Moroccan Outcry: Israeli Academics’ Participation in Rabat Sociology Forum Sparks Boycott Calls

The Moroccan Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott (MACBI) working within the BDS Morocco movement, in a statement, called for the cancellation of "the participation of Israeli academics from institutions complicit" in the occupation, without "respect for fundamental ethical conditions". While Israel has been carrying out deadly attacks in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, the International Sociological Association (ISA) is inviting three Israeli researchers to participate in the World Sociology Forum to be held in Rabat. One of the speakers will present a presentation in which he describes Hamas as a "terrorist organization" and mentions the "displacement" of Israelis following Hezbollah attacks.

This has prompted MACBI to recall that "in 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank was illegal and constituted apartheid." Consequently, "the UN human rights experts have called for an end to academic ties that support the illegal Israeli presence and apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem," the organization points out. MACBI also stated that it has contacted the ISA regarding the speakers whose communications would promote the narrative of the occupation, but the association says "it will not cancel these participations," given its "commitment to academic freedom" and to "offer a platform for dialogue as open as it is courageous."

Moroccan sociologists also express their opposition to the participation of Israeli academics in the 5th ISA forum. "The universities of the Zionist entity are strategic partners and actors in the occupation and institutionalization of apartheid, by providing academic cover for ethnic cleansing policies, developing repression and espionage tools in cooperation with the occupation army, hosting military bases and security research centers within their institutions, institutionalizing racial discrimination against Palestinian students within the Zionist entity and justifying crimes against humanity, including famine, massacres and genocide perpetrated in Gaza," recalled the secretariat of the progressive current of professors and researchers within the National Union of Higher Education (SNE-Sup). According to the trade union organization, the holding of this forum in Morocco, with the participation of academics from institutions "involved in these crimes," would be a "violation of the image of the Moroccan university, its moral and academic credibility."

Moroccan researchers have therefore called for a "boycott, unless the invitations to participate of representatives of these institutions are canceled and withdrawn." They also called on the Presidency of the University Mohammed V to "respect the historical and scientific symbol of the institution, to cancel and withdraw any form of support or participation in the organization of a forum in which Zionist entities participate." The association also insisted that respect for the academic ethics that underlie the ISA’s laws is "necessary and mandatory with regard to respect for international charters and relevant resolutions, particularly those related to the Palestinian cause in the selection and programming of participations."

Another voice, that of the Moroccan sociologist Jamal Fazzaz, joins the debate. This academic does not share this anti-Israeli position. In a post on social media, he denounced what he called an ideological and dangerous drift. "Sociology is a universal knowledge shaped by both Jewish and Christian thinkers, and no identity dogma can dictate its boundaries," he said. According to him, "the most important tool a sociologist should be equipped with is the principle of axiological neutrality advocated by Max Weber, without which sociology becomes opinion or even belief."