The Complicity of Israeli Academia

The Complicity of Israeli Academia Maya Wind: I study how settler societies reproduce themselves through violence—not only through militaries and the security state, but also through ostensibly civilian institutions. Israeli universities are sometimes thought of as independent of the state, but they are actually central to sustaining it. I’m a Jewish Israeli, but for over a decade I’ve been based in the North American higher education system, where I’ve witnessed how Israeli universities are often understood in the West as bastions of liberalism, democracy, and freedom. I was struck by the gap between this narrative about Israeli universities and what Palestinian scholars and activists have been saying for decades. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, formed in 2004, has called for a boycott of Israeli universities, which [PACBI founding committee member] Omar Barghouti claims are “one of the pillars of [Israel’s] oppressive order.” I wrote this book to research this question posed by Palestinians: How are Israeli universities complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights?