‘I Won’t Work With You. You’re Committing Genocide’

Gilad Hirschberger: “I have been active in the contentious field of political psychology for many years, but never have I encountered such a direct, blunt response. I was rejected because I am an Israeli.”

Or Kashti reports in Haaretz on April 12, 2024

Canceled invitations to conferences, a freeze on hiring Israelis at overseas institutions, rejection of scientific articles on political grounds, disruption of lectures abroad – Israeli scholars from various disciplines paint a painful picture of the foreign boycott that has afflicted them since the war broke out in Gaza

Hirschberger was taken aback. “I have been active in the contentious field of political psychology for many years, but never have I encountered such a direct, blunt response,” he says. “I was rejected because I am an Israeli.” His response: “To treat an individual negatively because of their group membership is the essence of prejudice. If psychologists can’t contain their prejudice, and if even clinical psychologists express such intolerance, what hope does the rest of the world have?”

Even ignoring, for a moment, the response of his Norwegian counterparts, it’s clear to him who is going to pay the price. “Israeli academia is liable to find itself in a new situation regarding participation in conferences, fundraising for research or publication of articles,” he says. “We are totally dependent on international connections. Collaboration with us will become increasingly difficult, it will be considered something beyond the pale.”

Is Israeli academia about to enter a whole new phase? All signs are that it already has. In the past few weeks, Haaretz spoke with more than 60 Israeli scholars – from a wide range of disciplines and academic institutions, including both young scientists and university presidents – about their experiences with colleagues abroad since the war broke out in the Gaza Strip after Hamas’ massacre on October 7. They recounted dozens of incidents: cancellation of invitations to conferences, a freeze on their appointments in foreign institutions, rejection of scientific articles on political grounds, disruption of lectures abroad, cessation of collaborative efforts with colleagues abroad, refusal by such colleagues to take part in the promotion process their Israeli counterparts must undergo at local institutions, and even a sweeping boycott of local colleges and universities. The following examples, all from recent months and backed up by documents and emails, are being made public here for the first time. The plethora of events leaves no room for doubt: Israel is feeling the brunt of an unprecedented academic boycott, which is only gathering momentum.

Similar conclusions were evident in a survey conducted in January by the Israel Young Academy, an organization of young scholars that serves as an incubator for ideas and projects, which was founded in 2012 by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In that survey – of 1,000 senior faculty members at all of Israel’s institutions of higher learning – one-third of the respondents reported a significant slump in their ties with counterparts abroad.

Some provided details: “A colleague in Europe informed me that she needs to remove the name of one of my former students from an article they co-authored, because her university is against any collaboration with Israel”; “My research partner requested that we not submit joint requests for grants to research foundations”; “A lab director with whom I have worked for many years said he finds it difficult to work with Israelis”; “A colleague in a European country received threats because he was collaborating with Israel,” and so on and so forth.

These comments were provided anonymously by the respondents and are in keeping with dozens of testimonies obtained by Haaretz. Together they create a picture of a frightening blow being dealt to Israeli academia, which is already being felt on the ground and is likely, primarily, affecting young scholars setting out on their careers. “People have severed ties with us – they have stopped responding to emails and have simply disappeared,” says Prof. Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, a sociologist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Similar impressions have been expressed by many academic staff members.

“A discourse of fear around maintaining contacts with Israelis is emerging,” relates R., a young Israeli who works in a lab in the field of the exact sciences at an elite university in England. His story is especially enlightening for understanding how Israeli academics like him are currently being received abroad.

In recent months, R. had suggested to the directors of his lab that they collaborate with universities in Israel. His proposal was rejected on the grounds that it is difficult to work with an institution located in a war zone if doing so essentially “benefits” only one side of the conflict. R. did not back down. He suggested allowing Israeli students to participate in a project involving remote learning. That attempt failed, as well. “The war is complicating things,” he was told, and “no one wants to take a risk.” The lab had already been “burned” in a similar case not long before, the directors explained, when sanctions were imposed on continuing associations with Russian researchers with whom they had been working.

