Not a day goes by that Prof. Milette Shamir, the Vice President of Tel Aviv University who is in charge of international academic collaboration, is not contacted by a colleague informing her that they had just experienced another case of the academic boycott against Israel. “There has been a flood of cases, all of them in different guises,” she says. “We’re not talking about things that photograph well, like the demonstrations that took place on campuses in the United States, but they create a lot of difficulties which harm every aspect of the university’s activities.”

How blunt are they?

“There have been hundreds of cases of highly abrupt cases, when the reason given for halting activity was stated unequivocally: ‘You’re Israeli, so you cannot teach here,’ or “You’re Israeli, so you cannot participate in the conference unless you come as a private individual who is not affiliated to an Israeli university.’ Like the Russians at the Olympic Games, they can go as individuals but not under any flag.”

Have there also been cases which fall in the gray area, where the refusal was more polite?

“Most of the cases are more cultivated, so the actual numbers are much higher than the hundreds I mentioned. In most cases, people simply stop replying to emails, they disappear and find excuses. That can come in the form of rescinding an invitation to Israeli faculty to attend a conference or ignoring invitations to attend a conference in Israel. Some publications do not accept articles from Israeli academics or articles that deal with Israel. We are unable to send our research students overseas or bring foreign research students to Israel – and there are efforts to remove researchers from boards of directors, the editorial boards of academic publications and from projects funded by the European Union and other bodies. Members of groups that received funding are trying to push their Israeli colleagues out. We need academics from abroad to adjudicate in promotion cases, in doctoral evaluations and peer review of articles; in these cases, too, we are hearing a lot of refusals.”

What about colleagues who have known you for years? Are they interested in hearing about what is happening here?

“Less and less. At this point, nobody wants to hear what we have to say anymore. They simply refuse contact. That does not mean that we don’t have faculty members whose research is flourishing, but the momentum of academic boycotts is increasing. The organizers of these boycotts know everything. Not just which student had disciplinary proceedings opened against them or which faculty member was fired. They know things about Tel Aviv University that I didn’t know. What research collaborations there are between a certain department and the Directorate of Defense Research and Development or the Air Force – and these are things I only discovered when one university in Belgium informed me that some of our faculty have been removed from a research project because of it. The BDS movement is keeping tabs and using any piece of information against us.”

What is their latest allegation?

“That the university is directly responsible for what is happening in the war, due to research we conducted in cooperation with the IDF, academic programs that we provide to army officers and the fact that students serve in the reserves. We argue that, while it is true that our research sometimes benefits the military effort, we do not decide for our faculty what they should research and universities in Israel have full academic freedom and freedom of expression and that it would be wrong to claim that we cooperate with the government.”

The BDS campaign is not new, nor is cooperation between Israeli academics and the IDF. Unfortunately, the bloodshed that the conflict creates is also not new. So, what has changed?

“The legislation which interferes in academic activity, primarily the so-called Silencing Law [More on which below – C.S.] Within 24 hours of that passing, the BDS movement will be lapping it up, because they know that our main argument against them is that we are autonomous. If the government curbs freedom of expression on campuses, the argument that we are a free academy will be undermined. That could drag us down in the international rankings and we will very quickly find ourselves in the same situation as Russian universities, which are completely boycotted in the academic world, and most of the universities in Hungary, which are being denied European funding. When the regime interferes in decisions that the academy should be taking independently, the playbook is familiar across the world – and we are worried we’ll find ourselves there, too.”

"Within 24 hours of that passing, the BDS movement will be lapping it up, because they know that our main argument against them is that we are autonomous. If the government curbs freedom of expression on campuses, the argument that we are a free academy will be undermined."

Russia, Hungary, Turkey – and Israel?

The combination of Israel’s handling of the ongoing war, which has raised a great deal of international criticism, and the judicial coup which is returning to the center of the national agenda has left the Israeli academic world in a particularly sensitive position. It is forced to deal with legislation designed to curb academic freedom on the domestic front and an academic boycott overseas. But it has been in the crosshairs for quite some time. In March 2023, two months after he first unveiled the judicial coup he was planning, Justice Minister Yariv Levin told Channel 14 that “this is a battle not only to change the face of the judicial system; if we win and are successful in this struggle, we can fundamentally change other things, too… We want there to be people in the academy who think differently and can express their opinions.”

