Geographers for Justice in Palestine

Tuesday 3/17: ✦ Migrant and Refugee Food Geographies 2 (10:10-11:30 AM) ✦ The Geographies and Ecologies of Counter/Insurgency 3 (12:50-2:10 PM) ✦ Human Geography & Middle East Spciality Group Plenary Lecture (2:30-3:50 PM) Wednesday 3/18: ✦ Tourism After Capital (8:30-9:50 AM) ✦ Mapping and Counter-Mapping Genocide (4:10-5:30 PM) ✦ Techno-Capitalism, Empire, and the State (4:10-5:30 PM) ✦ Queer and Trans Futurities (4:10-5:30 PM) Thursday 3/19: ✦ Archiving the Present: The Professoriate in Times of Genocide (8:30-9:50 AM)

Thursday 3/19 cont’d: ✦ Paul Kohlbry’s Plots and Deeds: Agrarian Annihilation and the Fight for Land Justice in Palestine (2:30-3:50 PM) ✦ Geography in a Time of Genocide and Fascism (4:10-5:30 PM) Friday 3/20: ✦ Agrarian Racial Capitalism 2 (10:10-11:30 AM) ✦ Public Geographies of Palestine (10:10-11:30 AM) ✦ Afterlives of Authoritarianism (10:10-11:30 AM) ✦ Reclaiming Narratives, Rooting Connections, and Healing Memory Amidst Disposession (12:50-2:10 PM) Saturday 3/21: ✦ Homelands and Diasporas: Palestinian Community-Making in the Bay Area (1-8 PM) (field visit)

dozens of further sessions at AAG (not organized by GJP) will examine Palestinian liberation in their content

Geographers for Justice in Palestine I BDS and the AAG Date 3/17/2025 Time 10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Geographers for Justice in Palestine II Resisting Scholasticide in Palestine Date 3/18/2025 Time 10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Geographers for Justice in Palestine III Israeli Regional Counterinsurgency & Normalization Date 3/18/2025 Time 12:50 PM - 2:10 PM Geographers for Justice in Palestine IV Black Geographies and Palestinian Liberation Date 3/19/2025 Time 10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Geographers for Justice in Palestine V No Geographic Technology for Apartheid Date 3/19/2025 Time 12:50 PM - 2:10 PM

Zine Launch and Community Gathering GJP Special Event Date 3/17/2025 Time 6:30 PM - 9 PM RSVP at https://linktr.ee/geog4pal

GJP has organized five panels concerning BDS, scholasticide, Israeli regional politics, Black geographies and Palestinian liberation, and the use of geosciences in war. We also invite you to a Zine release launch on Tuesday evening; RSVP at linktr.ee/geog4pal

a green and red title graphic: "geographers for justice in palestine's guide to AAG 2026 sessions and events"

attending #AAG next week? check out Geographers for Justice in Palestine's organized sessions and events! also available at geog4pal.org/aag

we are aware of the release of "AAG’s Response to the Member Petition on Israel–Palestine" -- be sure to sign up for our newsletter for our response

www.geog4pal.org/join/

New book review -- Rama Ali Kased and Tony Marks-Block read Wasim Said's "Witness to the Hellfire of Genocide: A Testimony from Gaza" antipodeonline.org/category/boo...

Statement from Birzeit University on the Israeli military invasion of its campus and shooting of students As part of its ongoing assault on Palestinian life and institutions, the Israeli occupying army carried out a military invasion of Birzeit University during official working hours, at a time when the ...

Birzeit University affirms that education will remain an act of anti-colonial resistance, and that the University will continue to be a space for knowledge and freedom, despite all attempts at repression and aggression.

www.birzeit.edu/en/news/stat...

reminder -- today is the last day to comment on AAG's "background report" on BDS!

reminder -- today is the last day to comment on AAG's "background report" on BDS!

you will need to log in to your AAG account to gain access to the link above

Today at 3pm EST, join us at an AAG Listening Session regarding “an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions, and for financial disclosure and divestment of AAG funds in corporations or state institutions profiting from the oppression of Palestinian people.”

www.aag.org/events/aag-m...

How a Giant of Responsible Investing Agreed to an Israel Exception After a multi-year campaign by Jewish groups, Morningstar—a major firm known for socially responsible investing—is softening its approach to Israeli human…

important context on Morningstar, whose "human rights" and other ESG screening tools are used on AAG investments

jewishcurrents.org/how-a-giant-...

we'll be discussing the "background report" released by AAG, what to do at SF AAG 2026, and the broader campaign for BDS and Palestinian liberation! Visit our linktree to sign up.
linktr.ee/geog4pal

Save the Date for the People's Special Meeting -- Oct 17 12PM EDT

Join us for the People's Special Meeting to discuss what BDS and solidarity should look like in the AAG!

Reminder -- the AAG "webinar" concerning our BDS petition begins today at 12pm ET (about 2 hours from now). Log in to your AAG account and then click the link below to access the member portal and the Zoom link.

www.aag.org/events/aag-m...

On October 3, AAG will release an authoritative history of member organization which will try to diminsh the existence or importance of this history. While not all of these resolutions passed and while none of them were without AAG council organization, they clearly demonstrate a decades-long democratic undercurrent in our organization which we recognize as a lineage to be resuscitated.

we anticipate that AAG's "authoritative history" will attempt to diminish the importance and meaning of a history of member-driven advocacy within the organization. though not every member vote was successful, we think it's important to note member opinion *was* important enough to be consulted - !!

a graphic describes that "At certain points, the council would decide to consult members via a mail ballot. Under prior bylaws, the council could also be forced to recall their decisions by member petition and vote. This process was considered archaic in the 1990s due to the internet, but the bylaw changes instituted clearly diminished the vibrancy of member participation and democracy in our organization."

we think it's particularly important to remember and recover this vibrant history -- BDS efforts are by no means unprecedented

A graphic shows a portion of "An open letter to members of the association" concerning the Equal Rights Amendment boycott. The graphic highlights the position taken that “Even a decision to hold oneself above the fray in some ivory tower is a profoundly political act, a vote to uphold the status quo, whatever that may happen to be.”

the graphic highlights a portion of the reporting concerning the resolution against US funding of contra insurgency against Nicaragua.

