News and updates

San Francisco, CA – March 17, 2026

Geographers for Justice in Palestine (GJP) announces it has won important though limited steps to advance reform within the American Association of Geographers (AAG) as the organization meets in San Francisco March 17-21. On Thursday, February 12, 2026, AAG divested funds from key firms profiting from Israel’s genocidal war and military occupation, and built a program to support displaced Palestinian geographers. Geographers for Justice in Palestine was formed by AAG members to support an academic boycott and divestment from Israel by geographers. AAG is a professional organization of approximately 10,000 members from around the world.

Divestment of AAG funds from all priority firms outlined by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) represents a major win fulfilling one of GJP’s demands. AAG funds were removed from eight weapons-related firms whose technology has been used, for instance, in the ongoing US-Israeli bombing campaigns in March 2026. Though numerous US-based academic associations have passed resolutions in support of BDS, GJP’s member-led campaign results in real movement of an academic association’s organizational funds. Ongoing disclosure and review of investments will be crucial, as screen developer Morningstar Sustainalytics has been a target of US conservatives for recognizing human rights violations committed by firms operating in Israeli occupied territories.

Deborah Cowen, professor at University of Toronto’s Department of Geography and Planning, described the divestment policy as “a crucial step toward transforming AAG into a professional organization that reflects its members’ values.” They continued, “Geographers for Justice in Palestine have demonstrated and amplified support for Palestinian liberation in our discipline. Geographers will continue to demonstrate that our knowledge and academic positions must not be used for colonial occupation and genocide.”

In March 2025, more than 10% of AAG membership petitioned AAG’s National Council to hold a “special meeting” concerning academic boycott and divestment, following a member-driven petition process outlined in AAG bylaws. In organizing for consideration of these actions, geographers respond to the decades-long call from Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment, and sanctions of Israel. Academic boycott and divestment are meant to advance an end to the Israeli military occupation and apartheid regime to uphold the protected right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and to receive reparations.

While divestment is a notable win, the process that AAG members had to navigate fell short of basic principles of membership democracy. AAG council has refused calls to hold a membership vote on an academic boycott. AAG released a prevaricating statement describing the need to protect higher education in Gaza. However, GJP’s call for an academic boycott responds to the fact that Israeli universities, including geography departments, actively provide material support and knowledge that enable and deepen Israel’s atrocity crimes against Palestinians. In this regard, AAG leadership risks upholding the legacy of racism and colonialism in geography, a discipline which has historically taken an active role in erasing the presence and rights of Palestinians and other colonized peoples.

AAG has also announced a fund to support “displaced scholars globally, including scholars from Gaza and other conflict-affected regions.” These scholars will be provided free AAG membership and registration for AAG annual meetings, eligibility to apply for relocation or travel funds, and connections to aid organizations. In recent years, “Palestine” was not even a location option available to registrants for AAG meetings, forcing Palestinian geographers to register as if they were from another location. Finally, AAG released an “International Partnership Framework” to address relationships with organizations that could be violators of human rights.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) commented that “We welcome AAG’s significant steps toward becoming a more ethical association, including divesting its funds from companies complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and in its 77-year settler-colonial apartheid regime. By moving toward an ‘International Partnership Framework,’ AAG also clearly recognizes that maintaining ties with academic institutions that are complicit in gross human rights violations is as untenable as it is unethical. AAG must necessarily exclude ties with all Israeli academic institutions under this framework due to their well-documented active role in Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity and now genocide against Palestinians. The development of this policy must be transparent and inclusive of input from the AAG membership and stakeholders. We thank Geographers for Justice in Palestine and the principled AAG members who are working to ensure the association lives up to its stated values.”

While AAG leadership describes these actions as a “final response to the petition,” Geographers for Justice in Palestine will continue to push towards membership-led change in the organization in support of Palestinian liberation.

