In a letter addressed to academic leaders around the world, the presidents of Israel’s nine leading universities called for “a sea change in clarity and truth in academia on the matter of Israel’s war against Hamas.”
The Nov. 1 letter from Israel’s Association of University Heads (VERA) conveyed that following “a tragedy unprecedented in Israel’s 75-year history,” the Israeli university presidents “find it disturbing that certain narratives from academic institutions misrepresent the situation, or, in the worst cases, actively target Israelis and Jews.”
“It’s unsettling to note that many college campuses have become breeding grounds for anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments, largely fueled by a naïve and biased understanding of the conflict,” they stated. “It is ironic that the very halls of enlightenment in America and Europe, ostensibly the bastions of intellectual and progressive thought that are your campuses, have adopted Hamas as the cause célèbre while Israel is demonized. Universities, as hubs of enlightenment and rational discourse, must take responsibility for the views they perpetuate.”
They continued, “There is no moral equivalency here. Let’s be clear: Hamas shares no values with any Western academic institution. Hamas is an organization that has repeatedly pledged to annihilate Israel and its people.”
The letter was signed by VERA Chairperson Prof. Arie Zaban, President of Bar-Ilan University; Prof. Daniel A. Chamovitz, President of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Prof. Alon Chen, President of the Weizmann Institute of Science; Prof. Asher Cohen, President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Prof. Leo Corry, President of the Open University of Israel; Prof. Ehud Grossman, President of Ariel University; Prof. Ariel Porat, President of Tel Aviv University; Prof. Ron Robin, President of University of Haifa; and Prof. Uri Sivan, President of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
Doug Seserman, CEO of Americans for Ben-Gurion University, said in reaction to the letter, “Americans for Ben-Gurion University stands with Ben-Gurion University and its counterparts in Israel, urging academic institutions worldwide to condemn Hamas terrorism and stand with Israel. As President Biden eloquently expressed in the early days of the war, this is a battle between good and evil, and we implore academic leaders — and all leaders — not to find themselves on the wrong side of history.”
Academic institutions have a responsibility to fulfill their promise “as lighthouses in the intellectual landscape,” the Israeli university presidents noted in their letter.
“Your roles as leaders of these institutions confer upon you an extraordinary responsibility: to guide the moral and ethical development of your students, to imbue them with the ability to think critically and to discern the nuances that separate right from wrong,” they explained. “Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of academic freedom, but it should not be manipulated to legitimize hate speech or to justify violence…We urge you to delineate the boundaries between constructive discourse and destructive propaganda, and promote evidence-based, nuanced thinking that challenges simplistic narratives.”
They also called on global academic leaders to ensure that Israeli and Jewish students and faculty are treated with “the same respect and protections as any other minority.”
“The principles of inclusivity and campus safety must unequivocally extend to include Israeli and Jewish members of your academic communities,” they wrote. “Just as it would be unthinkable for an academic institution to extend free speech protections to groups targeting other protected classes, so too should demonstrations that call for our destruction and glorify violence against Jews be explicitly prohibited and condemned.”