Levin was not referring to genuine pluralism, however. His vision is encapsulated perfectly by the so-called Silencing Law that is currently being enthusiastically advanced by MK Ofir Katz, who serves as a coalition whip and chair of the Likud Knesset faction. It was the Council for Higher Education that coined the nickname for the proposed amendment to the law (“Dismissing academic faculty for incitement or supporting terror and reducing funding.” According to Katz, the law is designed to “get terror out of the academy.” It obligates universities and colleges to dismiss – immediately, in a fast-track process and without paying compensation – any lecturer who says something that can be interpreted as incitement or support of terrorists, or who denies the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. According to the proposed amendment, any academic institution that does not take these measures will be subjected to budgetary sanctions.

This populist law is reminiscent of the law designed to persecute and silence teachers that was passed in early November – a law that also cynically used phrases like “the war on terror” to deter educators from expressing any criticism and which denied them the protections they are entitled to by law.

The Silencing Law against university lecturers also appears innocent enough at first glance; after all, no one wants incitement to terror in the guise of education. However, the people deciding what is considered incitement and what is not will be officials from the Council for Higher Education, which is chaired by Education Minister Yoav Kisch – a political figure with clear interests. Not only would the dismissal be valid without a court ruling, but it would also not take a disciplinary hearing or even a police complaint. All it would take would be for the Council for Higher Education’s Enforcement and Supervision subcommittee to decide that someone was guilty of inciting or supporting terror for them to be dismissed. Similarly, any criticism of Israel’s handling of the civilian population in Gaza or any nonconformist view about the justifications for the war could set the wheels in motion toward dismissal.

While the law is still being drafted ahead of its first reading in the Knesset, it is not inconceivable that it will be fast-tracked – notwithstanding opposition from the Justice Ministry’s Advice and Legislation Department, academic leaders, and other professionals. Katz wields a lot of political power, which means that very few Knesset members want to cross swords with him. As coalition whip, he controls the coalition’s legislative quota and dictates lawmakers’ behavior in parliament. As chairman of the Knesset’s House Committee, he can expel an MK, approve overseas travel, exempt a bill from parts of the usual legislative process and decide to which subcommittee a bill should be redirected. He has a lot of means of applying pressure and when he puts his considerable political weight behind a law, there are few people who can stand in his way.

On the eve of the opening of the Knesset's winter session, Channel 14 reported that Katz intends to toughen the proposed law to also target those who call for imposing sanctions on Israel during wartime. This comes after hundreds of lecturers signed a petition calling for any sanctions that would force Israel into a ceasefire and "save Israel from the Israelis."

“Not only is it possible to accept the statements in these petitions,” sources in the academy told Shomrim, “especially given that the lecturers did not sign their names with their academic affiliations and, as private individuals, there is no problem with them signing a petition. The fact that we can present these petitions to counter the argument that the Israeli academy is being used as a long arm of the regime is significant when it comes to the status of higher education and Israel’s standing in the world. It keeps us at arm’s length from the unwelcome club of countries like Russia, Hungary, and Turkey, which place limitations on higher education. It would be a mistake to block them. Especially given that, if someone is a terror supporter, what difference does it make where they work? The police and the Shin Bet are welcome to interrogate them. That is not the role of the employer.”

MK Katz declined to comment on the issue.

“The State of Israel is simply shooting itself in the foot with this legislation. In all of the leading universities in the world, some faculty members have expressed criticism of Israel over the past year. Does this mean we can’t cooperate with them now? Is the European Union, which gives Israel significant research grants, beyond the pale?”

Only articles that are convenient for the regime’

Supporters of the judicial coup see the judiciary, the media, and the academy as bastions of the old elites, which still constitute a center of power for critical thinking vis-à-vis the regime. As they see it, it is vital that they are defeated. Members of the No Academy Without Democracy organization say that if the law is passed it will deliver a direct blow to the heart of academic discourse –and they already believe that the sword is hanging over them since the legislative process is well underway. This is especially true given that Im Tirtzu, a right-wing non-governmental organization, has launched a program called Know the Lecturer, which collects information about academics it defines as radical leftists. As a result, several academics are rethinking the discussions they hold in classes, as well as the interviews they give to the media.

