Boycotting Israeli brains: A look at the anti-Israel academic boycott
Israeli brains were subjected to boycott, disguised as pro-human rights. And to a large extent, they still are.
First, they say they want you/ Indeed, how they really need you/ Suddenly, you find you’re out there walking in a storm... - Neil Diamond
Neil Diamond’s 1981 hit song “Love on the Rocks” captures my anger, angst, disgust, and deep sense of betrayal regarding America’s elite two-coast universities Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Columbia, NYU, Stanford, and Berkeley. I did my PhD at Princeton, taught for 20 summers at MIT, visited many of the others – always, when walking their halls, with a sense of awe and affection for these sacred places where creative ideas thrived that made the world a better place.
Until October 7 2023, when pro-Hamas demonstrations constantly made life miserable on these campuses for Jewish faculty and students for over a year. BDS – boycott, divest, sanction – came alive. Israeli brains were subjected to boycott, disguised as pro-human rights. And to a large extent, they still are.
A Wall Street Journal report on October 15, 2023, noted there were “30 student groups [at Harvard] who held that “the Israeli regime was entirely responsible for the mass killing and kidnapping of Israelis.” Or, as the infamous UN Secretary General António Guterres commented: “What did you [Israelis] expect?”
As a direct result, I doubt I will ever again set foot in these once revered temples of scholarship, which have become cesspools of antisemitism.
Speaking with Prof. Boaz Golany on the anti-Israel academic boycott
I spoke about the anti-Israel academic boycott with Prof. Boaz Golany. He is an emeritus Technion professor and former fean of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering & Management. He also served as Technion vice president and director general.Golany leads a team of S. Neaman Institute researchers that studied the academic boycott and has issued an in-depth interim report. The team includes Dr. Rivka Carmi, a pediatrician and former president of Ben-Gurion University.
A major focus was the BDS movement, “active globally for over two decades, operating on multiple fronts.” The report documents 133 anti-Israel groups on California campuses, 127 on New York State campuses, and 54 on Massachusetts campuses. The report warns: “A lack of deep and comprehensive treatment of the academic boycott may lead to destructive results.”
Your interim report states: ‘The events of October 7, 2023, and the consequent war brought on complicated changes in global public opinion, exposing Israel to new threats, which include repeated attempts to impose an academic boycott on Israeli institutions and researchers.’
I personally know top Israeli scholars who have suffered badly from the boycott – e.g., submitted research papers rejected out of hand because they are Israeli. I find that I now have to check editorial boards of academic journals for possible BDS activists before submitting a paper. Boaz, you and I have spent our lives in academia, where research is supposedly judged by its quality and not by country of origin. What the hell?!
We sent our survey to thousands of faculty members in Israel, in both universities and colleges. This was joined by a survey issued in parallel by the Council of University Presidents. The number of respondents until now is about 360. Some of them indeed reported on boycott instances in rejecting their submitted papers based on their affiliation. While this is terrible for the researchers involved, it is not yet a widespread phenomenon as some people present it. Still, it should be of great concern to the Israeli academic community, as it may intensify in the future.
As to the ‘what the hell’ expression – we looked at the reaction of the global academic community to Russian scholars following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While some boycott moves happened, it didn’t come close to what we have seen regarding Israel. My understanding of this difference is very simple: antisemitism! Some folks believed that antisemitism died after the end of World War II, but the sad truth is that it is still with us …lurking in shadows and looking for the right opportunity to raise its ugly head again.
The violent demonstrations, encampments, etc., in the US have definitely decreased in both frequency and intensity in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory on November 24. Also, in some European countries, most notably Germany, we have seen a similar trend, as the law enforcement agencies implemented a more no-nonsense approach to these acts. In other parts of Europe, such as France and Belgium, the situation now is like what we have witnessed last year. The only country where we see some deterioration is Australia, where harassment against Jews and Israelis has increased in recent months.
Our research team is convinced that the academic BDS is not going to disappear anytime soon. It is going to be with us for years to come; therefore, we have to treat it more seriously than the way it was dealt with in the past.
Your report asserts that ‘Pro-Palestinian organizations that operate on university campuses around the world, especially in Europe and the US, are crucial in promoting the academic BDS.’ These organizations seem very well funded. Are we seeing the well-heeled hand of the Gulf states’ petrodollars here? A Qatari version of Al Jazeera?
There is clear evidence that some Qatari money was used to fund these guys. But Qatar is not alone. Other countries, in particular Iran and other individuals and organizations (most notably, George Soros), have also provided funding. Our research team doesn’t have the tools to trace the money trail(s) … this should be done by others.
