Israeli academia is directly complicit in the crimes of the state

Israeli universities are not, and have never been, ‘neutral’ sites of open inquiry and should not be treated as such. “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. 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. 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. “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.