Geographers for Justice in Palestine can be reached for comment at geog4pal@proton.me

February 17, 2026

On Thursday, February 12, the AAG sent an email to members entitled “AAG’s Response to the Member Petition on Israel–Palestine” and published a “Statement on Palestine and Higher Education." Both texts announce four changes to AAG policy developed by the AAG council over recent months, described as investment framework changes, international partnership policies, a displaced scholars fund, and an official AAG statement. But, the AAG has skirted any gestures towards voting on an academic boycott. So while we can claim a legitimate win in the divestment of AAG funds from militarism and the displaced scholar’s fund, the announcement of these limited actions as “final” represents the culmination of a deeply flawed undemocratic process. Here is how we see it!

What we won:

1. On divestment, it is important to recognize and celebrate a critical win for our campaign. Though many BDS resolutions have been passed by other scholarly organizations, the AAG’s change in policy makes it one of only a handful in North America that has actually moved funds. Going forward, it will remain critical that AAG continue disclosure practices and maintain an eye on investments, since Morningstar Sustainalytics screens have come under criticism by the US-Israeli right.
   
   
2. The “Displaced Scholars Support Program and Fund” aims to support Palestinian scholars, and perhaps others, who have been affected by “conflict.” A “working group will develop the program details over the next year.” This program is an important win brought forth by over two years of campaigning and shaming the AAG about their limited support for, and often abandonment of, Palestinian geographers. However, it is important to remember that this policy is only as effective as institutional support can make it, especially considering the immense financial and political barriers to scholarly participation that Palestinians face. Dismantling these barriers is the goal of academic boycott, which the AAG failed to implement.
   
   
   What’s next?
   GJP’s fight for a democratically passed boycott of Israeli academic institutions continues!
   
   AAG council’s response pledges to develop an “International Partnership Framework and Due Diligence Policy” which (if implemented) would proactively dissuade institutional partnerships with “countries where there are significant human rights or academic freedom concerns.” This stops well short of Palestinian civil society’s call for an explicit boycott of Israeli academic institutions, a crucial component of the international solidarity movement for Palestinian liberation. The goal of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) is to isolate Israeli academic and cultural institutions who actively support genocide, occupation, and apartheid. Boycott is a central part of the campaign to make this genocidal project untenable.
   
   An actual special meeting—wherein AAG members could debate the case for divestment and boycott—was never held. We did not ask for a statement, because bad statements do more harm than good. The current statement reiterates Zionist talking points, and continues the shameful legacy of racism and colonialism in geography, a discipline which has long taken an active role in erasing the presence and rights of Palestinians and other colonized peoples. We need to continue to push for a democratic vote for boycott where AAG member voices can be heard.

January 29, 2026

The situation in Palestine is very dire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has outright declared that he will not allow reconstruction in Gaza, while the IOF have effectively colonized half the territory, imposing a new boundary–now called the yellow line. Children are dying from the cold every day. The Rafah crossing remains closed while over 20,000 medical evacuees are subjected to an endless wait. Things feel hopeless; which is why we must persist.

Our campaign started one year ago, and we wanted to take a moment to reflect on what we accomplished together in the last year. While our work built on important previous Palestine solidarity organizing in the discipline, our campaign for boycott and divestment at AAG and what we now call Geographers for Justice in Palestine launched in earnest at the beginning of 2025. This past year:

• We organized an all-day Palestine solidarity pre-conference in Detroit, attended by +180 geographers
• We organized the “Dismantling the Palestine Exception” panel series at AAG’s 2025 Annual Meeting, consisting of seven excellent sessions on Palestine solidarity in the current moment, as well as a field trip to Dearborn, Michigan.
• We launched a petition for a special meeting and vote on BDS at AAG, and gathered over 1,200 signatures, surpassing the necessary 10% of membership needed–according to the bylaws.
• We were endorsed by several Specialty Groups at the AAG, including: The Antipode Editorial Collective, Black Geographies Specialty Group, Disability Specialty Group, Energy & Environment Specialty Group, Latin America Specialty Group, and the Socialist and Critical Geography Specialty Group.
• We organized a series of virtual community events, titled Fall Conversations, which included a discussion on BDS in Academic Associations, and reflections from comrades in Notes from the Field. Together we shared and reflected on the role of geography and education in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

In response to AAG’s deflections and inaction, we chose action:

• When the AAG refused to hold a meeting and a vote despite our successful petition, we held our own People’s Special Meeting providing the open forum we requested but were denied.
• When the AAG presented us with an unsolicited report, we organized expert commentary from the community. We hosted two online Coffee Hours and gathered across campuses mobilizing a collective response.
• We did a LOT of the unspectacular but deeply important organizing work that a new campaign like ours requires: building a website, a social media presence (bluesky, X, and instagram), a newsletter, and weekly meetings for our group, the list goes on.

