Despite announcing some possible measures in response to the growing number of archaeologists calling on WAC to adopt ethical policies to avoid any complicity in Israel’s grave crimes against Palestinians, including its ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, WAC has demonstrated that it is still far from becoming the principled organization it claims to be.
The WAC 10 (22-28 June 2025 - Darwin) conference program includes a panel chair and presenter from illegal Israeli settlement-based Ariel University.
The scholar, as someone who works in an illegal Israeli colonial settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), is knowingly participating in a war crime and should therefore be held accountable for that.
The scholar’s affiliation is furthermore falsely listed as “Ariel University, Israel.”
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 crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
By allowing someone knowingly contributing to a war crime to participate in its conference, WAC is normalizing this war crime and 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.
The scholar in question has recently participated in an Israeli government-sponsored conference dedicated entirely to illegal Israeli archaeological digs in the occupied Palestinian territory.
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, WAC must:
- Not recognize Ariel University, whether directly or indirectly, and exclude it from the conference and from all WAC activities and committees;
- Hold the scholar knowingly participating in a war crime accountable by excluding their participation from the conference;
- Acknowledge its utter failure in performing even superficial due diligence on participants from countries accused by authoritative international bodies of atrocity crimes;
- Remedy this failure by instituting a comprehensive ethical policy such as that proposed by Archaeologists Against Apartheid to ensure no complicity in Israel’s grave crimes, including the looting of Palestinian cultural heritage.
Should WAC fail to exclude the Israeli scholar knowingly participating in a war crime and the illegal institution to which they are affiliated from its WAC 10 conference, we urge keynote speakers, panelists, presenters and participants to boycott the conference.
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)