University heads form body to counter academic boycotts

The Committee of University Heads in Israel announced last week the establishment of a forum to counter academic boycotts against Israel, writes Lidar Gravé-Lazi for The Jerusalem Post. Professor Zvi Ziegler, professor emeritus at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and chair of the Inter-University Senate, will head the panel.

“An academic boycott is an unacceptable and dangerous process contrary to the spirit of research, undermining its foundations. This is an increasingly growing phenomenon with one aim – attacking the State of Israel and the research performed within its borders,” Professor Menahem Ben-Sasson, president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and chair of the Committee of University Heads, said.

According to Ben-Sasson, the boycotts aim to attack the state by damaging its “most important national resource” – scientific academic research.
Full report on The Jerusalem Post site