From November 7, 2025, AAG has claimed that it has divested AAG funds from the eight weapons manufacturers previously mentioned in their report. But our work is far from done! In 2026, we will expand our campaign and continue to push for complete boycott and divestment!

Once again, we thank you for your continued engagement and unwavering support.

November 25, 2025

The Israeli Occupation Forces’ impunity has reached new heights, as they increase their attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, renew hostilities and targeted assassinations in Lebanon, and reshape the territory in the region, all during a supposed “ceasefire”! We write to you with an important announcement and an invitation to our last coffee hour on December 1st!

We have some important news to share: in the most recent update to its report after November 7, AAG has claimed that it has now divested AAG funds from the eight weapons manufacturers previously mentioned in the report. AAG funds are, it is reported, 100% compliant with the American Friends Service Committee’s BDS divestment shortlist. This is a direct response to membership pressure undertaken over the past year, and a major win for our campaign! This development nonetheless has important implications for our immediate strategy:

We need to demand that AAG standardize and codify its review of investment screening tools for the future and ensure ongoing compliance with AFSC divestment priorities. This is particularly important as Morningstar Sustainalytics has claimed to be changing its screening tools to “reduce anti-Israeli bias.”

A divestment win amplifies the importance of fighting for academic boycott. We need to escalate our efforts to explain the importance of cutting ties with Israeli academic institutions.

This is not only a win for the campaign for divestment from Israel, but also enhances efforts within AAG against fossil fuels and militarism, setting an important precedent that AAG’s investment strategy ought to adhere to our disciplinary values.

The deadline to submit our comments on the AAG report is on December 2nd, and we know many people have not gotten around to doing so! If you are looking for guidance or solidarity, please join us for one last coffee hour (BYOC) on Monday December 1st at 4:00 PM EST. This online meeting will be a time to organize and draft our individual responses just in time for the deadline. We have designed this as a work session, so come prepared to share your thoughts and draft a response!

Thank you to everyone that came to the second Fall Conversation session, “Notes From the Field”, last week. The event was a great success! We heard from comrades in Palestine and others in North America about the different realities they face on the ground in this moment of intensified repression and policing. If you did not make it, keep an eye out on our socials as we release some highlights from the event in the coming days!

November 17, 2025

This week we give the floor to Saad Amira, a geographer currently based in the West Bank, in an effort to highlight the creative resistance efforts of our comrades against the vicious settler colonial project. Amira shares below a bit about an exhibition he co-curated with Samar Awwad in an effort to preserve Palestinian memory and history.

Imagine Jerusalem: Movement and the Reconfiguration of Urban and Rural Spaces Evocation and Reclaiming of Childhood in the Face of Waylay

The Nakba of Palestine and the Levant in 1947-1949 blocked many roads and paths in and around Jerusalem affecting their material, moral, and familial significance. However, it did not completely halt the movement of people and their ability to remember and narrate. In the Endangered Palestinian Memories initiative, we gather, preserve and digitize stories which we share through exhibitions.

Our first exhibition, titled “Imagine Jerusalem”, opened this October in Al Bireh, Palestine. It was created to highlight the crucial role oral history plays in preserving memories and reclaiming spaces. Using oral and social history, photo albums, objects and ephemera from Palestinian families who lived in Jerusalem before and after the Nakba, the exhibition retrieves movement lost under occupation.

