The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) welcomes the news that the Israeli ambassador has been removed from the program of the AgriBusiness Forum 2026, set to take place in Athens next week.
This comes after Greek academics, agronomist collectives, agricultural student organizations, anti-genocide groups, and PACBI called for a boycott of the Forum over its ties with the genocidal Israeli government and complicit Israeli entities.
The AgriBusiness Forum has taken a first important step in ending complicity in Israel’s atrocity crimes against Palestinians by removing an official representative of the Israeli government that is currently committing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and waging criminal wars of aggression against the peoples of the region.
The AgriBusiness Forum has recognized how including the Israeli ambassador as Israel continues to commit war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against Palestinians as akin to underwriting those crimes.
The Forum must now necessarily end ties with complicit Israeli entities and remove all speakers representing such Israeli entities from its program.
The Forum still includes among its Scientific Partners the Israel-based Israel–Greece Chamber of Commerce, which partners with and includes representatives from ministries of the fascist Israeli government.
The Forum’s program still features multiple speakers representing complicit Israeli entities. These include Cobi Bitton, CEO of the above mentioned Israel-Greece Chamber of Commerce; Dan G. Blumberg, Vice President of Ben Gurion University, which hosts the Homeland Security Institute whose partnerships include Israel’s top weapons companies and the Israeli Ministry of Defense; and Oded Sagee, Chief scientist and CTO of Gaon Agro Industries Ltd, a subsidiary of B. Gaon Holdings, which has carried out numerous water infrastructure projects on occupied Palestinian land, exploiting Palestinian natural resources for the supply of water to illegal Israeli settlements, and has agricultural subsidiaries operating in the occupied Palestinian Jordan Valley. Blumberg is still a member of the Scientific Committee of the Forum and Sagee is still included as a Field Expert.
In addition to killing tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, according to a UN report Israel’s ongoing genocide has destroyed or damaged 87% of Palestinian cropland. That figure rises to 94% in North Gaza. Israel has destroyed 80% of greenhouses, 87% of agricultural wells, and more than 4,400 agricultural sites, including barns, farms, warehouses, in Gaza.
Palestinians in Gaza who have managed to survive Israel’s bombs face “acute food insecurity.”
An agricultural forum that intends to sincerely address such topics as “food security” in an era of “geopolitical tensions” cannot begin to do so while partnering with and platforming representatives of the same entities that are complicit in Israel’s apartheid rule robbing Palestinians of their land and natural resources for decades.
We urge the Forum organizers to take further measures to ensure it is completely free of all ties with entities and their representatives working in direct contrast to the aims of the Forum.
Continuing business-as-usual with a genocidal state like Israel is a direct contribution not only to its crimes against Palestinians but also to the might-makes-right order to which the US and Israel are leading humanity.
Until the Forum cuts its ties with genocidal Israel, we call on all speakers to withdraw, on sponsors to formally end their support, and on participants to boycott the event.