This is evidenced by the fact that several of the academics who have been active in the struggle against the judicial coup refused to be interviewed for this article and suggested that we talk instead to colleagues with tenure – even though the proposed legislation would not spare them if they were found to be in violation. They explained their reticence by saying that “you do not want to be labelled problematic, especially if you are up for a new position or promotion.” Some also admitted that “this is the real influence of this law. The general atmosphere that it is already creating, which identifies criticism as illegitimate and unpatriotic. Many of us are afraid to say a word out of line, even if we don’t know what that line is. And that is exactly what the government wants to happen.”

Prof. Yair Sagi, the co-chair of the Israeli Law Professors’ Forum for Democracy and a key member of No Academy Without Democracy, warns that “the chilling effect of legislation of this kind on academic thinking and quality research is critical. The whole point of academic discourse is to ask questions even when they are painful and subversive, while observing the rules of discourse and factual statements. This legislation will influence the classroom discussions, research, and education because there could be a situation in which only articles that are convenient to the regime are written.”

To paraphrase Miri Regev: What good is the academy if we can’t control it?

“It doesn’t have to be like that. As a lecturer, I have to encourage discussion by asking tough questions – sometimes controversial questions – because that is what will help the students sharpen their thinking. If someone is encouraging terrorism, we should act in accordance with the anti-terror laws. Why turn an institute of higher education into the thought police? A university’s administration is not designed to replace the state’s law-enforcement bodies; it’s supposed to encourage pluralism and freedom of discourse. This proposed law is not a Band-Aid on a wound; it’s a gag. The brain drain, which is starting with a trickle, could turn into a flood.”

Senior Faculty Associations announced in July that they would launch industrial action if the law were passed, and they are also considering petitioning the High Court of Justice. No Israeli academic from an Israeli institution has ever been charged with incitement to terrorism. The two lecturers who came under fire earlier this year and who Katz said in the Knesset were the reason for his proposal, did not incite to terrorism – and the proposed law does not offer any answer to the incidents to which their names were linked.

Dr. Anat Matar from the Department of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University posted a eulogy on her Facebook page for Walid Daqqa, the longest-serving Palestinian security prisoner who died in April. Daqqa was tried and convicted for his involvement in the abduction and murder of Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984. During his incarceration, he turned his back on terror and advocated for a nonviolent solution, and corresponded with Matar. Prof. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Faculty of Social Work and Criminology argued that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and cast doubt on whether Hamas committed sexual assaults on October 7. While it is perfectly legitimate to be outraged by these comments, they do not constitute an active call for terrorist activity.

"The whole point of academic discourse is to ask questions even when they are painful and subversive, while observing the rules of discourse and factual statements. This legislation will influence the classroom discussions, research, and education because there could be a situation in which only articles that are convenient to the regime are written.”

‘Israel is simply shooting itself in the foot’

Another piece of proposed legislation that amplifies the message that Israeli universities are nests of terror which must be eradicated is known as the Intimidation Law. It will be coming up in December for discussion at the Knesset’s Education Committee before it is brought for its second and third readings in parliament. An amendment to the Students’ Rights Law (called ‘Expelling terror-supporting students from academic institutions and dismantling terror-supporting student cells) that was put forward by MK Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit) would bar student organizations from expressing support for the armed struggle against Israel by an enemy state or a terror organization.

Here, too, the question is what would be considered an expression of support. For example, would calling for humanitarian assistance to be allowed into the Gaza Strip be against the law? Moreover, student organizations – the political groupings that often serve as incubators for parties’ future leadership – are generally viewed as protected from interference by the institutions.

Son Har-Melech, however, also insists on introducing the issue of incitement into the universities’ regulations, which can only be amended by each institution’s senate; she even wants punishment to include closure of the student organization, permanent expulsion from that institution and denying the right to obtain an academic degree in Israel or recognition of a foreign degree for five years.

Two researchers from the Israel Democracy Institute who oppose the legislation – attorney Edna Harel Fisher and Dr. Amir Fuchs – wrote a legal opinion in which they said that it would constitute a disproportionate punishment for someone who has not even been convicted of an offense and that it violates the basic right to education. They added that the existing anti-terror laws stipulate that an expression of solidarity with a terrorist organization will only be considered a crime if additional criteria are met and that any prosecution is contingent on the approval of the attorney general. The proposal submitted by Son Har-Melech does not refer to any of these complexities, which are so vital in academic institutions that are supposed to allow for a wide range of opinions.