The families featured in the exhibit endured the Nakba, holding onto certain objects, stories, and agrarian/urban lifestyles that connected local and cosmopolitan Jerusalem to cities like Cairo, Beirut, Damascus and Amman, through various means and mediums such as walking, mailing, marriage, studies, infiltration, cultural and social interactions transcending artificial colonial borders.

These tales of endurance, continuity, and survival defy attempts to erase the past and present, providing spaces for mourning, healing and hope. The “Imagine Jerusalem” exhibition was designed as a mobile exhibition that could travel to different locations worldwide, serving as a cultural and social platform for generating pluralistic knowledge about Jerusalem and Palestine.

Saad Amira, Founder and Director of the “Endangered Palestinian Memories” initiative.

October 8, 2025

On Friday, Oct. 3rd, AAG held a webinar to kick off what is described as a ‘sixty day meeting.’ Executive director Gary Langham and AAG president Bill Moseley laid out the process concocted for commenting on a “background report” they have produced. Unsurprisingly, the document contains numerous upsetting positions, not least that it ultimately concludes that AAG should take no action towards academic boycott or divesment, or anything beyond maybe making a “statement” – something we never asked for! Please take some time to sift through the document (accessible here, login required) and follow our campaign online as we expose some of the more egregious errors, absences, and contestable aspects of their conclusions (Instagram). The Oct 17th GJP People’s Special Meeting will also give us an opportunity to collectively unpack the AAG meeting and report.

Please join us next week for the GJP organized “People’s Special Meeting” on October 17th at 12:00 PM EST. We plan on running this event the way we would have wanted the AAG to do it. The event will be a space to reflect on the campaign so far and come together to strategize about our feedback on the report, what to do for the upcoming AAG in San Fransisco, and more long term planning for our campaign. Event attendance requires prior registration, which you can do here!

Looking Forward

A few weeks ago we asked everyone to delay registering for AAG annual meeting in San Fransisco as a way to put pressure on AAG executive leadership ande push for changes to the format of the ‘special meeting’ and for a member vote on BDS. AAG’s disappointing special meeting last week confirmed that we must now pivot in our approach. Over the last year, our campaign has carefully followed what we understood to be the existing democratic pathway for member driven change in our organization, but AAG executive leadership invented an entirely new process to undermine open member debate and avoid a member vote. It is GJP’s assessment that we must now pursue various lines of work geared towards building a more democratic AAG and winning a member vote on BDS, including:

• a coordinated critical engagement with the current ‘60 day meeting’ process as outlined by AAG, including commenting on the AAG report and lobbying council members;
• focus on democratizing the AAG by supporting pro-Palestine candidates for council and thereby creating pathways for change more broadly in the AAG;
• Make Palestine unavoidable at the 2026 AAG annual meeting in San Francisco and use the conference as an organizing space for our campaign.

More on what of these different approaches look like forthcoming. For now, we note that all of these steps require folks to be members, and contesting for power in the AAG. Thus, our recommendation at this time is that you proceed with registering to attend the SF meeting if you would like to, as this will also allow you to participate in our events and organizing at the annual meeting. GJP is committed to ensuring that the AAG is an organization run for and by its members. To that end, we are of the position that we engage. Renew memberships, comment on the report, go to SF if you have the means, and continue to make Palestine unavoidable in geography.

October 1, 2025

Israel is continuing its genocidal campaigns across the Arab World and has repeatedly targeted the Global Sumud Flotilla to prevent the delivery of any aid. The destruction of Gaza’s medical infrastructure has reached unprecedented levels, with doctors warning of “wholesale extermination” amid growing famine. Meanwhile, the Knesset advanced a bill allowing the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis. With this context in mind, we’re reaching out about two important dates: the AAG meeting this Friday, and our counter-event on October 17th—please save the date.

