Academic boycott of Israel doubles, even after Gaza war ends: Report

JERUSALEM / ISTANBUL

An Israeli report has cited a sharp rise in academic boycotts targeting researchers and institutions in Israel, even after the end of the Gaza war.

The report, prepared by the Academic Boycott of Israel Monitoring Team, which was established by the Committee of University Presidents in Tel Aviv, said Israel’s negative image in Europe appears “so deeply entrenched that political moves alone are not enough to shift public perception.”

The report, published by the The Marker, the economic version of the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz, noted that the end of the Gaza war did not reduce boycott pressure.

Instead, “the opposite occurred,” with a spike in cases filed by institutions and individual academics, it added.

The team warned that the expanding forms of academic boycott could push Israeli higher education into “dangerous isolation that poses a real strategic threat to its international standing.”

In mid-September, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged for the first time that Israel had entered “a kind of isolation,” saying the country must prepare for a more self-reliant economy.

The number of European universities imposing full academic boycotts on Israeli institutions has increased to 1,000 till November, the report noted.

It also cited new cases of European academics refusing to collaborate with Israeli colleagues and universities.

It said 2025 saw a drop in research grants awarded to Israeli scholars by the EU’s Horizon Europe fund, the main source of scientific research financing for Israel.

The decline is tied to Israeli academics being excluded from international cooperation projects seeking Horizon funding.

According to the report, 57% of boycott cases affect individual researchers, mainly through exclusion from international research groups, while 22% involve institutional boycotts between European and Israeli universities, 7% relate to boycotts imposed by professional associations, and 14% concern the suspension of international programs such as student exchanges and postdoctoral partnerships.

The report concluded that the trend will likely continue, saying the boycott movement “will accompany Israeli academia for a long time and will not ease without major regional and geopolitical changes.”

Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed nearly 70,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and injured over 170,900 during a two-year war that reduced most of the enclave to rubble.