PACBI stands for The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. It is the cultural arm of the broader Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign, started in 2004 by a group of Palestinian academics and cultural workers. Modeled on the South-African anti-apartheid movement, it is a non-violent direct action campaign. PACBI calls on artists, scholars, and cultural workers around the world to isolate Israeli cultural and academic institutions for their violations of Palestinian rights as inscribed in international law, including Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine’s land and the genocide of its people.

Committed to the UN's covenant on freedom of expression, PACBI rejects the boycott of any individual based on identity, including citizenship, race, and religion.

PACBI endorsements can be made by any academic or cultural institution (as well as individual artists and cultural workers). The most powerful commitments are institutional because they represent many voices coming together to form a cultural front that rejects Israeli apartheid.

By committing to PACBI, an academic or cultural institution is:

• refusing the normalization of Israeli violence against Palestinians in any part of life, including our art, literary, and educational communities.
• joining a global cultural front pressuring Israel to end its genocide and apartheid of Palestinian people, and the occupation of Palestine land.
• refraining from participation in academic or cultural events and projects sponsored by the Israeli government, Israel lobby groups, and complicit Israeli institutions.
• answering a straightforward call to action: PACBI's guidelines ask that institutions endorsing PACBI’s call make a public commitment to refuse material support from the state of Israel and its complicit institutions, and to reject projects that normalize Israel’s forced dispossession of Palestinians.

Israeli cultural and academic institutions

All Israeli cultural institutions funded by the state, including governmental bodies, NGOs, lobbyist groups, advocacy groups, and traditional arts, literary, music, or cultural organizations—including and not limited to bands, orchestras, dance troupes, theater companies, film production companies, film festivals, museums, etc.—foundations, and academies are subject to a PACBI boycott.

Cultural products commissioned by an official Israeli body or a non-Israeli body that promotes Israel

All non-Israeli (i.e. international) cultural products that are funded by official Israeli bodies or organizations (e.g. the Out in Israel festival in San Francisco) are subject to boycott. This includes propaganda campaigns/PR firms such as Brand Israel, and other government-run programs meant to improve the image of Israel by framing it as a cosmopolitan, progressive, Westernized, democratic society, specifically to whitewash its own image and smear the policies of its neighboring countries as homophobic and repressive.

Events and activities sponsored by an official Israeli body or a complicit institution

Any cultural activity or event carried out under the sponsorship of or in cooperation with an official Israeli body, an Israeli lobby group, or non-Israeli institutions that serve Israel’s branding/propaganda purposes are subject to PACBI boycott.

Normalization Projects

Any activity or project designed to suggest that Israel is a state like any other, that it is justified in its violence toward the Palestinian people, or that Palestinians, the oppressed, and Israel, the oppressor, are both equally responsible for “the conflict” are subject to a PACBI boycott.

Yes! Restrictions on political activity are generally limited to partisan politics—for example, putting your tax-exempt donations towards campaigning for a specific party is not allowed. Advocating in general for issues that matter to your organization is generally allowed. Check out a legal information summary from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association for more on this and other common legal questions about PACBI.

PACBI challenges Israel’s program of cultural diplomacy or Hasbara. To undermine PACBI’s goals, the State of Israel and its allies have developed discourse that specifically targets the progressive values of artists and arts organizations. Questions that you might encounter (or even ask yourself) include:

• Do boycotts attack the free speech of academics and artists? In fact, PACBI does not target individuals unless they represent the State of Israel or a complicit Israeli institution, or help Israel to “rebrand” itself. PACBI’s guidelines do not advocate for the targeting of individuals on the basis of their identity (citizenship, race, gender, or religion) or opinion. PACBI targets only material connections to the State of Israel and certain specific forms of normalization (see below).
• Does PACBI risk alienating potentially-supportive Israelis? PACBI is not a blanket rejection of Israeli cultural workers and academics: BDS invites “conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.” The stronger our international movement grows, the more we see Israelis themselves rejecting their state’s violence and endorsing the boycott.