The graphic highlights the resolution against nuclear proliferation and war. An excerpt is highlighted describing that “Geographers, whose professional objectives include understanding the nature and implications of human interaction with all aspects of their global environment, have a special responsibility to express urgent warning of the risks to humanity inherent in the present course of world events.”

some of these past efforts include resolutions to boycot states that had not passed the Equal Rights Amendment, to take a position against US funding of contras in Nicaragua, and against nuclear war.

What is the history of member-driven change in the AAG? (hint: there have indeed been previous member votes in AAG, and some were even on "troubling world events"!). The graphic shows the AAG newsletter heading and describes following posts as "a look into the AAG archives"

What is the history of member-driven change in the AAG?

Our archival research has shown that member-driven political activity has been common in AAG's history, including struggles around the Equal Rights Amendment; the US funding of contras in Nicaragua; and nuclear proliferation and war.

"Western institutions marshalled all...academic and digital repression against grassroots witnessing, unsuccessfully so far...the latest functions of a “geographic violence” that requires the myth of absolute distance between the West and the Other to obscure the proximity of colonial warfare."

Intervention—“On Grassroots Witnessing: Gaza as the Terrain of Epistemic Intifada” - Antipode Online Patrick Anthony (Uppsala University) and Ghada Dimashk (American University of Beirut) Baba, when will we study astronomy in school? … I want to learn about the moon and stars. (Banias, age 9, quoted ...

Intervention — "On Grassroots Witnessing: Gaza as the Terrain of Epistemic Intifada" by Patrick Anthony (Uppsala University) and Ghada Dimashk (American University of Beirut) antipodeonline.org/2025/09/24/o...

much more detail and sourcing for these posts is available on the FAQ sections of our website www.geog4pal.org/boycott/

Geographers in the United States have faced retribution for their political stances on Palestine. In March 2025, Ranjani Srinivasan, a graduate student at Columbia University, was one of the first forced to leave the United States after the federal government revoked her student visa, preventing Srinivasan from presenting her research at the AAG meeting in Detroit. In account of these events, Srinivasan does not call for quietism but instead that “we must exert maximum pressure on Columbia and other universities to protect international students from these arbitrary state actions.” While these actions are of the most egregious kind, they also continue a pattern.

Palestinian-Canadian geographer Ghazi-Walid Falah was arrested by Israeli police while conducting fieldwork in Northern Galilee in 2006. Falah wrote that he was arrested “because I was Ghazi-Walid Falah, the Palestinian geographer known to Shabak, a scholar who has consistently refused to adhere to writing the geography of Israel/Palestine as defined by the Israeli geography guild. I was arrested for my scholarship, seized in the very topography of what I study.” An international campaign to support Falah was organized online – demonstrating the need for more robust forms of protection of academic freedom to this day.

meanwhile, geographers in the United States have faced immense backlash, extending a historic experience that Palestinian geographers have long faced in our discipline and when conducting fieldwork

The Israeli assault on Gaza has completely demolished normal university life, to the point that UN experts have described a “pattern of attacks on schools, universities, teachers, and students in the Gaza Strip” constitutes “scholasticide”: “the systemic obliteration of education through the arrest, detention or killing of teachers, students and staff, and the destruction of educational infrastructure.” Israel has destroyed Gaza’s twelve universities, several of which had geography programs, including Alaqsa University, Al Azhar University, and the Islamic University of Gaza.

Students in the West Bank face worsening learning environments. At Birzeit University in Ramallah, over 140 students were arrested or detained between October 2023 and May 2024. Our geography colleagues at Birzeit University tell us that it is rare to be able to hold a full week of classes. This continues a pattern of decades of increasing infringement upon everyday life in the West Bank. Nonetheless, as McGahern notes, such university spaces in the West Bank still serve as “spaces of hope” worth protecting for many students, academics, and community members.

it is clear that Israel has committed scholasticide in Gaza at universities with geography departments, while restrictions of all kinds have continued and escalated at universities in the West Bank

How have geographers, geography departments, and geographic thought been affected by Israel?

Geographers/AAG members: I just sent my emails to my regional councilor, the Exec Committee, & Nat Councilors demanding that the organization uphold democratic processes & allow a vote on BDS. We *urgently* need members to email councilors ahead of this Friday Sept 12.

geog4pal.netlify.app/news/

reminder -- this event on BDS strategy in academic associations is tomorrow! be sure to register in advance

A "Save the Date" flyer inviting you to a conversation on boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) across the academy, featuring speakers from the American Association of Geographers, the American Sociological Association, and the American Historical Association. the event is September 9 at 12pm eastern time. you can register for the webinar at linktr.ee/geog4pal

please join us next week for an online event with colleagues in other disciplines who have worked to bring BDS resolutions to votes within their academic associations!

you can register here -- and also find a link to our new instagram page!

linktr.ee/geog4pal

A "Save the Date" flyer inviting you to a conversation on boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) across the academy, featuring speakers from the American Association of Geographers, the American Sociological Association, and the American Historical Association. the event is September 9 at 12pm eastern time. you can register for the webinar at linktr.ee/geog4pal

please join us next week for an online event with colleagues in other disciplines who have worked to bring BDS resolutions to votes within their academic associations!