Taking a ‘radical’ stance is not inherently virtuous. Without ethical clarity, critical self-reflection, and context-sensitive reasoning, radicalism risks collapsing into dogmatism, writes Sari Hanafi [photo credit: Getty Images]
In 2008, the American University of Beirut (AUB) launched its Title IX office, presenting it as a landmark in its commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). The initiative drew praise. Yet within days, a complaint landed on my desk that revealed the structural limitations and contradictions behind this seemingly progressive step.
A Palestinian nurse, an AUB graduate, had been selected for a position at the AUB Medical Center. Yet her employment was ultimately blocked by Human Resources. Aware of my research on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and their socio-economic and civic status, she sought my help.
I sent a detailed letter to the newly formed Title IX office, urging redress for what was, in my view, an unambiguous act of discrimination.
The head of the office responded with sympathy, even remarking on her surprise that the first official complaint was not related to sexual harassment.
She requested further details and acknowledged the injustice of excluding Palestinian refugees. Two months later, however, the official response was negative, citing Lebanese labour law as the obstacle. I replied that if we were to abide strictly by Lebanese law, many of the issues central to the mission of Title IX, particularly those related to sexuality, would be rendered untenable.
This episode illustrates a deeper problem: the DEI paradigm, as it is often put into practice, privileges interpersonal discrimination at the expense of systemic and colonial forms of marginalisation.
It remains excessively individualistic, neglecting community-based and structural injustices, especially when these involve those already cast as ‘the other’: refugees, colonised subjects, and stateless peoples. I understand this as part of a broader trend I call symbolic liberalism, frequently found within the cultural Left — see my book Against Symbolic Liberalism: A Plea for Dialogical Sociology.
Today, as we bear witness to what many international human rights organisations describe as genocide in Gaza, we must turn a critical eye toward how academic institutions engage with structural violence and settler colonialism. Michael Burawoy, former President of the International Sociological Association (ISA), has rightly argued that supporting the Palestinian struggle is the litmus test for whether sociologists are truly committed to the mission of their discipline — see his article Why and How Should Sociologists Speak Out on Palestine?‘.
For years, the ISA resisted describing Israel as an apartheid state or framing its policies in the Palestinian territories as settler colonialism. It also refused to endorse the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, even though BDS does not target individual Israelis participating in academic events but rather calls for institutional boycotts of Israeli academic institutions that fail to recognise Palestinian rights as set out in the BDS call.
Under mounting pressure, and in light of the Israeli Sociological Society’s (ISS) silence in the face of atrocities in Gaza, the ISA Executive Committee ultimately took a historic and morally necessary step: it suspended ISS’s collective membership. This decision, though belated, aligns with ISA’s earlier suspension of the Russian Sociological Association following the invasion of Ukraine. It is a just and consistent move, but one that still requires deeper ethical grounding.
To build on this precedent, I propose that the ISA adopt a comprehensive ethical code, one that extends beyond the narrow confines of DEI’s individualistic framing.
Such a code should explicitly oppose all forms of occupation, as defined by international law and recognised by the United Nations, including the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the Russian occupation of Ukraine.
Moreover, scholars affiliated with colonising academic institutions operating within occupied territories should not be accepted as ISA members or permitted to participate in its activities.
This position would navigate between two forms of ‘radicalism’ that, in their own ways, fail the ethical test. The first is rooted in an absolutist interpretation of academic freedom, which refuses any institutional boycott, even when the institutions in question function as integral pillars of state oppression through military research, soldier training, infrastructural support, and the suppression of Palestinian academic life.
As Israeli anthropologist Maya Wind argues in her important book Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom (2024), such an approach reinforces colonial domination. The German Sociological Association (DGS) exemplifies this stance, having issued a statement that mischaracterises the position of the ISS and defends its continued participation in ISA despite its silence on genocide and occupation
According to an investigation by Global Sociologists for Palestine, the ISS has not issued any statement clearly condemning the Israeli occupation or the ongoing genocide since 2023. While it did release a statement protesting discrimination against Palestinians in Israeli universities, it stopped short of acknowledging the broader structures of colonial domination.
In stark contrast, the ISS was quick to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On October 4, 2023, it published a statement referring to the events of October 7 as ‘terrorism,’ yet failed to situate them within the context of occupation and the protracted colonial violence in Gaza — an omission that constitutes a political stance in itself.
