholars from Ariel University said that “Israeli scholars are being rejected not because of their ideas, but because of who they are.”
Among the organizers of the BDS campaign was an Israeli academic.
As expected, quite a few sessions were devoted to criticizing Israel. In a roundtable titled “Types of Offending/Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes” participants discussed how “Israel’s war on Gaza has continued unabated for many months, killing over 60,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children.” The roundtable stressed that “Israel has pursued a deliberate policy of starvation, aimed at causing a famine among the Palestinian population, and undertaken a systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, including educational and medical facilities.” And how the International Court of Justice in 2024, the UN special rapporteur, Amnesty International and HRW that confirmed the charge of genocide. “This roundtable seeks to begin a criminological conversation on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the myriad crimes involved, the means used to perpetrate them and our discipline’s response to its unfolding. We then discuss the criminalization of those who oppose Israel’s genocide. States parties to the UN 1948 Genocide Convention have a legal obligation to prevent and punish acts of genocide.”
The roundtable also discussed how over the last two years, “we witnessed the spectre of state repression of voices against the Israeli genocide worldwide,” including the “criminalization of protests, firing and ‘cancelling’ individual scholars and activists, violent police dispersion of students’ encampments, and blocking experts from public speaking, among others.”
Anti-Israel Israeli academics teaching in European universities participated as well. Dr. Erella Grassiani, an anthropologist from the University of Amsterdam, who has been covered on several occasions by IAM, presented a paper, “Security Narratives: the Seductive Politics of the Israeli Security Industry.” She discussed “how Israeli security actors sell their products and spread their knowledge through security narratives,” calling it a “product of seduction.” She investigates how “processes of translation are part of this ‘seduction’, as it consists of a legitimization of Israel’s military, its violent operations and, subsequently, the industry itself.” She finds “translations of violence into security, Human Rights violations into protection, traumatized soldiers into heroes, and people under occupation or civilian non-violent protestors as a (terror) threat.”
Another anti-Israel Israeli academic, Dr. Revital Madar, a political theorist at the European University Institute, has been previously featured by IAM. In her paper “When States Try Their Own: A Reductive Approach to State Criminality,” she examines in Israel/Palestine the “potential of reductive models of state criminality.” She analyzes “trials that adjudicate acts of physical violence committed by Israeli state security agents against Palestinians as those the state has long considered its emblematic enemies.” Her “focus on physical violence stems from the understanding that it is this kind of violence which challenges the sovereign right to kill and as such can shed light on other forms of state criminality.”
Zohar concluded that “For academia to remain true to its mission, it must go beyond principled declarations. It must also ensure that conferences are safe spaces where all voices can be heard without fear. Only then can it truly choose light over darkness.”
This conference exemplifies a long-standing pattern in which radical critics of Israel manipulate not only historical facts but also established legal and scholarly definitions, such as “genocide” or “crimes against humanity,” to serve political agendas. A striking recent example is the case of the so-called “Genocide Scholars,” whose claims about Israel’s conduct in Gaza disregard both the IHRA and UN frameworks, effectively weaponizing academic authority to distort reality and delegitimize Israel. These critics need to recognize that their manipulations not only distort reality but also fundamentally delegitimize their own scholarship and the disciplines they claim to represent.
REFERENCES:
Boycott in the Guise of Academic Freedom
Sep 8, 2025, 6:14 AM
Yosef Zohar
The Institute for Safety in the Criminal Justice System
The Contradiction at the European Society of Criminology Conference in Athens
The European Society of Criminology (ESC) deserves recognition for the principled effort it has made to uphold academic freedom under extremely challenging circumstances. The Executive Board has consistently affirmed that institutional boycotts contradict the Society’s constitution and its mission to foster scholarly cooperation. In today’s climate of polarization, such a reaffirmation is itself an act of courage.
And yet, what unfolded last week at the Eurocrim 2025 conference in Athens revealed the gap between principle and practice. On September 5, during the General Assembly, the Board once again declared that an academic boycott of Israel was unconstitutional and could not be put to a vote. This decision was significant: it was taken despite an aggressive, highly organized campaign by BDS groups and allied organizations, supported by Greek institutions, student unions, and a petition signed by more than 300 criminologists.
