On the Use and Misuse of Academic Freedom

The Israeli military onslaught in Gaza, increasingly framed as a genocide by leading scholars, UN human rights experts, and human rights organizations, has triggered a new round of clampdowns in Israeli academic institutions. This wave of oppression began in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attacks and their indiscriminate and criminal targeting of Israeli civilians. In the early days after the attack, many academics who attempted to situate the events of October 7 in a broader historical, political, and sociological context that was critical of Israel were immediately disciplined by their administrations, even when they unequivocally condemned the attacks. For example, Professor Nurit Peled Elhanan, who denounced the October 7 attacks by calling them a massacre, was suspended from David Yellin Academic College for Education for making reference to Jean-Paul Sartre’s analysis of the grievous forms of violence deployed by colonized peoples to free themselves from colonialism. Later, the persecution extended to those who criticized Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, declared by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to be a plausible violation of the Genocide Convention, and to those who expressed sympathy toward Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

According to a report published by Adalah, the Legal Center of Arab Minority Rights in Israel, approximately 160 Palestinian students from thirty-six institutions faced disciplinary actions from their Israeli academic institutions. Approximately 6 percent of the targeted students were permanently expelled from their institutions without any disciplinary process. Nearly half (47 percent) of the targeted students were temporarily suspended prior to the initiation of disciplinary proceedings against them. The testimony of students documents how the disciplinary hearings turned into McCarthyite interrogations, focusing on the students’ political opinions after misconstruing or misrepresenting their social media posts. The minister of education, Yoav Kish, publicly endorsed these measures, issuing a letter asking universities to suspend or expel individuals who, in his view, supported terrorism.

Leading Palestinian and anti-Zionist Israeli scholars within Israeli academic institutions were silenced and harassed, with the suspension of Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian by the authorities of the Hebrew University being emblematic of this new wave of oppression (see sidebar). International condemnation and even a degree of domestic criticism of such intimidating and coercive measures soon followed. However, most denunciations framed Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s suspension (and that of others) as an issue of academic freedom while ignoring or obscuring the broader context in which incidents such as her suspension had occurred. This framing makes sense only if one assumes that Israeli academic institutions are bastions of academic freedom and, therefore, that these recent incidents are deviations from an otherwise liberal academic trajectory. Many Western academic institutions promulgate this narrative about the liberal trajectory of Israeli academic institutions. For example, in advertising a dual degree program with Tel Aviv University, Columbia University has claimed that TAU shares Tel Aviv’s “unshakable spirit of openness and innovation—and boasts a campus life as dynamic and pluralistic.” This narrative ignores the well-documented role of Israeli academic institutions in shaping and legitimizing systems of oppression that control the lives of Palestinians. It also obscures the different ways in which Israeli academic institutions benefited from the dispossession of Palestinians. TAU itself was partially built on the ruins of the destroyed Palestinian village of Al-Shaykh Muwannis.

While principles of academic freedom remain central to arguments opposing the targeting of academic dissenters, framing the coercive measures deployed by Israeli academic institutions as simply an academic freedom issue can obscure the other issues at play. An exclusive focus on academic freedom conceals the broader context in which Israeli academic institutions have played a key role in the production of knowledge and capabilities that have justified and enabled different forms of violence against Palestinians. Seen from this perspective, the persecution of dissenters should be treated as one of the many facets of academic complicity in the oppression of Palestinians.

Condemning What?

The targeting of academics for speaking out against Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza has been routinely framed as an issue of freedom of expression. For example, the British Society of Middle Eastern Studies issued multiple letters condemning Israeli academic institutions for attempting to silence and discipline scholars who voiced opposition to the war, including a general letter of concern over the suspension and investigation of Palestinian students and staff members in Israeli academic institutions, a letter concerning the suspension of Professor Nurit Peled Elhanan, a letter of concern over the dismissal of Uri Horesh from Achva Academic College, and two letters concerning the harassment and suspension of Shalhoub-Kevorkian from the Hebrew University. The Middle East Studies Association also described the actions taken against Shalhoub-Kevorkian as “violating her academic freedom and her professional opinion as a critical criminologist.” Likewise, Academia for Equality, an organization of academics that promotes democratization, equality, and access to higher education for all communities in Israel/Palestine, sent a letter of concern over the suspension of Shalhoub-Kevorkian, characterizing the issue as one of academic freedom and arguing that “freedom of expression and research is quintessential to academic life, and without it, universities lose their raison d’être.”