Moreover, the ISS maintains a ‘Military and Security’ section, which organised a session titled ‘Shoot and Don’t Cry’ on November 29, 2023, examining military strategy in Gaza and the West Bank. One of the section’s co-chairs, Prof. (Lt. Col. Res.) Uzi Ben-Shalom has served in the IDF’s Unit 8200 and continues to conduct military research. These details matter. In a just world, one where Arabs are not racialised as inferior, the rationale for a boycott would not require explanation, just as it did not in the case of South Africa’s apartheid regime.
I had hoped the DGS would express greater concern for the growing number of scholars, especially Palestinians and their allies, who have been dismissed from German universities under the pretext of ‘combating antisemitism.’ On this, see my article Societal Polarization, Academic Freedom, and the Promise of Dialogical Sociology.
At a recent talk I gave in Oslo about the war on Gaza, a member of the audience repeatedly voiced concern about the rise of antisemitism in Europe, blaming it on those who call for a ceasefire and a political solution. I asked: would it have been acceptable, during the 1950s Battle of Algiers or the 1900s German genocide in Namibia, to accuse Algerians or Namibians of being ‘anti-French’ or ‘anti-German’, or worse, ‘anti-Christian’?
The second form of radicalism seeks to extend the boycott to the individual level. This poses serious risks of discrimination based on nationality. Some activists have called for vetting Israeli academics by demanding that they first issue statements denouncing the occupation. But vetting, however well-intentioned, often becomes an illiberal proxy for censorship and nationality-based exclusion.
In my own university, like many American universities, this logic has led to the systematic exclusion of Syrians and Iranians affiliated with their national universities, regardless of their political views.
At times, it is even unclear whether exclusion is based on their nationality itself or their critical stance toward U.S. policy. A more liberal and dialogical approach would allow individuals to act according to conscience, choosing to attend or abstain from panels depending on whether an Israeli speaker is delivering propaganda or engaging in genuine dialogue.
This brings me to the controversy surrounding the 2025 World Sociology Forum in Rabat, where more than 4,500 scholars are gathered, including 170 Moroccans and 40 others from across the Arab world.
Despite ISA’s suspension of ISS, some activists have called for boycotting the entire event, citing Morocco’s normalisation and military cooperation with Israel. While this concern is legitimate, the boycott campaign has not been grounded in moral reasoning but in legalistic purism. Ethical thinking requires attention to context, proportionality, and the principle of the ‘lesser evil.
On the one hand, given the marginalisation of Arab scholarship within global academia, the Rabat forum represents a rare opportunity to internationalise Arab research and foster meaningful dialogue. The timing of the boycott call, just three weeks before the forum, also rendered it untenable for many participants, myself included, who had already invested substantial non-refundable resources for registration, accommodation, and travel. These are compelling reasons to participate in the forum.
On the other hand, some voices have argued that a clear message must be conveyed to both ISA and the Moroccan authorities: as long as Israel continues to function as a settler-colonial state, the principles of the BDS movement ought to be upheld uncompromisingly. From this perspective, it is not enough to target only panels involving Israeli participants; rather, a full boycott of the entire forum is seen as necessary.
Notably, tensions have emerged between those who favour a strictly legalistic framework and those who foreground moral and political reasoning. The former tend to adopt a rigid posture, often hesitant to acknowledge the ethical urgency and symbolic power of boycott, not as an end in itself, but as a strategic means to advance Palestinian rights and challenge structures of oppression. This divergence underscores a deeper debate over the role of academic engagement in contexts of systemic injustice: not only to critique and denounce such contexts, but also to open spaces for genuine dialogue.
This legalistic rigidity is not new. Earlier this year, a similar divide emerged around the Oscar-winning Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land. Some called for boycotting it and condemned the film because of one of its funders, while others recognised its critical value in exposing the realities of Israeli settler colonialism at a moment when stopping the genocide in Gaza is most urgent. The Journal of Palestinian Studies (Arabic edition) wisely dedicated a special section of seven articles to explore the complexity of such questions (Issue 143).
Paradoxically, some advocates of decolonial theory fail to see that participation in global academic forums can itself be an act of decolonisation, an opportunity to challenge Eurocentrism and to centre the voices of formerly and currently colonised peoples.
In sum, taking a ‘radical’ stance is not inherently virtuous. Without ethical clarity, critical self-reflection, and context-sensitive reasoning, radicalism risks collapsing into dogmatism. This is why I have titled this reflection Radical But Wrong.
Sari Hanafi is Professor of Sociology, Director of the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies and Chair of the Islamic Studies program at the American University of Beirut. He was the President of the International Sociological Association (2018-23). He was also the editor of Idafat: the Arab Journal of Sociology (Arabic) (2017-2022), and author of Studying Islam in the Arab World (2023).
Follow Sari on X:Â @hanafi1962
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