“The lab’s directors even asked me to remove the fact that I am from Israel from my profile on the university’s website,” R. says. “I consented. Not because I was asked to, but because I realized that it was in fact to my benefit.”  Back in Israel,” he adds, “people find it hard to understand this, but we are two minutes away from getting the same treatment as Putin’s Russia.

D. fights back tears. A young lecturer in the social sciences, she sees her career about to go down the drain. Like other academics, she chose to be interviewed anonymously here for fear that having her name published would burn her few remaining professional bridges. Some interviewees were concerned that using their names would hurt colleagues abroad or encourage the boycotters. Others were simply afraid.

“I invested almost 20 years in studies and in gradually progressing in my field. But now the ability to continue with my work is very limited,” she says, adding that she feels pressure from multiple directions. “I am taking part in a large international project in Europe, together with other researchers from a number of countries,” she relates. “A few weeks ago, they asked me not to publish our joint studies on my website: The ties between us are harmful to them.”

When she suggested joining a research workshop with her colleagues, the response was an unequivocal refusal. “Ethical considerations” do not permit any connection with an academic in Israel, she was told. “Ties with an Israeli researcher have become something considered to be illegitimate,” she sums up. “My future is limited.”

It once seemed as if the social sciences and humanities are more vulnerable to political struggles. Indeed, such departments in Israel were familiar with the impact of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement long before October 7. However, the cessation of collaboration – whether in conducting research, co-authoring articles or in other areas – is now being seen as a widespread phenomenon in all fields.

A few months ago, Nir Davidson, a physics professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, suggested to an Italian colleague that they try together to request a grant from a competitive research foundation. “Because of the atrocities your country is perpetrating against innocent civilians, thousands of professors and researchers have signed a petition calling for all research collaboration to be blocked,” the colleague replied, noting that he “fondly recalls” a visit he made to Israel in 2020, but adding, “I’m afraid that what your country has done and is continuing to do will never be forgotten or forgiven.”

About a month ago, a scientist from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev was ejected from an international group that submits research proposals to the European Union in the realm of environmental studies. The explanation he was given by one of his colleagues was, “I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to not select Israel as a partner for the project. In fact, some partners do not wish to be involved in the project if Israel is a partner, particularly given the current political context. I am truly sorry, and I hope that we will have the opportunity to work together on another research project. Thank you for your understanding and I wish you all the best for the future.”

Another incident was cited by Ravit Alfandari, from the University of Haifa’s School of Social Work. She worked for over a year with a researcher from Northern Ireland on a large-scale study about domestic violence, and initially their collaborative effort continued after the war in Gaza broke out. “I understand you,” the Irish colleague told her, in one of their conversations. “I too know what it’s like to live under a threat.” But then, in November, just before they submitted a jointly written article to a highly regarded journal, he informed her that he had signed a petition calling for an academic boycott of Israel.

“He was decisive,” Dr. Alfandari recalls. “He said, ‘I hold you in great esteem, but I don’t intend to work with you ever again. It’s not a temporary thing. You are committing genocide in Gaza.'”

Ravit Alfandari:

In December, a literary scholar at Belgium’s KU Leuven University terminated a joint project with a scholar from the Hebrew University. “Our students are ‘very vocal’ on this subject,” the scholar wrote, explaining that someone had written on exam forms that were distributed in class, ‘Leuven – stop supporting genocide.'” In another case, an attempt by a Hebrew University professor in the social sciences to find an academic institution in Italy that would take part in teaching a joint course ended in disappointment.

“I got a punch in the stomach from my longtime colleagues,” the Israeli scholar says. “There was a lot of squirming. On the one hand, they didn’t say ‘no’ to my face; on the other hand, it was actually ‘no’ with an exclamation mark.”

Similarly, Prof. Einat Metzl, head of the arts therapy program at Bar-Ilan University, was slated to visit a university in Los Angeles within the framework of leading a joint training program in her field, but the visit was canceled when three students objected to inviting a lecturer from Israel.

