Justice for Palestine Caucus Resolutions
Justice for Palestine Resolutions - 2024
The following motions were submitted by members of the Canadian Sociological Association for inclusion in the Annual General Meeting Agenda on June 25, 2024. All motions were approved by a majority of members in attendance at the meeting.
1. On behalf of its members, shall issue a call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and condemning scholasticide, including the total annihilation of educational systems in Gaza, and the systematic destruction of educational life in the rest of Palestine.
2. Unequivocally support the academic freedom of its members and our students. This freedom includes the pursuit of knowledge and education free from harm, censorship, intimidation, and silencing. It also includes defending scholars' right to speak out against Zionist occupation and settler-colonialism, and supporting students’ Charter rights to engage in protest actions such as the ongoing encampments on university campuses.
3. Establish a subcommittee called the Subcommittee For Justice in Palestine.
This subcommittee will serve as a dedicated platform for comprehensive research, dialogue, and advocacy, focusing on acts of scholasticide, genocide, and systemic violence in Palestine. The subcommittee will address the systematic destruction of educational institutions and cultural heritage, which undermines the intellectual and cultural foundations of Palestinian society. The subcommittee will work to prevent atrocities and support affected Palestinian scholars and students. The subcommittee will also explore the complexities of Palestinian liberation and Israel’s ongoing settler-colonial practices, aiming to promote justice, peace, and human rights. Through these efforts, the subcommittee will enhance the Canadian sociological community's role in global human rights advocacy, informed policy-making, and educational initiatives, thereby fostering social justice and the protection of cultural heritage in Palestine.
Anti-Palestinian Racism Motions - 2025
A Motion for the Adoption of the Definition of Anti-Palestinian Racism by the Canadian Sociological Association (CSA) was proposed but according to meeting practices and Bylaws, a vote on the motion could not be conducted at the AGM. The motion was deferred for a remote ballot of the membership.
The membership was invited to cast their votes from July 7 through August 6, 2025.
The following motions were approved with a majority of votes cast;
Motion 1: BE IT RESOLVED that the Canadian Sociological Association recognizes and opposes anti-Palestinian racism as described below, and as sociologists, we commit to by applying and expanding this framework to address the complexity and intersections of anti-Palestinian racism.
Motion 2: BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Canadian Sociological Association promotes and encourages other academic associations to adopt policies recognizing and opposing anti-Palestinian racism.
Full Motion on Anti Palestinian Racism for the Canadian Sociological Association (CSA):
WHEREAS Palestinians have been subject to ongoing dispossession, occupation, apartheid and genocide since the inception of the state of Israel;
WHEREAS the assaults on Palestinians and their right to existence and self- determination have reached unprecedented and unspeakable levels of atrocity since October 2023;
WHEREAS the ongoing genocide of Palestinians is a key issue for our time and discipline;
WHEREAS academics, scholars, students, including children, and others who publicly support and advocate for Palestinians in their struggle against oppression, apartheid, occupation, and violence have been defamed, disciplined, bullied, subject to intimidation, removed from employment, and subject to various material consequences;
WHEREAS the Canadian Sociological Association has a long-standing commitment to anti- racism and social justice;
WHEREAS the urgency for sociologists to name and frame anti-Palestinian racism is rooted in longstanding Palestinian critiques of the phenomenon known as “Progressive Except for Palestine,” wherein, anti-Palestinian racism is systematically expelled from academia and anti racist discourses through the framing of Palestinian critiques as toxic and toxifying to anti-racist struggles (see Ayyash, 2022; Elia,2017; Hill & Plitnick, 2021);
WHEREAS the erasure and silencing of anti-Palestinian racism has contributed to its remaining unnamed, and its incorporation into anti racist frameworks which inadequately account for the specific and intersectional forms of violence, marginalization, and racialization experienced by Palestinians and their allies, including its decoupling from settler-colonialism (see Bakan & Abu-Laban, 2024);
