Academic Boycott as an Act of Justice for Palestine

Join the online release of the report Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Report for Swedish Universities written by Workers and Students in Swedish Academia for Palestine (WASSAP).

Date: 27th February

Time: 5-6.30 p.m. (CET)

Location: online on zoom (the link will be sent out the same day to those registered).

Registration: fill out this form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQfUIlydLRwPlj1wrIl1zT-bRCBH6LmSzRxeZ1AwKPQy8TcQ/viewform?usp=dialog no later than 26th February

From its interim order on genocide prevention early on last year, to the advisory opinion last summer, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has affirmed what has been known for decades: Israel operates an apartheid regime and an illegal occupation and siege of Palestine. For decades, the United Nations General Assembly has systematically condemned Israel’s violence and the denial of Palestinians’ rights to self-determination and return. Now, orders have been issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the immediate arrest of Israel’s leaders. Despite clear directives put forth by the ICJ and the ICC, the Swedish state and its allies have chosen to ignore these bodies and have abandoned their responsibilities.

An academic boycott is a crucial aspect of holding Israel and its institutions accountable. The case for the boycott would be clear if the Swedish state and its allies had not abandoned principles of justice and integrity for the sake of geopolitical power struggles. Within universities in both Sweden and Israel, this inaction can be explained through an increased securitization of academia, accompanied by repression and censorship of critical voices. The core contradiction of liberal academia has come acutely to surface: the clash between freely producing sound knowledge and safeguarding the state’s transnational economic and military interests. 

In our report, we map out the role Israeli universities play in supporting Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and occupation in Palestine. We argue that collaborations with Israeli universities make Swedish universities complicit in these crimes. It is time for our institutions to take their ethical guidelines seriously and end these collaborations and act in solidarity with Palestine. It now falls on Swedish universities – self-proclaimed bastions of openness and objective knowledge – to prove their autonomy and their claims of academic freedom.

The panel will discuss the ethical responsibility of Swedish academia to participate in an academic boycott as an act of justice. The panel focuses on arguments for academic boycott, reactions to attempts to initiate one, and possible ways forward for taking action. 

Join us for the online launch of the first edition of the report on academic boycott at Swedish universities, created by Workers and Students in Swedish Academia for Palestine, where we will hear from:

• Omar Barghouti, Co-founder of the global BDS and PACBI movement,
• Feras Hammami, Associate Professor at the Department of Conservation, Gothenburg University, an early organizer of academic BDS within Swedish academia
• Anna Lundberg, Professor in Sociology of Law at Lund University, whose faculty board recently decided on a boycott but was requested to retreat
• Diala Chahine, teacher student active in the BDS student movements in Gothenburg

The discussion will be moderated by Hossam Sultan, doctoral researcher at Linköping University and a member of Workers and Students in Swedish Academia for Palestine.