A professor at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology told Haaretz about a student exchange program with a university in Denmark that was called off. Discussions about the program, which had reached an advanced stage in the months preceding the war, came to a halt in November. “The atmosphere changed, and was against us,” the professor says. “My counterpart said that it would be best to suspend the project. My impression was that he was afraid of his colleagues.”

The boycott of Israeli academia has also seeped into the field of business administration. A joint program in that field with an elite university in a large Western country was canceled a few weeks ago. Concern over anticipated anti-Israel demonstrations at the school was the off-the-record explanation.

Yet there are also cases of a reverse trend – of Israeli academics who have themselves decided to break their ties. “I had good relations for many years with the editor of a journal,” notes Prof. Michal Frenkel, from Hebrew University’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology. “Already on October 7 he complained about ‘unbalanced’ coverage in the world media. A few days later, he signed a letter calling for a boycott of Israel. He didn’t even wait until we entered Gaza. I resigned from the journal’s academic council. I couldn’t work with a person like that.”

* * *

About a month ago, Dan Mamlok, from the School of Education at Tel Aviv University, arrived in Montreal to deliver a lecture at a research center there. He was confronted by dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, most of them from the city’s McGill University, who blocked the entry of the attendees. “It was surprising and ironic to discover demonstrators against a lecture that dealt with education for tolerance in a polarized society,” he relates. “I came as a researcher of education – not as a representative of the Israeli government.

“After a certain amount of effort,” notes Dr. Mamlok, who managed to get into the building and deliver the talk before a small audience, “the security guards succeeded in getting a few people in through the building’s cellar. Outside a demonstration took place, which was very audible in the room. In the end, three security men escorted me, and then I was driven to the hotel in a police car.” In light of stories like these, he says, he knows of many academics “who are considering canceling lectures [abroad], and some who have already done so.”

Last week, Prof. Adam Lefstein, who heads the Seymour Fox School of Education at Hebrew University, organized a meeting for colleagues in his department in advance of their trips to conferences overseas. About 15 people attended the event, at which proposals for coping with possible disruptions were discussed.  One suggestion was to begin by talking about the war, including about criticism of it, “but also to say that we are here to talk about research,” Lefstein says. Another idea was “to display a presence” by attending one another’s sessions. “I don’t think one should be dragged into a shouting match,” Lefstein avers, “but sometimes it’s necessary to give lecturers the feeling that they are not alone.”

Indeed, the specter of possible demonstrations against Israeli academics overseas has had a chilling effect. Prof. Netta Barak-Koren, from Hebrew University’s law school, currently on a sabbatical in the United States, was appointed to help colleagues in Jerusalem prepare for boycott-related scenarios. A few weeks ago, she says she organized a conference at a leading U.S. university that was only authorized following consultations with a long and unusual series of people – something she had already experienced elsewhere in recent months.

“Suddenly universities are discussing the possibility of holding a conference in less prominent venues, or even after the end of the academic year, in order to avoid demonstrations. Our partners were very committed to organizing the [recent] event and holding it,” she says, but she says she is not sure that has been true in other cases.

To avert debacles, organizers of conferences abroad are canceling the participation of Israeli scholars in advance, but not the events themselves. A., who is in the field of the social sciences, was invited last summer by a European colleague to deliver a lecture at a local university later this year. “After October 7, she immediately took an interest in my well-being and expressed concern and sympathy,” she explains. About a month ago, the two started to plan the subject of the lecture – but then she was notified it had been canceled. It’s better to postpone the event indefinitely, because of the war in Gaza and the criticism it’s provoking among students, A. was told.

Many academics note a significant decline in the number of scientific conferences they’ve attended in the last half year. There are a number of reasons for this, ranging from the problem of finding flights after the war broke out, to changes related to the timing and duration of the semesters, to difficulties in integrating socially in gatherings abroad at a time like this. At a conference of a social sciences association last November in North America, for example, most of the participants attached a sticker stating “Stop the Genocide in Gaza” to their name tags. At an international education gathering in Miami, in early March, a session focusing on “Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza” was held under the aegis of the organization’s president.