The original version of the bill also referred to individual students. The Ministerial Committee on Legislation, however, dropped that part of the bill, presumably because its members recognized that a different regime with different motivations could use the law to go after right-wing students – rather than the Arab students who were the original target. The committee also dropped a ban on flying the flag of an enemy state, a terror group, or the Palestinian Authority within the university campus, since there is no law in Israel that prohibits the Palestinian flag in public spaces. The Palestinian Authority is a body that has an international standing and with which Israel has signed agreements. Moreover, even the Shin Bet has recommended that Israel not paint itself into this corner.

This is not the only proposal that deals with flags in the academic space. A bill submitted by MK Hanoch Milwidsky (Likud) advocates slashing 10 percent of an academic institution’s funding from the state if it allows students to fly the flag of an enemy entity on its grounds. This is something that is liable to happen during student demonstrations. Milwidsky’s Likud colleague Eliyahu Revivo also wants to cut state funding to any academic institution that does not have the flag of Israel at its main entrance. Since the Israeli flag is already flown in every university, Revivo’s bill is not being advanced, but the obsession with national symbols in institutions that are supposed to be universal is highly worrying.

There are also economic sanctions in bills that threaten to undermine the academic cooperation between Israeli and overseas institutions. Revivo and Son Har-Melech submitted a joint proposal that sought to cut government funding to any Israeli institution that cooperates with a body that has called for sanctions to be imposed on Israel or for IDF soldiers to be prosecuted in international courts.

These bills are seen as unfounded by Israeli academics, but they would be well advised not to take them lightly. “The State of Israel is simply shooting itself in the foot with this legislation,” one of them told Shomrim. “In all of the leading universities in the world, some faculty members have expressed criticism of Israel over the past year. Does this mean we can’t cooperate with them now? Is the European Union, which gives Israel significant research grants, beyond the pale? The State of Israel is condemning itself to pariah status. It’s so bizarre that we don’t believe it will be advanced.”

Kisch copies from Levin

Since the higher education system in Israel is, for the most part, public – unlike in the United States, for example, where most of the leading institutions are privately-owned – it is highly dependent on the state for financial and managerial purposes. According to Sagi, “this makes the Israeli academy highly vulnerable and exposes us to external interference through the appointees that the education minister makes to the Council for Higher Education or the Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC). I know that all these appointments and all those committee names are very boring, but whoever holds those positions has a lot of influence over higher education in Israel. And, in the case of the PBC, a lot of money, too.”

The Council for Higher Education was set up as a statutory body precisely to avoid such interference, but when the chair is the education minister, no one can claim that there is a firewall between the committee and political considerations. The people chiefly responsible for steering the ship are the deputy chair of the Council for Higher Education and the CEO of the Planning and Budgeting Committee. Currently, there is no deputy chair, and the position of CEO is being filled by a temporary appointee, since Kisch failed to push through the appointment of his cronies. Like Levin, who is facing a Judicial Selections Committee that refuses to convene and a High Court of Justice that is stuck in the mud, Kisch prefers to leave positions unfilled if his candidates are rejected – even if that means harming the body’s day-to-day work.

Kisch’s candidate for deputy chair, Prof. David Schwartz from Ono Academic College, was rejected in two rounds of voting by members of the Council. His pick to serve as CEO, Dr. Daniella Yeheskely-Hayon, was rejected by the committee within the Government Companies Authority that vets senior civil service appointments since she did not meet the minimum criteria. Schwartz was something of a red rag to the universities, not only because he is a keen advocate of the privatization of higher education (the Ono Academic College is privately-owned), but also because of his support for gender-segregated teaching in the courses that his college offers to ultra-Orthodox students. Although the High Court of Justice has rejected petitions against gender segregation in the academy in the past, it has also barred a policy which stipulated that women would be prohibited from studying in men’s courses. The universities see this as a potential threat to women’s employment, since, if gender-segregated studies were expanded, colleges would prefer to hire male faculty since men are allowed to instruct ultra-Orthodox women, but a woman is not permitted to instruct ultra-Orthodox men.