When academic freedom is centered in this manner, it obscures the role of Israeli academia in normalizing and enabling different forms of violence against Palestinians. It is not surprising, then, that Palestinian scholars have used a different framing. For example, in its letter to the Hebrew University, the Haifa-based Mada al-Carmel, the Arab Center for Applied Social Research, argued, “The incitement against Professor Shalhoub-Kevorkian provides stark confirmation of the longstanding complicity of this university, and of Israeli academia at large, in advancing the Zionist agenda: while the machinery of militarization seeks to erase our very existence, the Israeli academy endeavors to erase our voices, history and narrative.” This framing rightly shifts the focus from the academic freedom of those teaching in Israeli universities to the victimization of Palestinians.

In her recent book Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom, Maya Wind debunks the myth that Israeli academic institutions are bastions of academic freedom. It provides a detailed account of how Israeli universities constitute one of the pillars of Israel’s regime of oppression. According to Wind, these institutions were established as “land-grab” universities, part of Israel’s settler-colonial project to “Judaize” the land. University campuses were constructed as strategic outposts that abetted the expansion of Jewish settlements and the enclosure of Palestinians.

The book highlights the close collaboration and ties between Israeli academic institutions and Israel’s military industry and security services, which was forged before the establishment of Israel in 1948. As Wind recounts, the Zionist militia Haganah operated a science corps to enhance its military capabilities with bases at three campuses: the Hebrew University, the Weizmann Institute, and the Technion. Throughout the 1948 war, these institutions helped sustain the efforts of Haganah and other Zionist militias in executing the mass expulsion of Palestinians. The two major weapons producers in Israel, Rafael and Israeli Aerospace Industries, were developed utilizing infrastructure provided by the Technion and the Weizmann Institute.

The 1967 occupation only further entrenched the role of Israeli academia in the production of expertise required to sustain Israel’s rule over Palestinians. Today, Israeli universities operate various programs and offer a number of degrees to train soldiers and security agents to enhance their capabilities. According to Wind, soldiers trained at the Hebrew University often serve in Unit 8200, which is responsible for surveilling Palestinians to collect sensitive information about their intimate life, including their sexual orientation, financial difficulties, or health problems. This information is used to blackmail vulnerable Palestinians and to force them to collaborate with the authorities. Since the recent war started, soldiers from Unit 8200 have created “target banks” in Gaza.

Israeli academics have also produced knowledge that normalized and justified the oppression of Palestinians. The whole field of Middle East studies, or Mizrahanut in Hebrew, was created, shaped, and funded by extra-academic actors, including the military, intelligence organizations, and government ministries. Many of the academic founders of the discipline moved between academic institutions and the security establishment.

Another example of this extensive collaboration between Israeli academia and the security apparatuses is the establishment of research centers such as the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, affiliated with TAU. The center was founded in 1959 as the Reuven Shiloah Research Center, a nonprofit association based in the Israeli Directorate of Military Intelligence and sponsored by the Israeli Oriental Society. In 1966, it was incorporated into TAU. On its website, the center declares that its “most significant contributions are often behind closed doors.”

Although scholars such as Eli Osheroff and Hillel Cohen argue that Middle East studies recently evolved from a discipline “that identifies with the State and its security apparatuses” into a discipline “with a relatively critical stance regarding the regime and the society in Israel,” others, such as Eyal Clyne and Assaf David, argue that the field’s dependence “on economic, sociopolitical, and discursive conditions . . . make its decolonization impossible.” Wind highlights how departments of Middle East studies continue to offer academic programs for soldiers in elite military units and for security apparatuses deeply involved in the oppression of Palestinians.

