Anti-Israel demonstration supporting the BDS movement, Paris France, June 8, 2024. Photo: Claire Serie / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

Universities once stood for a simple but powerful principle: Knowledge should be pursued wherever it leads; ideas should be challenged rather than silenced; and scientific discovery should unite people across borders, not divide them along political lines.

That principle is now under assault.

Across Western campuses, academic boycotts targeting Israeli universities have become fashionable. They are presented as moral acts of solidarity. In reality, they undermine the very purpose of higher education by placing ideology above scholarship and politics above discovery.

No university can honestly claim to defend academic freedom while arguing that researchers should be judged by their nationality rather than by the quality of their work.

Israel is not simply another country engaged in political disputes. It is one of the world’s leading centers of scientific research, technological innovation, and medical advancement. Its universities and research institutions have helped transform medicine, cybersecurity, agriculture, artificial intelligence, transportation, and water technology.

Israeli scientists are developing artificial intelligence capable of identifying diseases earlier and more accurately through advanced medical imaging. Researchers continue improving cancer immunotherapy, personalized medicine, RNA based treatments for neurological disorders, and digital health platforms that help physicians detect patient deterioration before it becomes life threatening.

Beyond healthcare, Israeli innovation has quietly become part of everyday life around the world.

The USB flash drive changed portable computing. Israeli breakthroughs in desalination and drip irrigation have helped countries facing severe water shortages produce food and secure clean drinking water.

Millions of people rely on these innovations every day without giving much thought to where they originated.

Yet many of the same universities whose students depend on these technologies are demanding that Israeli researchers be isolated from international academic life.

These academic boycotts punish knowledge itself.

Supporters often argue that Israel should be singled out because of its government policies. But universities are not governments, scientists are not diplomats, and researchers are not military commanders.

Academic institutions exist to produce knowledge that benefits society. Punishing laboratories because of geopolitical disagreements is the intellectual equivalent of burning books because one dislikes the country where they were printed.

The contrast with the Palestinian territories is equally revealing.

For decades, billions of dollars in international assistance have flowed into Palestinian institutions. Those resources could have been invested in world class universities, medical research centers, engineering institutes, technology parks, and scientific partnerships capable of transforming the regional economy.

Instead, enormous sums disappeared into corruption, armed groups, tunnels, rockets, and political patronage.

Unfortunately, many universities refuse to confront this reality.

Instead, students are encouraged to see the conflict through a simplistic narrative that leaves little room for history, complexity, or uncomfortable facts.

Many are rightly concerned about the growing dependence on artificial intelligence as a substitute for genuine scholarship. AI can summarize information in seconds, but it cannot replace historical understanding or critical analysis. Like every technology, it reflects the information on which it is trained, including the biases and assumptions that dominate public discourse.

That makes universities more essential than ever.

Universities should be teaching students how to think, not what to think. Academic boycotts achieve precisely the opposite. History offers countless examples of what happens when politics determines which scholars deserve to be heard.

Universities should remain places where ideas compete freely and discoveries are judged on their merit.

When institutions begin deciding which science deserves recognition based on politics instead of excellence, they abandon their highest mission.

Sabine Sterk is the CEO of the NGO Time To Stand Up For Israel.