The cultural boycott is a material demand coming from Palestinians. No matter how small, every group or project signing on to PACBI is taking a public stand against the spread of Israeli propaganda. Each endorsement contributes to the cultural shift needed to bring about an end to Israeli apartheid.

Many tactics are necessary to bring about the end of the apartheid regime of the State of Israel and achieve Palestinians’ goals of freedom, self-determination, and a return to their lands.

A commitment to PACBI is a direct action against the ideological and institutional scaffolding of Israel's regime of occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid against the Palestinian people. As individual artists, writers, culture workers, and academics, organizing on behalf of PACBI means working iteratively and incrementally to cultivate international pressure on Israel. The aims and guidelines of BDS should be “the floor, not the ceiling” of our efforts to support Palestinian self-determination and freedom from violence. This means that organizations that adhere to the boycott are also asked to advocate for Palestinians in other ways, including by advocating for PACBI in their networks and supporting legislation that sanctions Israel for its violations of international law and supports Palestinian rights.

The aims of the BDS movement are threefold: an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land within 1967 borders, recognition of full legal equality for Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, and respect for, and recognition and promotion of, the rights of Palestinians refugees to return home, in line with international law.

Israeli academic and cultural institutions therefore remain boycottable until they meet the basic minimum criteria of publicly denouncing the occupation and genocide being perpetrated against Palestinians, and acknowledging the full rights of Palestinians enshrined under international law, including the right of return.

In brief, no – your organization can endorse and adhere to the boycott even if you continue to have ties to these kinds of institutions or companies. PACBI’s guidelines narrowly and intentionally target Israeli state institutions. PACBI is the floor, not the ceiling of Palestine solidarity. If you have questions about whether any of your organization’s funders or activities violate PACBI’s guidelines, please reach out using this form.

Secondary boycotts

PACBI does not cover second-degree ties to Israel. Therefore, if your institution wants to continue partnering with an entity that is sponsored by or partners with a boycottable entity (say, Siemens bank or an academic institution), they would still be PACBI compliant. However, the BDS National Committee (BNC) and PACBI encourage institutions to be advocates for BDS. This means that endorsing institutions use their partnerships as an opportunity to initiate a dialogue, encouraging partners to cut ties with the shared goal working toward a partnership that works against the machinations of Israel’s apartheid regime.

Organic or common-sense boycotts

PACBI is also distinct from “organic”, grassroots boycotts against specific targets. For example, a hypothetical Canadian arts organization that was receiving funding from Scotiabank prior to Scotiabank’s divestment from Elbit Systems, or a publisher that sells books through Indigo, could still endorse PACBI. PACBI is intentionally limited in scope in order to remain consistent across jurisdictions and time, providing a solid basis for ongoing pro-Palestine cultural organizing. Organic boycotts, like the No Arms in the Arts boycott of Scotiabank, complement PACBI by identifying salient targets in a specific time and place. Organizations that receive funding from or collaborate with organic boycott targets are encouraged to endorse PACBI as a first step or one of several concurrent divestment actions. The process of passing and implementing PACBI will serve as a model—practice for developing values-aligned policies and operations that have the agility to meet organic boycotts as they arise and stand up for people fighting for self-determination and liberation from Turtle Island to Palestine.

Commercial boycotts

BDS also includes boycotts of corporations in response to their complicity in, responsibility for, or advocacy of violations of international law or other human rights violations. Like secondary and organic boycotts, adhering to commercial boycotts is not a requirement for adherence to PACBI, but endorsers are encouraged to consider how their operations can exclude boycotted companies and products. BDS has a list of their primary economic targets. Beyond this list, you can use the Who Profits website to search for complicit companies operating or headquartered in Canada.

Brand Israel is an Israeli government propaganda program launched in 2005 focused on improving Israel’s image abroad “by downplaying religion and avoiding any discussion of the conflict with the Palestinians,'' and by spinning Israel as a “relevant and modern” democracy. Brand Israel contracts and funds writers, dance companies, orchestras, and artists to participate in such narratives that normalize and hide Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine from view within cultural and academic spheres globally.

If you have questions that aren’t covered here, reach out via this form and an organizer will get in touch.