ICGG Endorses Academic Boycott of Israel

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Oct 23, 2015 Palestine-Israel
[Image from internationalcriticalgeography.org] [Image from internationalcriticalgeography.org]

ICGG Endorses Academic Boycott of Israel

By : Jadaliyya Reports

Forging Solidarity, taking a stand on Palestine 

International Critical Geography Group votes by an overwhelming majority to endorse Academic Boycott of Israel in its seventh conference


PRESS RELEASE
 

13 October 2015 – This past summer the International Critical Geography Group (ICGG) convened its seventh conference in the occupied city of Ramallah, Palestine. Following a two-decade tradition and nearly three years of preparation, the conference brought together scholars and activists committed to combating social exploitation and oppression. This was our first gathering in the Middle East, one that was transformative for participants. Together we opened up a new vista for critical geography that is both timely and long overdue. Our five days (and six nights) program was packed with inspiring and thought-provoking engagements anchored around the theme Precarious Radicalism on Shifting Grounds: Towards a Politics of Possibility. Breaking the limits of existing academic paradigms, we shared analysis of the mounting crises of capital, space, bodies and nature and explored ways to turn them into moments of political possibility by reconnecting scholarship with solidarity and struggle. 

Altogether four hundred scholars, activists and members of the public from over forty countries energetically took up issues on and beyond the violent frontlines of class, gender, race, sexual, and colonial divisions. Yet we also took critical steps beyond discussion and debate of our intellectual work towards concrete collective action. Before attending the conference, every participant that registered already agreed to a political statement that supports basic Palestinian rights. By endorsing this statement, they acknowledged the power asymmetries and injustices that define Palestinian life and stood on the side of the oppressed. Through the political statement the conference shed any false facade of normalcy and openly acknowledged the realities of settler colonial oppression and racial discrimination. Palestine is, after all, not an abstract geography and no conscientious meeting can place itself above the politics that define this context. More importantly, during the final session, conference participants voted overwhelmingly for a strong resolution drafted by the ICCG 2015 Organizing Team to sign onto the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott and the broader Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. The ICGG Steering Committee also unanimously supported the resolution. 

The attached document Forging Solidarity, taking a stand on Palestine is more than a resolution. It is both a political statement in solidarity with the anti-colonial struggle of our Palestinian comrades and the agenda for a new paradigm in critical geography that radically expands the International Critical Geography Group’s founding statement of purpose. The widespread Palestinian anger and protests we are witnessing throughout historic Palestine in response to Israel’s intensification of a long history of ethnic cleansing, house demolitions, land theft, repression and imprisonment, remind us that there is an urgent imperative for action to end injustice in Palestine. Building on the momentum generated by the conference and this resolution we aim to open up serious discussion about BDS and the academic boycott of Israel within the Association of American Geographers (AAG), the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the International Geographical Union (IGU), and other geographical societies to bring them on board. It is time to further the work of decolonizing the discipline of geography and we can do this by consolidating and carrying the conference insights and this resolution into our work as scholars, teachers and change makers.

 

ICCG 2015 Organizing Team

Read the Statement online in English:   www.iccg2015.org/resolution-english

Read the Statement online in Arabic:    www.iccg2015.org/resolution-arabic

For further information please write to connect@iccg2015.org


Forging Solidarity, taking a stand on Palestine 

Statement of the 7th International Conference of Critical Geography, ICCG 2015


WHEREAS:

Palestinians have been and continue to be subject to a long century of European and US imperialism, Zionist settler colonialism, occupation and apartheid that takes on a painful array of manifestations including but not limited to: ethnic cleansing, expulsion and dispossession; Israeli aerial and maritime attacks and massacres in the Gaza Strip; ongoing house demolitions, land theft, racist laws, loyalty tests, checkpoints and the wall, cultural appropriation, a Kafkaesque bureaucracy that encompasses the tiniest details of everyday life and a denial of the right of return for Palestinians in exile.

And Whereas:

In response to these conditions, Palestinians are engaged in a longstanding courageous transnational struggle for liberation, sovereignty, self determination and the right of return. One that is deeply embedded in a broader internationalist and anti-colonial history and supported by vibrant solidarity movements pressuring Israel and its political allies for the decolonization of Palestine.

And Whereas:

The Israeli state has consistently pursued policies aimed at the destruction and theft of Palestinian manuscripts, journals and books, closure of Palestinian universities, mobility restrictions on staff and students, destruction of educational infrastructure, systematic discrimination against Palestinian students, arrest and deportation of local and international academic staff. The arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and assassination of Palestinian academics and allies and the targeting, decapacitation and closure of both academic and cultural institutions that serves to stifle academic research as well as political dissent on campuses and beyond.