Last April, hundreds of geographers signed a petition to compel the AAG to hold a special meeting to consider BDS resolutions. With no input from the members who organized this petition, AAG decided the meeting would take the format of an information-dump webinar by the AAG executive director, featuring a “background report” on BDS. Again, there will be no framing whatsoever by those of us who developed or signed this call. We find this to be an undemocratic and untransparent process designed to prevent membership democracy, as well as to insulate the organization from legal action — an approach that is in complete disalignment with AAG’s own history of member-driven change within the organization, which we have summarized on social media posts here: Instagram, X, Bluesky. For these reasons, we think it will be compelling for all AAG members to witness the intransigence our group has experienced firsthand over the last nine months–and to keep this obstinacy in mind as we approach whatever “input processes” AAG has created for the 60 days following the meeting.

As a reminder, the meeting will be held on October 3 at 12:00 p.m. ET. The link to the meeting will appear on the AAG Webinar Page (login required). In the AAG’s language, this event will “Explain the AAG’s inclusive approach to considering this issue; Outline the overall process and overview of the draft background report; Share details about how to view and comment on the report; Share information on how to sign up for a listening session; [and] Answer questions from participants.”

September 22, 2025

Israel is continuing its genocide, displacement, and starvation missions over Gaza while it simultaneously expands its geographic strikes, extending as far as Qatar and Tunis. And as world leaders continue their silent complicity, a recent study published by Middle East Monitor estimates the actual death toll in Gaza at 680,000, of which 380,000 are children under the age of 5. Meanwhile, the UN’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel has found that Israel is committing genocide by UN definition. We write this newsletter bearing the weight of this moment, knowing that our work is even more important now.

Our democratically elected AAG leadership, including the Executive Committee, the National Councilors, and the Regional Division Councilors, met last weekend in a quarterly AAG Council meeting. We thank every person that reached out to their councilors to voice their concern with the AAG’s approach to democratic processes. Every council member we have communicated with has stressed the importance of your ongoing, unique communications with them. It is clear that this campaigning has pushed AAG council to a point of substantial internal disagreement. This is a strategic if unsatisfying win for our campaign.

This week, AAG president Bill Moseley published a president’s column on the AAG website, and you also received official communication from AAG outlining its process. AAG council has denied GJP a voice on October 3, and seems to have no intention to let members vote on BDS at any point after this process. While the closed webinar format for the “special meeting” and the “background report” proposed by Gary Langham will remain in place, AAG council nonetheless negotiated the addition of two “listening sessions” in which AAG will “engage directly with membership concerns.” It is unclear at this time how comments will influence the final “report,” and what will happen to the report subsequently. Can this process be described as “transparent” when key decisions will made behind closed doors, completely insulated from member democracy? Whatever happens, we are excited to announce that we are planning a “People’s Special Meeting” for mid-October to provide a more meaningfully open forum than the one AAG has offered. AAG incredulously asks us to “imagine an open zoom meeting with hundreds of members asking to speak” in their justification for a closed meeting – we’re unafraid of organizing just such an event!

Our strength comes from standing united behind this rightful campaign and our commitment to keeping Palestinian liberation at the center of our discussions. It is clear that we need sophisticated and consistent political and cultural education of AAG council members on numerous points, concerning basic anti-Palestinian racism and discrimination, and Jewish voices against Zionism among geographers. We expect all manner of attempts to redirect our strategy, whether out of fear of the Trump administration or in the name of purported “fiduciary responsibility” towards the financial health of the organization. These are not reasons to avoid our responsibility to enact BDS, the bare minimum that our organization needs to do to support Palestinian liberation.

September 8, 2025

Israel has been relentlessly continuing its genocidal and starvation campaign in Gaza, its settler and military violence in the occupied West Bank, and its assault on the sovereignty and peoples of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. As you know, the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, including academic boycott, is a basic pressure point against all this violence of the Israeli state. For almost two years, AAG has studiously avoided saying anything directly about Israel’s genocidal campaign and its whiplash effect on the academic freedom of geography students and faculty in the U.S. This email is a campaign update and a call to contact our AAG council before September 12 and ask that they support a democratic, member-driven BDS process.

We played by the rules. Geographers for Justice in Palestine has carefully followed the member-driven democratic process as outlined in the AAG bylaws and standing rules. At the 2025 annual meeting in Detroit, one in six attendees signed our petition for a special meeting to put forward, discuss, and vote on our BDS resolutions. The special meeting was intended to serve as a platform to discuss these BDS resolutions, leading to a member vote – as outlined in our bylaws.

