The Palestinian Campaign for the
Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was launched
in Ramallah in April 2004 by a group of Palestinian
academics and intellectuals to join the growing
international boycott movement. The Campaign built
on the Palestinian call for a comprehensive
economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel
issued in August 2002 and a statement made by Palestinian
academics and intellectuals in the occupied territories
and in the Diaspora calling for a boycott of Israeli
academic institutions in October 2003.
In July 2004, the Campaign issued a statement of
principles, addressed to our colleagues in the international
community urging them to comprehensively and consistently
boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions
until Israel withdraws from all the lands occupied
in 1967, including East Jerusalem; removes all its
colonies in those lands; agrees to United Nations
resolutions relevant to the restitution of Palestinian
refugees rights; and dismantles its system of apartheid.
This statement was met with widespread support,
and has to date been endorsed by nearly sixty Palestinian
academic, cultural and other civil society federations,
unions, and organizations, including the Federation
of Unions of Palestinian Universities' Professors
and Employees and the Palestinian NGO Network in
the West Bank. The campaign has also established
an advisory committee comprised of well-known public
figures and intellectuals.
The Palestinian Campaign is inspired
by the historic role played by people of conscience
in the international community of scholars and intellectuals
who have shouldered the moral responsibility to
fight injustice, as exemplified in their struggle
to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse
forms of boycott.
During the past two years various
calls for divestment, sanctions and economic boycott
of Israeli products as well as a boycott of Israeli
academic and cultural institutions have been issued
by groups and individuals in Europe, the United
States, and elsewhere. These calls recognize that
Israeli academic institutions (mostly state controlled)
and the vast majority of Israeli intellectuals and
academics have either contributed directly to the
Israeli occupation or at the very least have been
complicit through their silence. In April 2002 British
academics issued a call for a moratorium on European
research and academic collaboration with Israeli
institutions. In France, an appeal to the European
Union not to renew its 1995 Association Agreement
with Israel was issued by the University of Paris-VI
(Pierre-et-Marie-Curie) in December 2002 and was
endorsed by several other French universities. Similar
calls were published in Italy and Australia, while
in the United States, student and faculty groups
at several universities including New York University,
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton
launched divestment from Israel campaigns. Most
recently the Church of Sweden has called for a boycott
of goods produced by Israeli colonies in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip and the Presbyterian Church
in the United States has decided to divest from
Israel.
Boycotting Israeli academic and cultural
institutions is an urgently needed form of pressure
against Israel that can bring about its compliance
with international law and the requirements for
a just peace.