International law, my own area of expertise, is another academic field that has shaped and legitimized various systems of oppression. Noura Erakat and others have demonstrated how Israeli law professors contribute to the production of legal scholarship that has facilitated Israel’s rule over Palestinians. For example, in a 1968 article, Yehuda Zvi Blum of the Hebrew University argued that as a matter of law, Israel could not be considered an occupying power in the West Bank in the absence of any sovereign power, since Jordan was not the rightful sovereign. This argument led him to conclude that “the rules protecting the reversionary rights of the legitimate sovereign find no application.” Palestinians, according to this reasoning, had no sovereignty rights to be respected by an occupying power. In the ensuing years, Blum’s legal construction was adopted as official state policy.

More recent examples include the practice of “roof knocking” deployed by the Israeli army to warn civilians ahead of an attack and the “Dahiya doctrine,” which seeks to legitimize the use of large-scale military force against civilian targets. Leading international law experts and human rights organizations, including the United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, strongly criticized these practices for their failure to respect the principle of distinction and the principle of proportionality under international humanitarian law. Both illegal practices were endorsed and legitimized by academics at Israeli academic institutions, including at the Institute for National Security Studies, affiliated with TAU. Sociologist Lisa Hajjar surveys other practices and doctrines legitimized by Israeli scholars that contradict the spirit of international humanitarian law. These include “targeted killing” and the repurposing of the concept of “human shields”—the latter to justify the elevated number of civilian casualties by describing Palestinian civilians as human shields used by Israel’s enemies.

More recently, Israeli academic institutions have developed narratives that trivialize the apocalyptic violence in Gaza. In the case of Shalhoub-Kevorkian, the Hebrew University administration claimed that the use of the term genocide to describe Israel’s offensive was an act of incitement and sedition, and it leaked an internal letter addressed to Shalhoub- Kevorkian to the media before she had the chance to read it. Put differently, the Hebrew University not only failed to defend academic freedom in a time of crisis, when dissent was very much needed; it also contributed to polarization and deepened the vitriol in the public sphere by accusing those who oppose the war of engaging in incitement to violence and sedition. Perhaps most important, it endangered the life of its own employee named in the publicly shared letter.

From Framing to Action

The complicity of Israeli academic institutions in the oppression of Palestinians has not prevented the production of anticolonial and anti-Zionist scholarship outside of the academic mainstream. One could even argue that Israeli academic institutions have benefited from this knowledge production, as it provides a veneer of liberalism and pluralism that can shield them from further scrutiny. However, the October 7 attack and the ensuing war in Gaza changed these dynamics. When scholarship categorizing Israel as an apartheid and settler-colonial state started penetrating discourse at the United Nations and in international legal institutions, the calculated tolerance for dissent within Israel faded. With the adoption of provisional measures by the ICJ in the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel, the Israeli government launched an unprecedented campaign of persecution against any form of solidarity with the civilian population in Gaza.

In its attempt to make Shalhoub-Kevorkian an example and thereby intimidate dissenters within the academic community, the Hebrew University, declaring itself a “proud Israeli, public and Zionist institution,” aligned itself with an ideology that justifies the dispossession and oppression of Palestinians. The issues at stake in such complicity extend far beyond those framed by academic freedom.

Frames are not ideas in themselves; instead, they can be part of a communication strategy intended to generate shared values and beliefs and to mobilize collective action for their promotion and protection. As sociologists David A. Snow and Robert D. Benford have shown, frames “assign meaning to and interpret relevant events and conditions in ways that are intended to mobilize potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support, and to demobilize antagonists.”

Different framings invite different mobilizations and responses. If the cases of Shalhoub-Kevorkian and others are viewed exclusively in the frame of academic freedom, reversing the suspension of academics and students could be perceived as sufficient remedy. However, if the issue is framed as one of complicity in the oppression of Palestinians, a completely different course of action would be required, not only on the part of Israeli institutions, but also on the part of academic institutions abroad that collaborate with them.