The bill submitted by Son Har-Melech seeks to oblige academic institutions to offer gender-segregated courses if there is a group of students requesting it. The coalition’s motivation for promoting these laws becomes even clearer when one looks at the deal that Likud signed with the Religious Zionism Party, which stipulates that the Basic Law that prohibits discrimination will be amended so that gender-segregated education will not be considered discriminatory.

Kisch refused to extend the tenure of the head of the PBC, Prof. Yoseph Mekori from Tel Aviv University, notwithstanding a joint request to do so from the heads of all Israeli universities and colleges, who were appreciative of his work. Last week, Prof. Ami Moyal – the president of Afeka Tel Aviv Academic College of Engineering – was selected for the post and Mekori is expected to step down in the summer. “The Planning and Budgeting Committee is like the academy’s treasury,” Sagi explains. “It is responsible for allocating a budget of 13 billion shekels a year among the academic institutions. That is why it is so important to the minister to control it.”

The universities’ struggle to fill these positions is also a struggle to maintain their strength vis-à-vis the colleges. In the end, there are also ego battles on all sides.

“I am not evading that argument; rivalry is certainly part of the story. But it is also a battle for something substantial: a budget that will allow them to nurture a certain curriculum and let others wither away – as well as influencing research opportunities. It affects all of the taught material.”

A spokesperson for Kisch submitted the following response on behalf of the minister’s office and the Council for Higher Education: “The minister’s candidate has won the trust of all academic institutions. The search committee for a CEO has submitted its recommendations, the minister selected the only woman among the recommended candidates – but her candidacy was disqualified by the appointments committee. The minister intends to lead the process of appointing a deputy chair who enjoys as wide support as possible. In general, the minister believes in appointing the best person for the position, irrespective of their institutional affiliation.”

Professor David Schwartz responded: "I do not support the privatization of the higher education system. As part of my work at the Council for Higher Education, as a professional appointment by three Education Ministers from different political parties, I acted professionally and faithfully to promote all academic institutions, both publicly funded and privately owned.

"Regarding the integration of ultra-Orthodox in academia, I have never hidden my position, which is full support for the existential need to integrate both ultra-Orthodox men and women into higher education and the job market, just like all other sectors [in Israeli society]. I am glad that many academic institutions, universities, and colleges, have joined this position in recent years and work to establish ultra-Orthodox facilities."

Riding roughshod over professionalism and expertise

The question of whether Israel is on its way to becoming like Hungary, which is no longer considered a liberal democracy, is also troubling from an academic perspective. "It’s very easy to see where academia thrives," says Sagi. "The leading faculties in every field are located in democratic countries. Take Nobel Prize winners as a case study. Eleven Nobel laureates in the exact sciences were born in Hungary, but ten of them live in other countries. Only one of them lived and worked there as a researcher. The privatization of institutions in Hungary has led to a significant decline in their rankings."

Sagi adds that, “one of the guiding principles of the judicial coup is to ride roughshod over any semblance of professionalism and expertise which could be an impediment to political power. In the end, these are the people who look after us and it could damage the kind of service that we receive as a society.” Sagi refers to the coalition agreement between Likud and Shas, which threatens to harm academic standards since it seeks to recognize nonacademic paramedical studies in ultra-Orthodox institutions as equivalent to a BA. While that clause in the coalition has not been advanced as yet, the approach it signals is problematic.

Where are the universities’ management in all of this? Before the October 7 attacks, they were still making their voices heard; for example, they came out against the annulment of the reasonableness clause. Since the outbreak of the war, however, they have been a lot quieter. That could be because they are concerned that the budget cuts will hit them especially hard if they confront the government or because they do not share the same views and do not want to advocate for a position that is not unanimous. With the exception of Ariel Porat, the president of Tel Aviv University who has been relatively vocal, the universities are mainly waging their battle behind the scenes and are only talking about legislation that affects the academy; they do not profess to be the leaders of a liberal camp fighting for Israeli democracy, which is hanging by a thread. “It’s not in their DNA to protest against the government,” one member of the campaign says with disappointment. “They are excellent when it comes to research, talking to donors and raising money – not engaging in vocal protest.”

Chairman of the Committee of University Presidents, Prof. Danny Haimovitz, preferred not to comment on the matter.