A Tense Atmosphere
Despite the Board’s formal rejection of boycott, BDS activists were given wide space to operate inside and outside the conference halls. Flyers and brochures were distributed, filled with accusations of “genocide,” “apartheid,” and “war crimes.” “Discussion circles” were organized, demonstrations staged, and Israeli scholars found themselves targeted by attempts to interrupt their presentations.
What was particularly painful was the discovery that among the organizers of this campaign stood an Israeli academic. When colleagues attempted to approach him and speak, he refused to use Hebrew. Yet when he was pressed to respond to what had been said, he suddenly “remembered” his Hebrew and shouted: “Lehu mipo!” , “Get out of here!”
The paradox was unmistakable: on the one hand, the ESC stood by its constitution, refusing to institutionalize collective punishment. On the other hand, it could not protect its members from the intimidation and harassment that pervaded the conference space.
The Plenary Speech of Beatrice Coscas Williams
Against this backdrop, Dr. Beatrice Coscas Williams – a dual Israeli-French citizen and lecturer at the Western Galilee College in Akko – addressed the General Assembly. She began with a deeply personal note: her family has paid a heavy price in the war, and her niece survived the Nova massacre of October 7, 2023. Yet, as she emphasized, she did not rise to tell her personal story, but to highlight a broader truth – that Israeli scholars are being rejected not because of their ideas, but because of who they are.
“By doing so, you transform this conference from a place of academic dialogue and reflection into a place of hatred, intimidation, and silencing,” she said. “Boycott is not a tool of transitional justice. Boycott is not a tool for criminologists or victimologists. Our work is based on dialogue, on the exchange of ideas, and on the ability to listen.”
She illustrated her point with the example of her own classroom in Akko, where Jewish and Arab students engage in heated debates but then sit together in the cafeteria – proof that disagreement need not mean division. She noted that in Hebrew, the word for “boycott” is the same as the word for “bullying”: silencing, exclusion, rejection.
Finally, she shared her experience as a doctoral student in France, where a joint program brought together French universities, Israeli scholars, and Al-Quds University. When one French university withdrew in protest at Israeli participation, it was not the Israelis but the Palestinian students who lost their scholarships and were forced to abandon their studies. “Today, I can stand before you as a scholar,” she said, “but my Palestinian colleagues cannot. And the reason is simple: because of a boycott against Israeli academia.”
She concluded with an old saying: “It is better to light a small candle than to curse the darkness.”
Closing Thoughts
The events in Athens exposed a deep contradiction. On the one hand, the ESC Executive Board acted with integrity, rejecting an unconstitutional motion despite enormous pressure. On the other, the very space of the conference was overtaken by brochures, slogans, and activist messaging that created an atmosphere of exclusion and threats.
The speech of Beatrice Coscas Williams was a powerful reminder of the true costs of boycotts: they harm both Israelis and Palestinians, undermine the foundations of academic life, and deepen divides rather than build bridges.
For academia to remain true to its mission, it must go beyond principled declarations. It must also ensure that conferences are safe spaces where all voices can be heard without fear. Only then can it truly choose light over darkness.
About the Author: Dr. Yosef Zohar. Researcher and Lecturer, Department of Criminology at Western Galilee College. Managing Director, The Institute for Safety in the Criminal Justice System. Research Fellow, Judicial Conflict Resolution (JCR) project at the Faculty of Law, Bar Ilan University.
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THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY IS NORMALIZING A WAR CRIME
- News
- The European Society of Criminology Is Normalizing a War Crime
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- Published20-08-2025
- Author infoPalestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
The European Society of Criminology (ESC) is normalizing a war crime, crimes against humanity and genocide.
The EUROCRIM 2025 annual conference includes in its program sixteen scholars affiliated with complicit Israeli universities, at least seven of whom work at illegal Israeli settlement-based Ariel University. This is not the first time that ESC has included scholars working at Ariel University in the EUROCRIM program.
The scholars affiliated with illegal Israeli settlement-based Ariel University, as those who work in an illegal Israeli colonial settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), are knowingly participating in a war crime and crime against humanity and should therefore be held accountable for that.
Ariel University also boasts that it has 4,000 student soldiers “fighting on the frontlines,” including in Israel’s Gaza genocide, the crime of all crimes, its military occupation, a war crime, and its apartheid system, a crime against humanity. Ariel University is providing special scholarships for these genocide-implicated student soldiers.