Among all these examples, one that stands out is a scientific conference of the Society for Free Radical Research International, scheduled to be held in Istanbul in June. But already in early February, the heads of the European branch of the society informed Moran Benhar, of the Technion’s Faculty of Medicine, that due to the war in Gaza, the government of Turkey had decided to bar Israeli scientists from taking part in the event, and nothing could be done about it.

Prof. Benhar: “They said that it was really unpleasant, but that the situation had been forced on them. I said that I didn’t think it was reasonable. Just as it was untenable for a country that had undertaken to host the Olympic Games to boycott another country, it was unacceptable for Turkey to decide who would attend an international conference being held on its soil.” In their conversation, the European heads of the organization repeated that they didn’t want to get into “political issues,” as that would create “a problematic precedent.” Benhar’s response was that their consent to bow to Turkey’s boycott policy was a far more dangerous precedent.

After consulting with various colleagues, Benhar contacted a leading Jewish scientist at Harvard, who was due to receive a research prize at the Istanbul event. Within a short time, the scientist informed the organizers that he would not attend a conference that boycotted Israeli researchers. A few days later, the society’s directors announced that all the restrictions had been lifted.

Professor Liat Ayalon

“I’m certain that the disconnect between Israel and other countries will happen in many areas,” says A., the researcher whose lecture was canceled in Europe. “We are only at the beginning of the road. I think people aren’t aware of the price we are paying and will continue to pay. Maybe we’ll wake up when we aren’t invited to the Olympic Games.”

Similar concerns are voiced by Prof. Yuval Feldman from Bar-Ilan’s school. “The process of a quite prestigious appointment abroad for myself was suspended this week because ‘this is not the most appropriate time,'” Feldman, who preferred not to be interviewed here, tweeted on X, on March 25. “I wonder whether we are encountering a new reality abroad that will not end even if the situation in Israel improves – a kind of genie that we won’t be able to put back into the bottle.”

“I think we are a little like the canary in the mine,” Eran Toch, from Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Engineering, tweeted back. “The connection with the world is critical for Israel. We are not Russia. And academia stands on that front lines against the world.” Prof. Toch added that the process “will lead to a [wider] boycott of Israeli products, and that’s something everyone must take into account.”

Israeli academics could perhaps have anticipated the problems they’re having during the war with collaborations with colleagues abroad and with conferences and lectures overseas. But what they did not expect was that publication of articles in academic journals – effectively, the bread and butter of the world of research – would also be affected. The processes of initial acceptance, peer review and publication of such articles are supposed to be neutral, professional and unbiased. But this is no longer always the case, as Israeli researchers are realizing.

In November, Liat Ayalon, from Bar-Ilan’s School of Social Work, submitted a short article to an academic journal where she had published in the past. The article dealt with the war’s impact on the situation of Israel’s elderly community. Shortly afterward, the editor, with whom she had worked for some two decades, called and asked her to withdraw the article. “He said that he could not send it out for peer review,” Prof. Ayalon relates. “He explained that the feelings in the United States against Israel were so strong that he was afraid that publishing the article would be detrimental to the journal.”

It was not a pleasant conversation: “He told me, ‘You know that I support you [Israel] and I’ve been to Israel four times, but I can’t publish it at this time.'” She was so astounded that she didn’t even argue with him at first. “I said, ‘Fine, if that’s what you want. I accept your opinion.'”

A few days later, however, she had a change of heart and decided to write him.  “I do think this is a slippery slope,” Ayalon wrote. “Right now the political sentiment does not allow to publish papers on older Israelis, but soon enough, it will be against having Israel as an affiliation (I am sure this is the case in some places already) and thereafter, it will be having a Jewish last name. I can’t imagine an American journal not publishing a paper on the effects of 9/11 on older people because of public sentiment, and although I don’t think that we should or could be comparing levels of suffering, the magnitude of Oct. 7 was 10 times greater given the size of the population.  Hence, I am just concluding by a) thanking you once again for being honest about this and b) saying that we should be careful because we (Israelis) are at the front, but unfortunately hatred and bigotry affect and will affect everyone.”