WHEREAS the experiences of racism faced by Palestinians and their allies are increasingly named as “anti-Palestinian racism,” a framing emergent from the Palestinian solidarity movement founded on principles of anti-racism (see Majid, 2022; The Canadian Guide to Understanding and Combatting Islamophobia, produced by the Office of the Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia);
WHEREAS sociologists, scholars, and social justice activists have been, and continue to actively work to name and frame anti Palestinian racism as a distinct, yet structurally interconnected, form of racism (see Abu Laban & Bakan 2021, 2022; Ayyash 2022; Bakan & Abu Laban 2024; Davis, 2016; Erakat & Hill, 2019; Majid, 2022; The Canadian Guide to Understanding and Combatting Islamophobia, produced by the Office of the Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia);
WHEREAS a useful starting point for naming and framing anti-Palestinian racism is to understand it as a form of racism that “silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives” and which manifests in various forms, including but not limited to:
• “denying the Nakba and justifying violence against Palestinians;
• failing to acknowledge Palestinians as an Indigenous people with a collective identity, belonging and rights in relation to occupied and historic Palestine;
• erasing the human rights and equal dignity and worth of Palestinians;
• excluding or pressuring others to exclude Palestinian perspectives, Palestinians and their allies;
• defaming Palestinians and their allies with slander such as being inherently antisemitic, a terrorist threat/sympathizer or opposed to democratic values.” (Majid, 2022, p.14);
WHEREAS anti-Palestinian racism is not reducible to anti-Arab racism alone, but intersects with anti-Arab racism, Orientalism, Islamophobia, and anti Black racism, including the specific forms of racism faced by Afro-Palestinians. Afro Palestinians have struggled against anti Blackness to be recognized as Palestinians living under settler- colonialism. They have been fundamental to the Palestinian struggle for liberation, yet have also faced intensified surveillance and punishment due to the confounding of racisms and settler-colonialism (see Mihatsch, 2024). Thus, anti-Palestinian racism manifests in diverse, intersectional, yet distinct ways, including implicit, overt, institutional, and systemic forms. It must therefore be named and recognized as a distinct form of racism.
BE IT RESOLVED that the Canadian Sociological Association recognizes and opposes anti-Palestinian racism as described above, and as sociologists, we commit to by applying and expanding this framework to address the complexity and intersections of anti-Palestinian racism.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Canadian Sociological Association promotes and encourages other academic associations to adopt policies recognizing and opposing anti-Palestinian racism.
References
Ayyash, M. M. (2022). The Toxic Other: The Palestinian Critique and Debates About Race and Racism. Critical Sociology, 49(6), 953-966. Abu-Laban, Y. and Bakan, A.B. (2022). Anti-Palestinian Racism and Racial Gaslighting.
The Political Quarterly, 93: 508-516. Abu-Laban, Y. and Bakan, A.B. (2021).
Anti-Palestinian Racism: Analyzing theUnnamed and Suppressed Reality. The Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS), 44, 143-149.
Bakan, A. B., & Abu-Laban, Y. (2024). Anti-Palestinian racism, antisemitism, and solidarity: considerations towards an analytic of praxis. Studies in Political Economy / Recherches En Économie Politique, 105(1), 107–122.
Davis, A.Y. (2016). Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (ed. Barat F). Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.
Elia, N. (2017) Justice is indivisible: Palestine as a feminist issue. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 6, 1, 45-63.
Hill, M. L., & Plitnick, M. (2021). Except for Palestine : the limits of progressive politics (1st ed.). The New Press.
Majid D (2022) Naming & framing anti-Palestinian racism. Arab Canadian Lawyers Association, 25 April. Available at: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61db30d12e169a5c45950345/t/627dcf83fa17ad41ff217964/1652412292220/Anti-Palestinian+Racism+Naming%2C+Framing+and+Manifestations.pdf
Mihatsch, M.A. (2024). The Afro-Palestinians of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Nation.
In: Tasis Moratinos, E., Chang, Th., Moreno Giménez, A. (eds) A Transdisciplinary Study of Global Mobilities. Palgrave Macmillan.
Noura Erakat, Marc Lamont Hill; Black-Palestinian Transnational Solidarity: Renewals, Returns, and Practice. Journal of Palestine Studies 1 August 2019; 48 (4): 7–16.
The Office of the Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia. (2025). The Canadian Guide to Understanding and Combatting Islamophobia. Available at: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/combatting-islamophobia-canada/resources/guide-combatting-islamophobia.html