The October 3rd webinar is NOT what we petitioned for. While the petition was accepted by AAG, membership has been cut out of the process. Our current understanding is that the proposed meeting and “report” scheduled for October 3 will disallow direct member engagement and discussion. While the meeting format is unclear, we do know that Gary Langham (the AAG executive director, who is not elected by members and is not a trained geographer) has asserted control over the format and process. The meeting called by Gary will be a discussion of a report on BDS produced by Gary, which not even the AAG council has received! Gary is clearly not an expert on BDS, and does not understand the serious geographic stakes of this moment. Though “input” will be solicited on Gary’s “report,” we expect any feedback will ultimately be edited by Gary. As constructed, this is therefore not a member-called special meeting—it is a Gary Langham webinar.

Ask AAG council to intervene in the process on behalf of members. AAG council is the democratically elected AAG leadership consisting of trained geographers, and they need to forcefully intervene in a process. Council needs to demand that GJP speak at the October 3 special meeting, and that this crucial issue deserves a member vote. We have a very short window this week to urge council to change this proposed process and format. Our democratically elected AAG leadership–the Executive Committee, the National Councilors, and the Regional Division Councilors–will hold their quarterly AAG Council meeting beginning September 12th, and will not hold another meeting until December. We must ask our regional and national councilors to support a more transparent and democratic process.

Here’s how to contact our councilers:

• Who to contact: The emails of the Executive Committee and the National and Regional councilors (including an international representative) in the PDF here. This is public information drawn from the AAG website governance page. AAG council wants and needs to hear from members on this issue.

• What to write: Draft an email that demands that council upholds its democratic process, allows an open format meeting at which GJP has a chance to speak, and holds a member-wide vote on academic boycott resolutions. We kindly ask that you keep your email constructive but firm, as many council members have recently been receiving a high volume of form emails from a pro-genocide harassment campaign we know to be organized by non-AAG members. We encourage you to write an email in your own words. This is what the Council and Executive Committee - our elected representatives - need to do:

• Embrace a more assertive role in planning and facilitating the special meeting. Protect the democratic process and legitimacy within AAG and avoid setting a troubling precedent, given the action in question is fully in line with the organization’s bylaws (refer to Article IV - Section 2: Special Meetings accessible under the Bylaws tab of the governance page).

• Reserve time at the special meeting for Geographers for Justice in Palestine (GJP) to present the case for our BDS resolutions, as stipulated in our petition. Because we gathered the signatures, we ought to be the only group given this particular role, and no counter resolutions or “reports” should be staged at this particular date.

• Support a process that leads to a vote on our BDS resolutions. A vote can happen at the special meeting itself, as AAG bylaws allow for a quorum of 5% of membership (about 500 people) to pass resolutions at meetings! AAG members expect the organization to uphold democratic protocol, and meetings perceived as illegitimate risk alienating members. Poor process may drive members toward organizations like CAG or AAA that have passed BDS resolutions.

August 28, 2025

We are writing this message as an update and a call for action on our campaign to pass academic boycott and divestment resolutions at the American Association of Geographers (AAG). Keep an eye out for emails about once a week with updates on the situation in Palestine, updates on our campaign, and actions you can take to support our efforts towards BDS at the AAG.

After more than 22 months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Israel continues to act with impunity, bombing tents, shooting people at aid sites, and enacting a policy of forced starvation in Gaza. Israel’s recent bombing of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis killed more than 20 people, including 5 journalists. The AAG has so far refused to commit to an academic boycott or divestment from Israeli (and other military) investments. For these reasons, and many more, our organizing remains a vital effort to express meaningful and material solidarity with Palestine.

To support our campaign, we are planning a fall conversation series, beginning with an event that brings together key participants in disciplinary academic boycott and divestment campaigns.

Finally, don’t forget to attend the special meeting on October 3rd, from 12:00 to 1:30 pm EST to demand a vote on BDS resolutions at the AAG as proposed by GJP.

