‘Educator’s Pledge: We Will Not Stop Talking About Palestine’ launched—to uncertain effect
by Piyush Mathur
The University of Toronto’s chapter of the Faculty for Palestine (F4P) network has launched an online pledge for ‘educators’ seeking to oppose the ongoing suppression of pro-Palestine voices on academic campuses and elsewhere (including on the Internet).
The educators’ pledge, ‘We will not stop talking about Palestine’, strives to enlist academics (including independent scholars and retirees) who would reject and resist all attempts to suppress expressions supporting Palestine’s liberation: what has come to be called a free-speech exception that has been practised for decades predominantly across Western campuses, only to be intensified since October 2023.
This selective denial of pro-Palestine expression has been labelled ‘the Palestine Exception’, the pledge’s statement reminds the reader—providing links to external reports attesting to its presence and persistence. The pledge can be accessed via this URL: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfjXFMpd59fsw3TsP7Yqj_8z2HFSBeYGWo1N9L4yLu-UXUbOg/viewform
A measurable or intended impact seems elusive so far
F4P’s website tells us that the network was established in Toronto in 2008 ‘as a committee of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAISA)’ and it currently has over 600 members from over 40 Canadian universities and 15 colleges. The website stresses that F4P is not an ethnic or identity-based organisation, only that it has been supporting ‘the Palestinian-led campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel’ since 2005.
Similar signature campaigns, originating elsewhere and spearheaded by other networks, antedate this particular pledge (launched in August 2025).
These include, for instance, the Scholar’s Statement supporting Palestine Action; A Public Call for Accountability at the Harvard Education Publishing Group; and the petition to end the European Society of Criminology’s (ESC) complicity in Israel’s crimes against Palestine.
It is unclear, however, what the impact of these campaigns has been or will be on the ground, for Palestine.
This is a screenshot of the logo for the Canada-based ‘Faculty for Palestine’(F4P) network. (Image credit: F4P website)
On August 20, 2025, for example, Zev Stub—citing information shared by Israel’s Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer—reported for The Times of Israel that immigration into Israel ‘from the United States, France, Great Britain, Canada and other western countries is on the rise’. This development can be viewed to indicate a steady, if not rising, support overall for Israel’s settler agenda within at least the ardent segments of Western Jewry; contrariwise, it can also be presented as a consequence of restrictions imposed on pro-Palestine expression across the West.
Either way, being forced to remain silent on Palestine’s liberation and empowerment hardly comprises a choice, leave aside a better alternative, for seekers of justice and freedom: be it in Palestine or Canada.