Academic bodies in Europe and South America are distancing from Israeli institutions, though few in the UK, France and Germany follow suit
Growing Numbers of Universities Sever Ties with Israeli Academia over Gaza Genocide
Middle East Eye Staff
(September 14, 2025) — Mounting numbers of universities and academic bodies across Europe and South America are severing ties with Israeli institutions over concerns of their complicity with Israel‘s genocide in Gaza.
Last year, Brazil‘s Federal University of Ceara (UFC) cancelled an innovation summit with an Israeli university, while universities across Norway, Belgium and Spain cut links with Israeli institutions.
This year, others, including Trinity College in Dublin, have followed suit.
In March, the University of Amsterdam announced it was halting a student exchange programme with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, while the European Association of Social Anthropologists declared it would not collaborate with Israeli academic institutions.
However, most universities in the UK, France and Germany have resisted mounting pressure from staff and students to do the same.
Universities UK (UUK) issued a statement opposing an academic boycott against Israel, saying it would “represent an infringement of academic freedom”.
‘We Cannot Claim That We Did Not Know’
The Royal Society also voiced opposition to a boycott, with its former president Venki Ramakrishnan arguing that the move would “penalize those who are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, and who in fact are very sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians”.
However, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe argued that many Israeli academics are in fact complicit with the government’s onslaught on Gaza, noting that the overwhelming majority of them do not refuse to serve in the country’s army.
“They provide courses and degrees to the secret service, police and are agencies of the government that are oppressing daily the Palestinians,” he said.
He added that a boycott would represent a necessary “conversation with the Israeli academic institutions, illuminating for them their responsibility and for being an organic part of an oppressive system”.
Meanwhile, UK universities have enacted an intensifying crackdown on expressions of Palestinian solidarity on campuses.
In February, Liberty Investigates and Sky News found that at least 28 universities launched disciplinary investigations against staff and students in connection with their Palestine activism since October 2023.
Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian surgeon and rector of the University of Glasgow, noted that student and academic efforts to push for boycotts of Israeli institutions have been quashed by governing bodies of universities.
He said that this has driven academics “to take personal decisions, not to have joint projects with Israelis”.
In May, hundreds of Israeli academics wrote to the heads of the country’s academic system, calling on universities to “mobilise the full weight of Israeli academia to stop the Israeli war in Gaza”.
“This is a horrifying litany of war crimes and even crimes against humanity, all of our own doing,” the letter, organised by a group naming themselves the Black Flag Action Group, read.
“We cannot claim that we did not know. We have been silent for too long.”
