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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.

PACBI welcomes the decision by the International Sociological Association (ISA) to suspend the Israeli Sociological Society (ISS) over its failure to condemn Israel’s ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in the illegally occupied Gaza Strip. We salute the scholars (including Global Sociologists for Palestine within ISA), activists, and civil society groups whose collective pressure and support for the PACBI demands made the ISA executive committee take this necessary yet extremely late measure of accountability, over 20 months into Israel’s genocide. However, suspending the ISS is insufficient for ensuring that ISA’s Forum in Morocco does not harm the struggle for Palestinian rights, nor the Moroccan and broader Arab struggle against normalization. Giving an unconditional platform to de facto representatives of complicit Israeli universities that have for decades been a pillar in Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid, and military occupation further entrenches normalization, as defined by the Palestinian-led BDS movement. Israeli universities and institutions are today actively supporting the genocide, not just failing to condemn it or staying silent.

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.

After 20 months of Israel’s ongoing livestreamed genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, BDS pressure from the broad Palestine solidarity movement across European higher education is finally succeeding. In particular, academic boycott and divestment mobilizations by student and university staff have pushed Israel to the margins of the European Union (EU)’s Horizon research program–the world’s largest research program.

Guitarist Jonny Greenwood has crossed our picket line twice during Israel's genocide in Gaza

Is the Barcelona festival refusing to uphold BDS to appease its owner Superstruct?

We call on all other Superstruct-owned live music events to distance themselves from parent company KKR’s complicit investments, and to respect BDS guidelines

FAQs on the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)'s position on No Other Land

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has from the start reached the conclusion that this film indeed violates the BDS movement’s anti-normalization guidelines in several ways. The BDS movement has always fought against normalization as a powerful weapon employed by oppressors to whitewash their crimes, to colonize the minds of the oppressed, and to undermine global solidarity with the struggle to end oppression.

Should WEF and Global Shapers fail to exclude Israel, we call for boycotting all their events and activities in which Israel’s delegates participate.