In addition to the legal obligations not to facilitate such grave crimes, it is shockingly immoral for a conference that has among its topics “Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes” to welcome scholars and an institution participating in, justifying, and whitewashing the very same crimes.
The scholars’ affiliations are furthermore falsely listed as “Ariel University, Israel” in the EUROCRIM 2025 program, as in past years.
Ariel University is not located within Israel’s UN-recognized borders. Ariel University is located in the illegal Israeli settlement of Ariel in the occupied Palestinian territory. Israeli colonial settlements constitute a war crimeunder the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
ESC is in breach of the legal requirements arising from the July 2024 ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ found that Israel is violating the prohibition against apartheid and that its military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza is illegal and must be brought to an end. The ruling triggers the legal obligation not to recognize, aid or assist in maintaining Israel’s illegal military presence in the occupied Palestinian territory.
By allowing multiple scholars knowingly participating in a war crime and crimes against humanity, especially from an illegal institution that openly supports a genocide, to participate in at least 6 panels at its conference, ESC is normalizing these crimes. This is a biased and deeply complicit political decision, not an academic one.
In accordance with international law, UN Security Council resolutions, and the ICJ ruling and the legal requirements above, and as a duty to its members and conference participants, ESC must:
- Not recognize Ariel University, whether directly or indirectly, and exclude it from the conference and from all ESC activities and committees;
- Hold the scholars knowingly participating in a war crime and crimes against humanity accountable by excluding their participation from the conference;
- Acknowledge its failure in performing even superficial due diligence on participants from countries accused by authoritative international bodies of atrocity crimes, including Israel’s ongoing genocide;
- Remedy this failure by instituting a comprehensive ethical policy to ensure no complicity in grave crimes, wherever they should occur.
This is not about mere affiliation, but about these scholars knowingly participating in a war crime.
Furthermore, the EUROCRIM 2025 program includes a number of scholars from other complicit Israeli academic institutions, such as Bar Ilan University, which works closely with the Shin Bet, Israel’s notorious security services that has been condemned by the UN Committee Against Torture for its use of torture and other illegal violent interrogation tactics, and the University of Haifa, which hosts three Israeli military colleges comprising the Israeli Military Academic Complex and holds courses at the Israeli military base of Glilot, considered to be an extension of the university. The University of Haifa has also provided “tactical equipment” to the Israeli military carrying out the genocide in Gaza.
The ICJ earlier ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinian in Gaza. The ICJ ruling requires action “to prevent and to punish” the crime of genocide.
While we do not call to exclude scholars based on mere affiliation, in order to uphold basic ethical principles, ESC conference organizers should also:
- Ensure that conference programs include a concise and accurate description of the complicity of any institution listed in affiliations that has a record of persistent involvement in grave human rights violations (particularly war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide);
- Include a Land Acknowledgement statement, upholding the United Nations’ 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which acknowledges Indigenous peoples’ inalienable rights to “the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired” (Article 26), acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which the institution to which its authors are affiliated is located and/or on which the research was conducted;
- Perform due diligence on participants reasonably suspected of being or having been involved in serious violations of the fundamental human rights, in particular war crimes, crimes against humanity (including apartheid), or genocide.
We appeal to the values of criminologists and the urgent need to take effective measures in the face of such grave crimes, including genocide, the crime of all crimes. While there is a tendency to focus on individual criminality within criminology, state criminality, which is far more lethal and affects masses, must not be given a pass.
We welcome the work of Criminologists for Palestine and their principled motion calling for ESC to end complicity in Israel’s crimes in order to make ESC a more ethical organization.
Should ESC fail to exclude from its EUROCRIM 2025 conference the Israeli scholars knowingly participating in war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the illegal, genocide-supporting institution to which they are affiliated, we urge keynote speakers, panelists, presenters and participants to boycott the conference. We further call on Panteion University to withdraw as sponsor.
Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE)
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
PFUUPE represents 10,000 university faculty and staff members at 18 Palestinian universities.
PACBI is a founding member of the global, nonviolent, Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights, which enjoys a near consensus in Palestinian society.
