Yisrael Wilman wrote in an article published by Yedioth Ahronoth that although two Iranian missiles that struck the Weizmann Institute research center last June caused losses estimated at around $2 billion, the damage inflicted on the Israeli regime’s research sector goes far beyond physical destruction.
The newspaper quoted David Harel, head of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, as saying that the destruction of the Israeli regime’s scientific and research sector had begun several years ago.
He sharply criticized Israeli officials, stressing that they bear primary responsibility for the current situation, which he said is deteriorating daily, with continuous war and tension playing a major role in accelerating the collapse.
“Sanctions against us are imposed in three forms,” Harel said.
“There are personal sanctions that target a specific scientist. We know of countless cases of researchers whose colleagues abroad no longer want to write papers with them or cooperate with them.”
Meanwhile, Harel cited a case involving Professor Aharon Ciechanover, a Nobel Prize laureate, who was invited by a prestigious European university to participate in a series of online lectures for Nobel laureates, only for the invitation to be canceled.
“Here, in the building we are sitting in, and in neighboring buildings, there are outstanding researchers with international reputations who, over the past two years, have not been invited to a single conference, or were invited and then had their invitations withdrawn,” he said.
Separately, according to a recent report by a body established by the Committee of University Heads to confront sanctions, more than 200 reports of sanctions against Israeli scientists were collected in 2024.
By 2025, that number had risen to nearly 1,000 reports, the report said.
Harel added, “There are institutional, public and declared sanctions against entire universities, especially in Europe. In recent months, almost all universities in Belgium and the Netherlands have issued statements announcing a complete severing of ties with Israeli institutions.”
He said strategic cooperation with leading institutions such as the University of Antwerp, the University of Granada and Ghent University has also been suspended.
In another aspect of the campaign, Harel said there have been attempts to remove faculty members from existing academic associations, efforts that have so far failed due to legal action by Israeli institutions.
As an example, he said Israeli researchers are being excluded from European association grant programs for political reasons, mostly due to genocide and crimes committed by the Israeli regime against the people of Gaza.
He noted that researchers in the humanities and social sciences, as well as young faculty members across disciplines, are suffering the most from these sanctions because they struggle to build the international networks necessary for career advancement.
Harel also warned of a widespread “hidden boycott,” which he said is the most common form and often goes unnoticed, manifesting itself through a lack of cooperation and invitations.
This hidden boycott, he said, also affects the awarding of prizes to Israeli researchers.
“I believe that when the decisive day comes, even in committees that select winners of the Nobel Prize, the Turing Award or other prestigious prizes, when only three candidates remain — for example, a German, a British and an Israeli — the Israeli will not be chosen,” Harel said.
The greatest concern, he added, is the potential damage to Horizon Europe, the European Union’s flagship program and the world’s largest platform for funding research grants and promoting joint scientific projects.
Finally, Harel said proposals to exclude Israel from the program remain on the table, warning that if such a decision is made, debate will arise over whether it would represent the final blow to Israeli science or merely a severe setback.