You note that ‘Almost half of all reported instances of academic BDS are implicit, making it harder to identify the phenomenon and practical solutions.’ In other words: Editors can reject research ostensibly because it ‘is not suited to our publication,’ but underlying that, because it is Israeli. How can this subtle antisemitism be fought?
First, we must expose it. Let me give you an example. If somebody’s paper was rejected, it may have happened because he wrote a lousy paper. How can one substantiate that a certain journal is biased against Israelis? We have asked some experts to look at some journals where we suspect that decisions were made not on merit basis and count the number of articles published by authors with Israeli affiliation in 2021-2024 (annual summaries). Once we obtain that data, we’ll try to see if there is a negative trend that we can attribute to the change in public opinion since Oct. 7, 2023.
I believe your report quietly reveals Israel’s incompetence in dealing with the academic boycott, with responsibility passed on from ministry to ministry like some infectious disease. What can and must be done now to deal with this threat to Israel’s academic excellence?
I was supposed to meet the director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss exactly that – but unfortunately, the meeting was postponed at the last minute due to some good reason. I hope to meet him in the next two weeks.
I am also trying to meet the director general of the Ministry of the Diaspora, in charge of combating antisemitism. My message to them is simple: Academic BDS is one of the multiple theaters in which Israel fights (military, legal, economic, international relations, etc.), hence it deserves attention at the national level.
Jewish Nobelists: In the 124 years since the first Nobel Prize was awarded, a total of four Muslims have won a Nobel Prize for the sciences. In contrast, of the 965 individual Nobel laureates in science and economics, at least 216 have been Jews – 22.4%, more than one in five. Many of these are from the same top US universities which have subjected them to vile antisemitic attacks.
The list includes eight Israelis – Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, Robert Aumann, Ada Yonath, Dan Shechtman, Michael Levitt, Arieh Warshel, and Joshua Angrist – of whom three are from my university, Technion.
When elite US universities allow Gulf state petrodollars and Palestinian radicals and supporters to dominate, even temporarily, and when BDS leads unjust boycotts of Israeli brains, hatred overcomes reason, justice, and sanity. Their boards of directors may well fire their presidents who succumbed to BDS, appoint committees, apologize – but the damage has been done.
Follow the money: Is cold cash at the heart of the academic boycott of Israel? You bet. The following is from a report by Mitchell Bard, America-Israel Cooperative Institute, in May 2024:
“…the data published in early 2024 revealed that since 1981: [US] colleges and universities received almost $55 billion from foreign sources. Nearly one-fourth – $13.1 billion – came from Arab individuals, institutions, and governments. Three countries account for 83% of Arab funding: Qatar ($6b), Saudi Arabia ($3.5b), and the United Arab Emirates ($1.5b). Arab funders made 12,342 contributions to 288 institutions in 49 states (excluding Alaska) and the District of Columbia. Nearly three-fourths of the contributions, worth almost $10 billion (76% of the total), do not list their purpose. Most donations with a description of their use are for financial assistance to the 31,000 students from Arab countries (most from Saudi Arabia). Arab funding has grown significantly, with nearly one-third of donations made since 2020. Cornell is by far the largest beneficiary, with donations worth $2.1 billion. Georgetown follows it with $934 million, Texas A&M with almost $910 million, and Carnegie Mellon with $900 million. Due to lax compliance and enforcement, billions of dollars in contributions were not reported to the Department of Education. The report also found that universities, traditionally seen as champions of free speech and critical thinking, accept funding from countries with poor human rights records and limited freedoms. This raises concerns about potential compromises to academic freedom and institutional values.
“Universities receiving Arab funding have faculty who are apologists for radical Islam and vitriolic critics of Israel who support the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Arab funding provokes worries about the education of future decision-makers, such as those attending elite universities and prestige institutes, and how it might influence US policy.
“Arab states are primarily motivated to support universities to enhance their image, train their citizens, and discourage criticism of Islam rather than disparage Israel or Jews. It is challenging to determine whether Arab funding influences faculty or whether it flows to faculty whose views are already compatible with the donors.”
Trump arrives: With the new US president, fear of retribution has overcome the lust for petrodollars. According to the online source The Wire, “…within the first week of the new semester and Trump’s second term, a Columbia University professor has been terminated from her position, and 13 New York University students face suspension, with 20 others on probation – all for participating in pro-Palestinian protests.”
Too late, too little. BDS lives on.■
The writer heads the Zvi Griliches Research Data Center at S. Neaman Institute, Technion. He blogs at www.timnovate.wordpress.com.
