Table of Contents
Greg Bouwer
IINZ
Universities are intended as spaces of inquiry, debate, and collaboration. They are often among the most progressive institutions in society, home to scholars who value evidence, critical thinking, and conflict resolution. One might therefore expect today’s academic institutions – which explicitly present themselves as champions of dialogue, justice and conflict resolution – to be natural allies in fostering peace, particularly in politically tense regions. Yet many support Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns targeting Israeli universities – a position that invites scrutiny, reflection, and dialogue.
Israeli universities are global leaders in research and innovation. In fields such as medicine, agriculture, water management, and technology, Israeli academics frequently collaborate with Palestinian colleagues and international partners, producing solutions with tangible benefits across the region. These joint efforts are not abstract – they address pressing human needs and build cross-border trust.
Notable examples include:
- Health initiatives involving collaboration on leishmaniasis prevention, cardiac care programmes, child health studies, and psychological first-aid services, benefitting both communities.
- Dental medicine partnerships, such as between the Hebrew University’s Hadassah School of Dental Medicine and Al-Quds University, combining research, clinical training, and patient care.
- Environmental and water projects, including those run by the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, which brings together Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, and international scientists. Initiatives such as atmospheric water generators in Gaza provide essential drinking water while fostering cooperation.
- Water and soil research partnerships that improve shared resource management across borders, reflecting the reality that environmental challenges do not respect political boundaries.
The ‘Institutional, Not Personal’ Distinction – and Its Limits
Supporters of academic BDS argue that the boycott is institutional, not personal. It aims to pressure universities deemed complicit in occupation – through military research, projects on disputed land, or institutional funding – while maintaining that individual scholars can still collaborate independently. They highlight the asymmetry faced by Palestinian universities, from movement restrictions to resource inequities, and draw historical parallels to academic sanctions against apartheid South Africa. From this perspective, cooperation without structural change risks normalising inequity or obscuring underlying power asymmetries.
On paper, this distinction appears reasonable. In practice, however, it is difficult to sustain.
Modern research does not occur in isolation. Academics operate through institutions in nearly every meaningful way: funding is administered by universities, ethics approval is institutional, laboratories and libraries are institutional, conferences and journals are institutionally mediated, and academic identity itself is inseparable from institutional affiliation. To boycott an institution is therefore to constrain the scholar’s ability to function as a scholar.
The suggestion that collaboration can continue “outside institutional frameworks” exposes the problem. There is no meaningful “outside”. Researchers cannot simply suspend their affiliation or participate in knowledge production as free-floating individuals. Asking them to do so is not neutrality: it is exclusion by administrative means.
As a result, academic boycotts predictably manifest not as abstract institutional pressure, but as concrete professional consequences: disinvited speakers, blocked grant partnerships, restricted conference participation, and reputational stigma attached to institutional association. None of this requires explicit targeting of individuals. The pressure is structural, but the impact is personal and professional.
This does not mean that concerns about institutional complicity or structural injustice are illegitimate. It does mean that the ‘institutional not personal’ framing functions more as a moral disclaimer than a practical safeguard. Even the South Africa comparison, often cited as justification, underscores this point: academic boycotts there worked – if one believes they did – precisely because they disrupted academic life itself. That may be defensible in some historical contexts, but it is not the same as claiming individuals are unaffected.
Engagement, Pressure, and Uncertain Outcomes
This brings us back to the central tension – how is meaningful change best achieved? Through engagement, dialogue, or institutional pressure?
Those who prioritise academic collaboration argue that dialogue and joint projects build understanding, trust, and tangible benefits that can create conditions for peace. BDS supporters counter that justice must precede dialogue, and that engagement without structural change risks entrenching inequality. Both perspectives are grounded in legitimate moral concerns, and the outcomes of either strategy are inherently uncertain. Context, timing, and institutional dynamics matter greatly.
The paradox, then, is not about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ intentions. It is about strategy, mechanism, and consequence. Concrete examples show that engagement can produce real humanitarian and scholarly benefits. At the same time, critics argue that such collaborations do not address root causes and may even obscure power asymmetries that make them necessary in the first place.
From Ideology to Evidence
Ultimately, this debate calls for reflection rather than certitude. The most honest question is not whether academic BDS is morally pure on paper, but whether it advances justice and peace in practice. Does constraining the ecosystems that enable research, dialogue, and cooperation produce sustainable change – or does it sever precisely the relationships most capable of transcending conflict?
Universities have a unique role – to build bridges across divides, generate knowledge that benefits all, and foster relationships that endure beyond ideology. Questioning whether academic boycotts strengthen or weaken that role is not an act of bad faith. It is an invitation to evidence-based inquiry – one that recognises uncertainty, respects principled disagreement, and keeps outcomes, not intentions, at the centre of the discussion.
This article was originally published by the Israel Institute of New Zealand.