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Google Translate
Actions against EUROCRIM25 and Israeli participation in progress
While the EUROCRIM 2025 criminology conference is taking place in Deree in Agia Paraskevi from September 3 to 6, in which 16 Israeli academics are participating, at least seven of whom work at Ariel University, an institution built in the homonymous illegal settlement in the West Bank, in violation of International Law, the local community and anti-genocide organizations are reacting strongly. On Wednesday, the opening day, a mobilization was held with the presence of repressive forces particularly noticeable, while the actions continue.
On Wednesday, the opening day of the conference, the municipal group of Agia Paraskevi Blows Against, BDS Greece, Mothers Against Genocide and other organizations and solidarity groups in Palestine gathered outside Deree to protest the cultural cleansing being attempted with Israeli participation.
It is recalled, in fact, that the even more blatant and provocative element is that the conference has themes such as “Genocide, Crimes against Humanity, War Crimes”.
“The gathering was also attended by a group of conference participants who refused to take part in the EuroCrim25 conference and are asking the European Society of Criminology to cease cooperation with institutions that support genocide, such as Ariel University (and others),” the municipal group wrote, among other things, in a post on social media.
In the video below, a participant in the Criminology conference reads a statement from a group of participants who refused to take part in the conference:
In its text, Fysae Kontra calls on the public today, Friday, September 5, at 4:00 PM, to support “every effort to sever relations with Israeli institutions within the conference.”
“Fysae Kontra continues to oppose Deree’s decision to hold the conference with the presence of these speakers, despite the withdrawal of Panteion University and the Municipality of Athens. And it supports the brave effort of the conference participants who raised the issue from within and are fighting for practical solidarity, with riot police surrounding them from outside.”
Την Τετάρτη ημέρα έναρξης των εργασιών του συνεδρίου το δημοτικό σχήμα της Αγίας Παρασκευής Φυσάει Κόντρα, το BDS Greece, οι Μητέρες Ενάντια στη Γενοκτονία και άλλοι φορείς και συλλογικότητες αλληλεγγύης στην Παλαιστίνη βρέθηκαν έξω από το Deree για να διαμαρτυρηθούν για το πολιτισμικό ξέπλυμα που επιχειρείται με την ισραηλινή συμμετοχή.
Υπενθυμίζεται, μάλιστα, ότι το ακόμα πιο κραυγαλέο και προκλητικό στοιχείο είναι πως το συνέδριο έχει θεματικές όπως «Γενοκτονία, Εγκλήματα κατά της Ανθρωπότητας, Εγκλήματα Πολέμου».
«Στη συγκέντρωση συμμετείχαν και ομάδα συνέδρων που αρνήθηκαν να πάρουν μέρος στο συνέδριο του EuroCrim25 και ζητούν από την Ευρωπαϊκή Εταιρεία Εγκληματολογίας να διακόψει τη συνεργασία με ιδρύματα που στηρίζουν τη γενοκτονία, όπως αυτό του Πανεπιστημίου Ariel (και άλλων).» έγραψε μεταξύ άλλων το δημοτικό σχήμα σε ανάρτησή του στα μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης.
Στο παρακάτω βίντεο, συμμετέχουσα στο συνέδριο Εγκληματολογίας διαβάζει ανακοίνωση από ομάδα συμμετεχόντων/συμμετεχουσών που αρνήθηκαν να πάρουν μέρος στο συνέδριο:
Στο κείμενο του το Φυσάει Κόντρα καλεί τον κόσμο σήμερα Παρασκευή 5 Σεπτεμβρίου, στις 16.00, να στηρίξει «κάθε προσπάθεια να διακοπούν οι σχέσεις με τα ισραηλινά ιδρύματα εντός του συνεδρίου».
«Το Φυσάει Κόντρα συνεχίζει να αντιτίθεται στην απόφαση του Deree να διεξαγάγει το συνέδριο με την παρουσία των συγκεκριμένων ομιλητών, παρά την απόσυρση του Παντείου Πανεπιστημίου και του Δήμου Αθηναίων. Και στηρίζει τη γενναία προσπάθεια των συνέδρων που άνοιξαν το ζήτημα από μέσα και δίνουν τη μάχη τους για έμπρακτη αλληλεγγύη, με τα ΜΑΤ να τους περικυκλώνουν απέξω».
israel-academia-monitor.com 