Statement of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Moroccan Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (MACBI)
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Moroccan Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (MACBI) salute the scholars (including Global Sociologists for Palestine “GS4P”), activists, and civil society groups whose collective action via withdrawals, pressure, and support for PACBI’s demands in institutional and popular spaces led to two major wins during the 5th ISA Forum of Sociology which took place at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, between July 6–11, 2025. The first was the suspension of the Israel Sociological Society (ISS) from ISA, and the second was preventing the participation of the de facto representatives of Israeli universities complicit in Israel’s genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians.
The wins came after an intensive campaign led by PACBI and MACPI in coordination with GS4P and the Palestinian Sociology and Anthropology Association. It included a petition signed by 236 Moroccan and international sociologists committing to a boycott; the withdrawal from the forum of international, Moroccan and Palestinian scholars, including academics from the illegally occupied Gaza Strip, which is being subjected to the world’s first livestreamed genocide; and protests that were led by Moroccan and international students, academics, and activists during the opening session condemning transforming the forum into a normalization platform.
The combined efforts of PACBI, MACBI, GS4P and others have successfully and fully prevented the participation of de facto representatives of complicit Israeli institutions in the 5th ISA forum in Rabat. This success was supported by widespread Moroccan popular and academic pressure against normalization in academic settings; as well as institutional pressure through lobbying and advocacy within ISA to condition Israeli participation—if it were to occur— upon recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people and an acknowledgment of the complicity of their universities and institutions.
PACBI advocates for boycotting Israeli academic institutions and universities complicit in Israel’s system of oppression that has denied Palestinians their basic rights guaranteed by international law. In its previous statement on June 24, 2025, PACBI called upon ISA to cancel the participation of academics affiliated with Israeli institutions complicit in Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime, as participating in a forum held in an Arab country makes them de facto representatives of their institutions, unless the following conditions were 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.
Simultaneously, MACBI had issued a statement on June 26 calling for a complete boycott of the 5th ISA Forum of Sociology due to the ISA's failure to respond to its demand to cancel the participation of representatives of Israeli universities.
Following intense pressure and coordination, the ISA Executive Committee suspended the Israeli Sociological Society (ISS) due to its complicity, making it the first international academic association to take such action.
This decision shows a shift in the global stance toward the complicity of Israeli universities and academic institutions with Israel’s genocidal, settler-colonial, and apartheid regime; which opens a door for similar future steps by international academic bodies.
PACBI welcomed the decision to suspend the complicit Israeli association, which was seen as a necessary first step. However, it remains incomplete and requires further work from within ISA in order to:
- Permanently revoke the ISS membership.
- Respect the BDS movement's guidelines and stop all forms of normalization and complicity with Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime and its universities, which are deeply complicit in its crimes.
- Adopt a consistent policy of Land Acknowledgement for universities in all settler-colonial contexts , including Palestine, in line with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and acknowledge the complicity of Israeli universities in their state’s crimes against Palestinians.
- Vet all participants from any country accused of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide before international courts or by UN experts to ensure they are not complicit in any gross human rights violations, particularly the above crimes.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Moroccan Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (MACBI) affirm that all attempts to normalize Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime through academic channels are unacceptable. These attempts are viewed as a violation of national and popular values and positions in the Maghreb region particularly and the Arab region generally*.
The authoritarian Moroccan regime's attempts to impose normalization in all fields, including culture and academia, to consolidate the Israeli-Moroccan military-security agreement have always been met with fundamental rejection by the Moroccan people and civil society; moreover, the majority of the Moroccan academic community has repeatedly affirmed its absolute rejection of the widespread normalization in Moroccan universities and academic institutions.
The overwhelming majority of the Moroccan people have always supported the Palestinian rights including the return of refugees, self-determination, and the dismantling of the Israeli colonial and apartheid regime.
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*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.
*The BDS movement does not use a narrow ethnic or nationalist understanding of “Arabism”. Rather, it uses a broader, modern, contemporary understanding, which rejects the exclusion of national/ethnic minorities in the Arab region and rejects discrimination or persecution against them. Further, it considers these minorities as an integral part of the Arab region and its peoples.