The implications of the complicity of Israeli academia in the oppression of Palestinians can no longer be ignored, especially after the advisory opinion of the ICJ on the legal consequences of Israel’s policies and practices. The ICJ found that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) is illegal because it violates “the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the obligation arising from the prohibition of the use of force to acquire territory as well as certain of its obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law.” The ICJ made it clear that other states (and their public institutions) have certain legal obligations in relation to ending Israel’s illegal presence in the OPT. On September 18, 2024, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution demanding that Israel “bring to an end its unlawful presence” in the OPT and that it do so within twelve months. The resolution also called upon other UN member states to implement sanctions against “natural and legal persons engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Likewise, in October 2024, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel issued a position paper on the legal consequences arising from the occupation. In it, the commission holds that “states shall not render aid or assistance to educational, academic, research or cultural activities that support or maintain the unlawful occupation. This applies to universities and other research or cultural institutions that support the occupation or that are physically located within the Occupied Palestinian Territory and support the occupation.”

If the academic community outside of Israel is committed to the rule of law and the promotion of human rights and justice, allegations of the complicity of Israeli academic institutions must be taken seriously. At a bare minimum, the role of Israeli academia in the production of knowledge that has normalized different forms of violence against Palestinians must be legally and morally scrutinized and accorded an adequate response. Academic institutions outside Israel should also recognize and examine their own role in the appropriation and reproduction of knowledge that trivializes and facilitates the oppression of Palestinians.

Framing matters. The intimidation, suspension, and expulsion of academics and students should be viewed through the lens of academic freedom, but that alone is not enough. We must also reflect on the more urgent question: How should we engage, morally and ethically, with academic institutions that continue to form part of state apparatuses responsible for the oppression and subjugation of an entire people?

Sonia Boulos is associate professor of international human rights law in the faculty of law and international relations at Antonio de Nebrija University in Madrid, Spain, and coeditor of Palestine/Israel Review.

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian

On April 18, 2024, Israeli police arrested Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, the Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a prominent feminist, charging that remarks she made in an English-language podcast accusing the Israeli government of genocide in Gaza and casting doubt on some claims about sexual violence on October 7 could incite violence. A court dismissed the charges the next day, but not before the sixty-four-year-old Palestinian Armenian scholar had been “strip-searched, yelled and cursed at, and thrown in a cold, isolated, and urine-smelling cell infested with cockroaches,” her attorneys charged. “The cell was kept illuminated throughout the night with bright, buzzing lights to prevent her from sleeping; and for some of the time her hands and feet were shackled.” Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s interrogation during her detention included questions about academic articles she had published, apparently the first time that an academic in Israel had been questioned by police about a published scholarly article.

Previously, in March, the Haifa native, educated at the Hebrew University, was suspended by the university, drawing protest from Israeli civil rights groups as well as a range of international organizations. The university reinstated Shalhoub-Kevorkian after she clarified some of her controversial statements. Although the university publicly condemned the arrest, pressures for her dismissal mounted. In June, right-wing Knesset member Ofir Katz, supported by the National Union for Israeli Students, introduced legislation that would require higher education institutions to fire staff who denounce Zionism or express “support for terrorism.” Anyone dismissed under the bill’s provisions would be denied severance pay and retirement benefits. Although Israeli higher education unions and prominent university administrators have opposed the measure as “draconian and McCarthyist,” it was backed by the Education Ministry and passed a preliminary hearing last summer.

In August, Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s attorneys announced that she had made the decision to retire because “it was impossible for her to work at a university defining itself as Zionist, but which at the same time talked about freedom of expression and education.” Her decision came before the university announced plans not to reappoint her. In October, the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University announced that Shalhoub-Kevorkian would serve as the department’s Global South Visiting Scholar for 2024–25.—HENRY REICHMAN