Israeli academics are seeing signs of an undeclared boycott against them, Ha’aretz reported today.
These signs include turning down invitations to attend conferences held in Israel, ignoring requests to write recommendation letters for Israeli scholars seeking promotions, and rejecting submissions from Israeli scholars in peer-reviewed journals. Hostility toward Israel is not typically cited as the reason, but Israeli university leaders say the growing incidence of such cases has them worried.
Speaking with Haaretz, the heads of leading Israeli academic institutions said the phenomenon was hardly widespread, but considering that it was almost nonexistent until a few years ago, they were following developments closely while considering how to respond.
This “latent boycott,” as it is described by Israeli academics, joins the official, out-in-the-open boycott that has been declared by large academic organizations and student unions in the United States and Europe in recent years.
For the most part, the limited number of incidents have been relegated mostly to the humanities and social sciences, Ha’aretz reported. The hard sciences have not been affected as much.
Menachem Ben-Sasson, president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told Ha’aretz that despite the signs of boycotts in some fields, Israel’s standing in the academic world is improving: “On the positive side of things, for the first time ever this year, Israeli scientists were the top recipients worldwide of European Research Council grants.. “And that’s after coming in second and third place in recent years.”
Despite some limited efforts to boycott Israel, Israeli academic institutions are still maintaining strong ties internationally. Earlier this year, Queen Elizabeth honored Rivka Carmi, president of Ben Gurion University, for her work in strengthening academic ties between Israel and the United Kingdom. Last year, Israel signed on to the European Union’s Horizon 2020 scientific cooperation project.