A lecturer at the National University of Ireland at Maynooth has refused to provide an Israeli student with some information that she had requested. He replied to her stating, ‘I am sorry, we imposed an academic boycott of Israel at the time of the invasion of Gaza’. The lecturer’s boycott was written up in the Jerusalem Times by the student’s supervisor, Amnon Rubinstein, and was brought to the attention of SPME-UK. The co-coordinator of SPME-UK, Professor Ashley Grossman, wrote to the lecturer involved but received an extemely unhelpful reply.

We are please to say that, due to this and other interventions, especially that of Joy Wolfe MBE, UK representative of StandWithUs, the matter has now been resolved. The President of NUI Maynooth has stated that he apologises unreservedly and that the University “does not operate an academic boycott of Israel or any other country and would not tolerate any member of its staff operating such a boycott. The University has close relationships with a number of Israeli universities and research institutes and we have hosted Israeli scholars and students on a number of occasions”.

Members of SPME-UK who come across such a boycott should inform the co-coordinators of SPME-UK, Professor Grossman a.b.grossman@qmul.ac.uk and/or Dr Howard Kahn spmeuk@yahoo.com. If we act, we can get something done.