“Politics should be kept out of academia!” This is how many in Western academia respond to calls from fellow professors and students for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions over their complicity in the country’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory, oppression of Palestinian people, and the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza.
They claim that universities are sites of “civil discourse”, “free speech” and “open inquiry”. And that participating in an academic boycott, especially over an issue as divisive as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is simply not acceptable for any higher education institution that needs to be politically “neutral” to fulfil its function. Further, many outright deny Israeli academia’s complicity in the state’s crimes, saying it is unfair and unproductive to punish “independent” institutions of learning for the war crimes and violations of international law committed by their government.
There is, of course, so much to unpack and criticise in these arguments. In such a time of tragedy, amid a war the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judged to be a “plausible genocide”, it is perhaps futile and even inappropriate to investigate the naivete (or is it ignorance?) that informs the belief that universities are and should remain “neutral”. But after the official Palestinian death toll has surpassed the grim milestone of 40,000, with thousands still unaccounted for, and every single university in Gaza has been reduced to rubble with no end in sight for Israel’s war, there is significant use in interrogating the complicity of Israeli academia in the ongoing atrocities.
Censorship has been a weapon that Israeli universities have wielded systematically against those daring to speak up for Palestinian rights and against Israel’s excesses for many decades but especially since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.
One of the most prominent recent victims of this weapon has been Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI). In mid-April this year she was arrested by the Israeli police for her criticism of Zionism and Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza.
For months before her arrest, Shalhoub-Kevorkian had been the target of a smear campaign, which aimed to depict her words and writings as an “incitement of violence” against the State of Israel. While this campaign was publicly led by Israeli authorities and the media, its roots can be traced back to Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s employer.
In late October last year, the HUJI leadership sent Shalhoub-Kevorkian a letter expressing their “shock, disgust and deep disappointment” over her decision to sign a petition calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a political solution to the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would end the occupation and apartheid. The letter stated that the president and rector were ashamed that university staff included the likes of Shalhoub-Kevorkian and that she should consider leaving her position at the institution. The leadership publicly distributed this letter and, in doing so, ramped up the public campaign against her.
In March, after Shalhoub-Kevorkian called for the abolition of Zionism during a TV interview, the leadership sent her a letter of suspension, in which it called her a national and international embarrassment, adding that HUJI is a “proud Israeli, public and Zionist institution”. The letter was once again made public and even sent directly to some members of the Knesset. Shalhoub-Kevorkian said the letter “fueled an incitement campaign that included dangerous and unprecedented threats” targeting her and her family.
More generally, silencing, doxing and disciplinary action against pro-Palestinian voices have been the order of the day at Israeli higher education institutions. Since October 7, addresses and pictures of the homes of Palestinian students at Israeli universities have been shared on social media. The Council for Higher Education has also required that Israeli universities and colleges “investigate all complaints” against students and faculty who make public statements that are perceived as sympathetic to organisations like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Of course, more often than not, in this context, all expressions of solidarity with Palestine are perceived and treated as an incitement of violence against Israelis.
Besides silencing Israel’s critics, universities have been proactive in their attempts to nurture global support for Israel during its military campaign in Gaza. In the early days after October 7, the president of Tel Aviv University (TAU) published a statement declaring that TAU had “harnessed all its strength and abilities to support the nationwide efforts”. He went on to criticise those calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions and “certain leaders of academic institutions” abroad who had failed to shut down Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns. Against this background, he said TAU had added “media outreach” to its efforts and that students were being recruited to “operate in the social networks, to refute the terrible lies that might influence naïve, unknowing audiences who are unaware of what our enemy has done to us”.
Less than a week after this statement, international students at TAU launched a social media task force in solidarity with Israel. Students running the initiative said that they were committed to “disseminating truthful information and fact-based information”, claiming that Israel was fighting “a war of humanity against terrorism, of good versus evil”.
The University of Haifa has also vehemently supported Israeli forces and their assault on Gaza. It mobilised fundraising campaigns, which included providing financial support to its “student soldiers” on the front lines. The university has donated bulletproof vests to special forces. Like TAU, the University of Haifa also set up an initiative to drum up support for Israel. The campaign’s aim was to convince international audiences that any criticism of Israel’s war effort in Gaza is unjust and that those advocating for Palestinian rights are either misinformed or pro-terror. As part of this campaign, the university put out a “series of multi-language videos” featuring its students and faculty members to set the “record straight” about October 7. Most videos simply repeat Israeli government talking points, including claims that pro-Palestine activism is in fact pro-Hamas and that the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a call for a second Holocaust against the Jewish people.
The University of Haifa leadership has also been at the forefront of the Israeli campaign to counter the BDS movement and the international efforts to initiate a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. In June this year, the current rector, Professor Mouna Maroun, joined forces with other academics from Haifa, the Weizmann Institute of Science, and HUJI, and published an article in Nature arguing that boycotting Israel academia would be counterproductive because it overlooks students and faculty who “identify as Arab or Palestinian”, ignores Israeli academia’s “proven record of supporting human rights and challenging government policies” and “undermines efforts to promote inclusivity” within the Israeli scientific community.
Of course, none of this is true. As anthropologist Maya Wind’s authoritative book Towers of Ivory and Steel reveals, Israeli universities have long contributed to Palestinian oppression. “Academic disciplines, degree programs, campus infrastructure, and research laboratories all service Israeli occupation and apartheid, while universities violate the rights of Palestinians to education, stifle critical scholarship, and violently repress student dissent.”
Now, more than ever, there is a growing awareness of this role of Israeli academia. As the Israeli atrocities in Gaza are streamed live on social media feeds all across the world, and Israeli universities position themselves as the foremost defenders and facilitators of this war, the argument that academia is neutral and independent is losing ground. And Israeli authorities are on high alert.
In April, the Israeli Innovation, Science and Technology Ministry published a report showing that there was a “sharp decrease in willingness” to cooperate with Israeli academia. According to the report, the boycott efforts primarily but not exclusively affected “research in the fields of medicine, biology, physics, space and computer science”. Minister of Innovation, Science, and Technology Gila Gamliel instructed the ministry officials to formulate strategies to counter the boycott. Notably, Gamliel was the minister of intelligence until mid-March this year.
For now, as Israel continues its campaign in Gaza with impunity, it seems that the surge of boycotts will also continue. In fact, a recent ICJ ruling suggests that BDS against Israel, including its higher education institutions, is not only an option but an obligation given that Israel illegally occupies Palestinian territory and “practices apartheid and racial segregation”. The court said it is the duty of all states to venture to end these unlawful practices “by cutting off all economic, trade and investment relations with Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
Israeli institutions of course still have some loyal friends in academia, such as the German Max Planck Society. The society president, Patrick Cramer, led a solidarity trip to Israel in December in response to the boycott campaign. But it may soon be impossible for Israeli authorities to reverse the global push to isolate the country’s academia.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