The editor ultimately backed down – but Ayalon had already submitted the article elsewhere. It was accepted within 24 hours, perhaps because the second editor was an even warmer supporter of Israel. “It looks as though at the moment everything is political,” she says.

Something similar happened to Prof. Rael Strous, director of the Mental Health Wing of Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Center, in Bnei Brak. Strous, a professor of psychiatry at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, volunteered early on in the war to treat members of internally displaced families from the communities abutting Gaza who had been evacuated to Eilat. He wrote an article dealing with various aspects of his work there, from administering treatment in a hotel lobby packed with people, to coping with requests of patients to tell the world about the trauma they had undergone. “I didn’t think that was my task as a psychiatrist,” he says. “I treat people.”

Strous submitted his article in November to a prestigious European journal and received positive feedback from one of the editors. Three weeks later, however, he was informed that the article had been rejected.  “The author does not mention the larger context of the crisis they are discussing. By this I mean, they do not discuss the tens of thousands of Palestinians who continue to be killed, injured and psychologically traumatized in the current conflict,” an anonymous referee wrote. “The silence on this matter … is a form of epistemic injustice. That is, the author uses their position of privilege as a person with high-level academic training to erase the reality of Palestinian suffering from the narrative.”

One example cited by the reviewer was that “the author does not consider the danger posed to Palestinians” by the people he treated, “in the context of considerable evidence that Israeli settlers often undertake vigilante attacks against Palestinians.”  Strous responded to the reviewer: “My paper had absolutely nothing to do with ‘Israeli settlers.’ The hotels where we practiced were on the opposite side of the country. The evacuees were not from areas anywhere near what some refer to as occupied territories where “settlers” live.” He added that this was proof that the “reviewer is clearly politically biased in his/her/their review.”

The psychiatrist appealed, and complained that the rejection of the article was “particularly unfair and disturbing.” Within a short time, the journal’s chief editor apologized and sent the article to a new peer reviewer. It was published his month. At the end of the abstract, a sentence was added saying that the paper was written from an Israeli viewpoint and the author acknowledges the suffering and psychiatric needs of Gazans. This was the journal’s suggestion, Strous notes, and he agreed.

Professor Rael Strous

An Israeli professor who also serves as a deputy editor at a highly regarded journal of psychology got a similar reaction. She receives articles from researchers worldwide and sends them on for professional review. In mid-February she sent an article by an American psychologist to a Spanish scholar – who refused to peer-review it.

“I do not feel comfortable collaborating with nationals from a country which is committing war crimes,” the referee wrote. ” I hope that this state of affairs will soon come to an end, but, meanwhile, I want you to know that I will not be able to take any further request from you.”

The Israeli editor was flabbergasted. She doesn’t know either the author or the referee, and has no connection with the article itself.  “I was very sorry to receive your email and to discover that you are associating a review request with accusations of war crimes,” she wrote back. “Needless to say, accepting or declining a review request is not a personal favor to any specific editor…Therefore, I find your response highly unprofessional and inappropriate.”

In another incident, physicist Nir Davidson of the Weizmann Institute submitted an article to a journal together with a scientist from Bar-Ilan. Along with professional comments, the referee wrote that he hopes “the situation in the strip of Gaza will become more ‘human’ as soon as possible. Mistakes have been made by both sides, but bombing is not the right way of addressing any problem (not even retaliation).” Davidson and his co-author wrote to the journal’s chief editor, who apologized. The article is still under discussion.

Reactions like this, open and documentable, are unusual. In many cases, the situation local academics face remains ambiguous, but no less disturbing. In early February, a professor at an Israeli university was informed that his article had been accepted for publication in a journal dealing with the exact sciences. However, the paper – after being cleared for publication by the editor and scientific reviewers – became stuck at the ultimate stage when it came under the scrutiny of the publisher.

