AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a founding member of the Palestinian National Committee of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, has urged all speakers and participants to withdraw from the “Islamic Archaeology Conference” scheduled to be held from November 5 to 8, 2025, in Warsaw, Poland.
PACBI stated that the organization of this conference once again violates the anti-normalization principles of the BDS movement, as it includes researchers from Israeli institutions that operate illegally in the occupied Palestinian territories.
According to PACBI, normalization, by the consensus of the Palestinian people, refers to any form of joint activity between Palestinians or Arabs and Zionists in a shared context, unless two conditions are met: first, the Israeli regime must publicly recognize the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as outlined in the 2005 BDS Call; and second, the joint activity must embody resistance against occupation and the Israeli apartheid system.
The PACBI statement emphasized that the conference introduces Zionist participants as “experts” in the field of Islamic archaeology and involves individuals from complicit institutions such as the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, institutions directly involved in occupation and violations of international law.
The statement further noted that the Israel Antiquities Authority has been systematically engaged in the destruction and looting of Palestinian Arab, Islamic, and Christian cultural heritage, while the Hebrew University has built part of its campus on confiscated Palestinian land in East Jerusalem.
PACBI warned that the conference organizers are exploiting the limited participation of Palestinians and Arabs to whitewash the image of the Israeli regime and conceal its crimes against more than 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, atrocities that have so far resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and over 100,000 injuries.
In conclusion, the campaign called on all academics and participants to withdraw from and boycott the conference in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom.
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