And Whereas:

Israel’s academic establishment (specifically the discipline of geography) is an intimate and complicit part of the Israeli regime, by active choice. In particular, Universities, Colleges and research centers, many built on Palestinian land, play a central role in the occupation of Palestine through Research and Development in the service of the Israeli Armed Forces; Israeli military training; development of weapons and military doctrines deployed against Palestinians.

And Whereas:

More than 170 of the most representative Palestinian unions, organizations and political parties have joined together to call for global solidarity and action through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel to pressure for an end to the occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights; a recognition of the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and the respect, protection and promotion of the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.

And Whereas:

Holding the 7th ICCG in Palestine signals critical geographer’s commitment to a global decolonial movement by breaking the isolation imposed on Palestinians as a result of Zionist settler colonialism. It is thereby an expression of our desire to cultivate both scholarship and praxis at key sites of political contestation in the current moment of danger, transition and fundamental social change.

And Whereas:

The ICGG statement of purpose A World To Win! [1] is a manifesto for critical geographers that calls for: developing the theory and practice necessary for combating social exploitation and oppression; refusing the self-imposed isolation of much academic research from the political conditions of the time; joining with existing social movements outside the academy aimed at social change; demanding and fighting for social change aimed at dismantling existing systems of capitalist exploitation, oppression on the basis of gender, race and sexual preference, imperialism, national chauvinism and environmental destruction.

And Whereas:

In this spirit, the political statement of the 7th ICCG [2] acknowledges these urgent political realities on the ground and declares support for the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle. As Desmond Tutu reminds us, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”.

And Whereas:

Academics across disciplinary and geographical boundaries have declared support of the International Palestinian campaign of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) [3] and joined the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) [4]. These include: The Association for Asian American Studies, American Studies Association, Critical Ethnic Studies Association – for a complete list please see the page on International Boycott-Related Initiatives on the PACBI website [5].

And Whereas:

In the current moment the BDS campaign is the primary focus of international Palestine solidarity efforts as other forms of international intervention, brokerage, treaties, and negotiations have, to date, failed to make Israel comply with international law, and end its violence and repression of the Palestinian people.


BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

The ICGG and ICCG 2015 supports the Boycott National Committee (BNC) and the Palestinian people in their anti-colonial struggle by endorsing BDS against the state of Israel until the material liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, and full implementation of the right of return of the Palestinian people are achieved.

Further:

We support PACBI and join the boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions, which are complicit with the oppressive practices and settler colonial project of the Israeli state. As per the PACBI guidelines this means, among other things, not working or partnering with any Israeli academic institution, their representatives or anyone functioning on behalf of the Israeli government.

Further:

Our stance on BDS and the academic and cultural boycott is part of a broader commitment to anti-capitalist, decolonial, anti-racist, feminist and queer social movements and struggles around the world against growing social, economic and political precarity, rising authoritarianism, encroachment of fundamental rights, dispossession, structural adjustment in the south and north, revanchism, ongoing colonization of public space, land and resources, the privatization of the commons, as well as structural and state-sanctioned violence against racialized, gendered, queer bodies, and other targeted bodies and communities.

Further:

To activate this resolution and further the work of decolonizing the discipline of geography and the academic community as a whole we urge the Steering Committee of ICGG and conference participants to stimulate discussion on BDS and the academic boycott of Israel within geographical societies, organizations, and disciplinary bodies towards the adoption of a supportive political stance by groups such as the Association of American Geographers (AAG), Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the International Geographical Union (IGU), etc.

Further:

That the ICGG reaffirm its principles and commitment to radical scholarship and praxis by encouraging and enabling spaces of political and conceptual possibility for critical geographers in solidarity with ongoing socio-political, economic and environmental struggles around the globe. This can take the form of working groups, solidarity committees and/ or other forms of scholar-activist engagement during and in-between its regular conferences.

Further:

The first of these working groups will lead the implementation of this resolution on BDS and the Academic Boycott of Israel within the ICGG and the broader geographical and academic community.

 

Notes

[1] http://internationalcriticalgeography.org/statement-of-purpose/statement-of-purpose-en/

[2] http://iccg2015.org/call/

[3] http://iccg2015.org/conference-statement/

[4] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1108

[5] http://pacbi.org/einside.php?id=67

 
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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412