“No matter how many emails I sent, I didn’t get any response,” the author explains. “After a month, when I understood that no answer was forthcoming from the publisher, while other articles were being handled and getting published, I informed them that I was withdrawing the article. I submitted it to a different journal, and the whole process started over. I am a veteran member of the faculty. Neither I nor my colleagues can recall this sort of conduct.”

Prof. Mark Last, from Ben-Gurion’s Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering, submitted an article about artificial intelligence to an academic journal, together with two of his students, two months ago. “A few weeks went by and I got no response,” Last relates. “We hoped that the reason was that the article had been sent for refereeing. Then, last month, notification arrived that it had not met the requisite standards. I’d already received rejections of that sort, but usually a short explanation is added. I wrote to the chief editor asking for details. Within 24 hours, he wrote that he had reexamined the matter and had sent the article out for review. A few days ago the comments arrived; minor changes were needed.”

“In November, I submitted an article to a journal that isn’t considered to be very competitive,” a social sciences professor tells Haaretz. “A week or so later I received a letter of rejection. They said they hadn’t even sent it for peer review, and in one laconic sentence declared that it didn’t meet their standards. I have almost 15 years’ experience and that has never happened to me. I wrote a long letter to the editors about how peculiar their behavior was. I wrote that it’s customary to at least add an explanation for the decision. I never received a reply.”

“The most common way to discriminate against someone is to ignore them or provide a generic negative reply,” explains legal scholar Barak-Koren, one of whose main areas of research is discrimination. “Explicit rejections on a discriminatory basis are extremely rare. It’s easier, certainly via email, to ignore [people]. Accordingly, it can be assumed that the cases of explicit refusal we’re seeing are only the tip of the iceberg of a broader phenomenon, in which researchers receive generalized refusals and are ignored because they are Israelis.”

“I am writing to let you know that I have decided to step down from the Ph.D. committee [reviewing a student’s thesis],” a foreign social sciences scholar wrote the Hebrew University recently. “Following the university’s recent declaration of commitment to Zionism in the context of the war that is raging in Gaza, I feel I can no longer be associated with this institution. I have enjoyed working with you all and it is with a heavy heart that I am making this decision.”

The “commitment to Zionism” the professor cited was part of the fierce public condemnation the university issued against sharp remarks by Israeli-Palestinian Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian, of its law faculty, against Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza. “As a proud Israeli, public, and Zionist institution,” the university stated, it condemned her comments and suspended her, before reinstating her two weeks later.

The email from the foreign academic who asked to stop advising the Hebrew University doctoral student is only one example of an apparently growing phenomenon whereby scholars overseas no longer want to help prepare the next generation of lecturers and researchers at Israeli institutions: Sources at a few such institutions admit that they find it increasingly difficult to obtain the letters of evaluation from academics abroad that must be submitted in advance of discussions of staff promotions in Israel.

For the present, it looks as though the latter trend is particularly noticeable in the social sciences and the humanities: in sociology and anthropology, Middle Eastern studies and literature. But according to a source at one university, the field of law is also falling victim to such dwindling collaboration with foreign schools.

Specifically, Israeli academics seeking promotions at local universities must be assessed by means of surveys, if possible submitted by individuals at an elite university abroad. “There have always been refusals to referee, but in recent months there has been a rise in the phenomenon,” a source at one local university explains. In one case, requests were sent to 20 foreign experts, in two rounds. To date only one reply has been received. “It’s unprecedented,” the source says.

“If the Israeli government commits irrevocably to either a two-state (within 1967 borders) or one-state solution in which all Palestinians in both Israel and the occupied territories have equal rights to Israelis – I will be happy to engage with Israeli institutions,” a senior researcher at a prestigious institution in Europe wrote recently, in response to a request to write an evaluation for an Israeli academic. “Until that day, no.” Another European academic wrote: “I do not believe that this suffering of civilians can be justified and I believe that Israel is not acting in accordance with international human rights law. In light of that, I feel I cannot collaborate with any Israeli institution at the moment.”

