Gaza war fallout sees universities worldwide cut ties with Israeli academia: Report

The University of Amsterdam has ended an exchange programme with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, while the European Association of Social Anthropologists announced it would not collaborate with Israeli institutions and urged its members to adopt the same stance.

Stephanie Adam, of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, argued that Israeli universities are deeply tied to the state’s actions. They are, The Guardian quoted her as saying, complicit in “Israel’s decades-long regime of military occupation, settler colonial apartheid and now genocide,” adding there is “a moral and legal obligation for universities to end ties with complicit Israeli universities.”

Resistance in the UK and France

The report said in Britain, France, and Germany, boycotts remain rare. Universities UK (UUK) reaffirmed its opposition, and told The Guardian: “As a representative body, Universities UK has a longstanding public position of being committed to the free exchange of ideas, regardless of nationality or location. As such we do not endorse blanket academic boycotts, as this would represent an infringement of academic freedom.”

The Royal Society has taken a similar line, the report said. According to the report, Venki Ramakrishnan, Nobel laureate and former Royal Society president, expressed mixed views. “On the one hand, the Israeli government’s approach to Gaza has been hugely disproportionate, harming civilians, including young children, in the thousands,” he told The Guardian.

“On the other hand, most Israeli academics I know, including several I count as my friends, detest Netanyahu and his government. A boycott of this would penalise those who are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, and who in fact are very sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians," he has been quoted.

Sharp disagreements

The report said Israeli historian Ilan Pappé rejected the notion that most academics oppose the government. “If it were so, I would have seen them among the few hundreds [of] brave Israelis who demonstrate against the war because it is a genocide, not because it fails to bring back the hostages,” he told The Gurdian. Demonstrations calling the war genocidal are treated as “illegal in Israel,” he reportedly said.

Pappé accused universities of serving the state: “They provide courses and degrees to the secret service, police and are agencies of the government that are oppressing daily the Palestinians," as per the report.

For him, the boycott delivers a necessary reckoning: “[It] is a very harsh and tough, albeit necessary, conversation with the Israeli academic institutions, illuminating for them their responsibility and for being an organic part of an oppressive system.”

Pressure from the UK

According to The Gaurdian, in Britain, academics and students are calling for stronger action. Ghassan Soleiman Abu-Sittah, British-Palestinian surgeon and rector of the University of Glasgow, said governing bodies are blocking official boycotts.

“The moral outrage about what the Israelis are doing is leading more and more academics to take personal decisions, not to have joint projects with Israelis,” the report quoted him.

Funding question

Some Israeli scholars say the boycotts have not significantly disrupted research. But the stakes are high: Israel’s economy relies heavily on science and technology, and collaborations with Ivy League and European universities are vital.

Since 2021, Israel has received €875.9m (£740.4m) from the EU’s Horizon Europe programme. Yet in July 2025, the European Commission proposed suspending Israel from parts of the scheme, targeting startups and SMEs in sensitive fields such as cybersecurity, drones, and AI.

Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier confirmed the move to The Guardian, though 10 member states oppose a suspension. Still, Israel risks exclusion from Horizon Europe’s successor programme in 2028.

Adam noted pressure is already visible. In May 2024, Israel set aside €22m (£19m) to counter the boycott campaign, while its share of EU funds has dropped. The European Research Council awarded just 10 Israeli researchers grants in 2025, down from 30 the year before, the report said.

Brain drain

Declining opportunities have raised fears of a “brain drain”, especially in medicine, the report said. If funding and collaborations shrink further, Israeli researchers may leave and not return.

According to the report, Yet many argue academia should not be targeted. Some stress that collaboration fosters dialogue, while others doubt boycotts will change government policy.

Still, Abu-Sittah believes they could prove decisive: “The threat of academic boycott is sufficient to push the Israeli government into ending this genocide,” The Gaurdian quoted him.