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How Fringe Israeli Academics Are Emboldening Boycotts Against Israel

A demonstration of the group Europe Palestine to demand the boycott of Israel, in Paris, France on May 15, 2022. Photo: Xose Bouzas / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
While foreign activist groups drive much of the global push to isolate Israeli universities, some of the movement’s legitimacy is supplied from within.
A segment of Israeli academics actively support or collaborate with boycott campaigns — either out of genuine conviction that Israel is committing crimes in Gaza, or from a calculated belief that distancing the academy from the government will shield it from international sanctions.
Both approaches risk backfiring by handing boycott advocates the very moral and political ammunition they need to target Israel’s academic community.
A recent report documented 500 cases of academic boycotts, ranging from restricted access to funding to demands that Israeli scholars condemn their own country before being allowed to participate in conferences. One of the most high-profile incidents occurred in August 2024, when the International Federation of Medical Student Associations (IFMSA) suspended the Federation of Israel Medical Students (FIMS) over the war in Gaza.
According to Federation chairwoman Miri Schwimmer, hostility toward the Israeli delegation had already been on display months earlier at the European District Conference in Malta.
The hostility escalated at the IFMSA international conference in Finland, when the IFMSA decided to vote to suspend Israel. Before Schwimmer could speak against the suspension, attendees were warned that they could leave if they did not want to hear the position of the Israeli representative. Nearly half the room, including most of the executive committee and the federation’s president, walked out. They returned only after her remarks and voted without hearing Israel’s position.
Working with Israel’s Health and Foreign Affairs ministries, allied medical students, and groups such as the World Medical Association and the American Jewish Medical Association, Schwimmer participated in months of direct talks with IFMSA leadership. In March 2025, the federation overturned its decision.
But the threat is not limited to medicine. In June 2024, the World Society of Sociology suspended the Israeli Association for refusing to condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza. Troublingly, a growing number of Israeli academics and student groups have been supporting boycotts of their own universities, along with anti-Israel activists.
An activist organization called Academy for Equality hosted a webinar with UN Special Rapporteur and anti-Israel ideologue, Francesca Albanese, where an Israeli participant asked whether there were “ways that Academy for Equality and our students in Israel can strategize with students in Europe who are fighting to cut ties with Israel.”
There are also Israeli academics who sign petitions accusing the Jewish State of war crimes, including the deliberate starvation of civilians.
Professor Emmanuel Dalla Torre of Bar-Ilan University, a member of its committee against academic boycotts, sees three main motivations.
Israeli academics who sign these sorts of petitions consist of either those who genuinely believe the allegations, those who fear of being ostracized by their international peers, and those who think that they are actually protecting Israeli academia by trying to distance themselves from the actions of their government.
Dalla Torre refers to the academics in the third category as taking “a naive approach,” warning that “letters like this simply bring weapons to those who want to boycott the State of Israel. They don’t make the distinction between the academy, the Israeli economy, and the government.”
His view is echoed by Professor Alessandra Veronese of the University of Pisa in Italy, who fought her university’s decision to cut ties with Reichman University and the Hebrew University. Veronese insists that such letters and petitions are useless because “these [Italian] professors don’t know anything about Israel … what they think is that in Israel, the entire population is happy about the war.”
Further, Professor Veronese explained that the level of antisemitism in Italian academia as “very very dangerous” and described her university’s animosity as hypocritical. This heavily suggests that all efforts to appease these anti-Israel professors and societies are made in vain.
Israeli academia is clearly under serious threat of isolation. While antisemitism and the war in Gaza are key drivers, internal actors, born of either conviction or strategic calculation, are emboldening those who seek to delegitimize and exclude Israel from the global academic community.
And therein lies the irony: the very voices within Israel that believe they are shielding the academy from harm may be among the forces making it more vulnerable.
In the hands of boycott advocates, their statements against the Jewish State become proof that the academy itself accepts the accusations against Israel, erasing the intended distinction between Israeli scholarship and Israeli policy, and helping to justify the case for its isolation.
Shahar Grufy is a member of CAMERA’s Israel office.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.