Correspondence of this sort is not generally publicized, but Philip Cohen, a professor of sociology and demography at the University of Maryland, decided otherwise. Two weeks ago, he explained in his blog why he had refused a request from the Israel Science Foundation to review a research proposal. “I believe the international community cannot permit the normalization of relations with the State of Israel in light of its actions in Gaza and the West Bank since October 7,” he wrote, adding, “In the absence of responsible state action by your government (or ours), I must instead do what I can to contribute to the diplomatic, political, and even scientific isolation of the state… I don’t know if my peers in Israel understand the extent of their global isolation.”

In November, Prof. Gili Drori, dean of Hebrew University’s social sciences faculty, took an unusual step. She decided to suspend the “external assessment” of all the faculty members who were seeking to be promoted. The reason: the concern that feedback by foreign referees would be colored by the war in Gaza. It’s difficult to think of a clearer manifestation of the deterioration in relations between Israeli academia and the international academic community. The suspension was, however, lifted three weeks later.

“The dam has burst,” Drori declares now. “Talking about an academic boycott of scientists in Israel has become legitimate. It’s a whole new world. We are in a very extreme situation, and I don’t know whether and how it will be possible to reverse things. The boycott is severing our ability to be involved in the forefront of research. All scientific research that does not involve the international community is research that is less good. The severance from the world is suffocating us.”

If the pool of international experts who are willing to cooperate with Israel does continue to shrink, Israeli academics will face discouraging alternatives: to approach less senior academics from less well-regarded universities (which, according to a knowledgeable source, is already happening in some cases), or to increase the proportion of assessments provided by local faculty – not a particularly palatable solution.

“Inbreeding in a family is not recommended, and it’s the same in academia,” says one source. “In the absence of fresh blood, academia degenerates.” The implication, he adds, is “a radical change in the process of promotion, which will affect the ranking of the institutions in international indices, where they examine, among other things, the potency of the promotion processes. If the refusal trend continues, we can give up the ambition of being the Harvard of the Middle East.”

A number of universities and academic organizations in Belgium, Spain, Italy and Norway recently announced full boycotts or a suspension of ties with Israeli institutions until they receive clarifications with regard to topics ranging from the state of academic freedom on their campuses, to their moral, financial and material support for Israel’s defense forces. For one, Ghent University recently requested such information from its counterpart in Haifa.

Tel Aviv University President Ariel Porat: “There are too many people in academia [abroad] who see us as outcasts. I don’t remember a situation when entire universities sought to boycott us.”Credit: Eyal Toueg
Yet some heads of college and university administrations still take the view that the situation “hasn’t yet reached the point of no return,” as one puts it. “It’s too early to know how the process we are now involved in will unfold,” adds another. After all, new articles by local scholars are still being accepted for publication, research requests have been submitted and discussed abroad. But for one, Tel Aviv University President Ariel Porat says that, “there are too many people in academia [abroad] who see us as outcasts. There is no doubt that the numbers are large. I don’t remember a situation when entire universities sought to boycott us.”

“The best-case scenario is that within a short time we will return to some sort of stability,” says American studies professor Milette Shamir, vice president of Tel Aviv University and director of its international academic collaborations. “Our standing in the world will be rehabilitated and we will be able to return to the situation we were in, to very extensive international activity.”

But Shamir acknowledges that she “doesn’t know whether that scenario is realistic.” Two weeks ago, she was in Australia to attend an academic fair at the University of Sydney. When she arrived, pro-Palestinian demonstrators shouted that Tel Aviv University shares in crimes against the Palestinians and that all collaborations with Israel should end.

“The worst-case scenario is that we are headed in the direction of South Africa [in the apartheid period],” she says, “with boycotts that keep mounting to the point of paralyzing the system. The result will be a mortal blow to Israeli academia. It will take on a provincial character and we will not be able to integrate into the forefront of the world’s research.”

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