Thank you for being an active part in the success of our campaign! With the Trump Administration’s attacks on higher education, it is important we do not back down and maintain our position and commitment to this rightful cause.

August 21, 2025

Greetings from the Geographers for Justice in Palestine team. We’ve been busy organizing our campaign for the passage of BDS resolutions by the American Association of Geographers after successfully gathering a petition with over 10% of the membership of AAG! Nonetheless, while Israel’s horrific and genocidal assault on and starvation of Gaza continues unabated, our disciplinary leaders are delaying and obfuscating the clear action we need to take as geographers. If your AAG membership is active, you should have received an email from AAG executive director, Gary Langham, announcing a “special meeting” on October 3, 2025 at 9 AM PT/12 PM ET. We are writing to provide context surrounding this email, our analysis of AAG’s handling of our petition, and a crucial ask to forward this email so that our campaign can reach the broadest audience.

Our organizing blitz at AAG 2025 in Detroit was hugely successful. We organized a pre-conference attended by 200 people and a series of packed sessions on the role of Geography in the Palestine solidarity movement. Over 10% of our membership signed the petition to the executive council to convene a meeting about our proposed BDS resolutions. This unprecedented solidarity with Palestine and Palestinian geographers is crucial to uphold, now more than ever before.

While we had hoped AAG Executive Director and Council would support our BDS proposals as member-driven change in our organization, they instead have chosen an undemocratic and unprecedented path forward which locks AAG members out of meaningful participation while reserving the ability to develop their own “report” on BDS. This process will interface with members only through what seems to be a “listening session” model. Despite initial assurances from Gary Langham, the process you all asked AAG to take by signing the petition is not being considered. We have been told directly that “No further action is needed from [GJP’s organizers] or any petitioner” in this process. We believe the executive council has likely violated aspects of AAG’s bylaws and standing rules in the process. Further, these decisions were made by the outgoing executive board on June 25; the minutes will not be visible to AAG members until September. These calculated moves are signs that the executive council would be extremely unlikely to ever allow any membership-wide vote on BDS resolutions or any meaningful action–unless we heighten our pressure.

We are committed to organizing over the next six weeks to resist this undemocratic process and make the special meeting a site of antagonism for AAG council and a campaign win for us. Here’s what we are asking of you to ensure that the demands of the petition you signed at AAG are respected:

1. We need members to attend the special meeting and demand to vote on actual BDS resolutions as proposed by GJP. The special meeting is currently scheduled for October 3rd, from 12:00 to 1:30 pm EST.
2. We need you to forward this email to colleagues and ask them to sign up here to continue recieiving emails. Please use a more secure non-institutional email address, as many university spam filters automatically catch our emails. We will be messaging this list regularly with updates and steps you can take over the next six weeks. We need to mobilize a skilled and disciplined message about how to approach this meeting, and executive council, in our specialty group communities, and on our geography listserves. We have assembled a series of talking points on our website, including background on the BDS movement, why AAG in particular should support it, and how to address potential concerns. Now is the time to practice making the case for the urgency of boycott and divestment in AAG as we await details on the form of the special meeting. Keep an eye out for more opportunities to practice between now and October 3.
3. We need you to further spread our message on social media. You can follow our accounts @geogboycott for message discipline and graphics, but the most effective messages are those that are spoken from your own position.

We’ll keep you up to date on small asks over the next few weeks. Stay tuned for a Zoom teach-in in September featuring colleagues in disciplinary organizations that have passed BDS motions. And if our representatives continue to drag their feet, we need to strategize how to escalate further, such as taking more drastic action prior to the San Francisco AAG meeting.

This is a critical moment for reforming AAG to leverage our power and knowledge courageously. Choosing neutrality on Palestine today will be choosing powerlessness on migration, academic freedom, climate change, and fascism tomorrow. With Palestine in our hearts, our goal is to change the culture of silence and neutrality within our discipline. Now is the time to act as Palestinian geographers and civil society have called us to do.