Podcast Summary: What's Your Number?

Episode: Is BDS a Threat to Israeli Academia?
Date: August 20, 2025
Hosts: Yonatan Adiri & Michal Avram
Guest: Neta Barak Koren (Law Professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; legal scholar and cognitive scientist; head of anti-boycott task forces)

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the impact of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement on Israeli academia, its evolving strategies post-October 7th, and the specific threat now posed to Israeli universities’ global partnerships and reputation. The main segment features a comprehensive interview with Prof. Neta Barak Koren, a leading legal and academic figure currently spearheading anti-boycott efforts in Israel.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Numbers of the Week (00:10–01:03)

• $60 million: IVIX’s Series B funding for AI-powered tax collection tech, highlighting growth in Israeli fintech.
• 26: Foreign students at the Technion, representing those fleeing antisemitic climates abroad, now seeking safety in Israeli academia.

Notable moment: Yonatan shares his personal connection to international programs through his wife’s work at Tel Aviv University (00:46).

Israeli Tech & Markets Brief (02:21–08:17)

• Windex Update: Israeli companies rebounding in public markets; key movers include Palo Alto Networks, CyberArk, and Lemonade.
• AI’s Digital Disruption: The cost of customer acquisition for companies like Monday.com is rising as AI disrupts traditional referral and marketing channels (04:12–05:36).
  • “What happens when Google doesn’t provide you with your leads?... Are we witnessing a shift of the undercurrent of the entire digital economy?” – Yonatan Adiri (04:12)
• Exit Opportunities: AppFlyer (marketing analytics platform) contemplates PE acquisition over IPO, reflecting broader consolidation trends amid a changing tech landscape (05:36–08:17).

Main Interview: Is BDS a Threat to Israeli Academia? (08:46–29:31)

Context and Scale of the BDS Movement (08:48–12:02)

• Origins: The BDS movement draws from historic boycotts of Israel, with academic boycotts gaining traction since the early 2000s.

• Structure: Operates both as a centralized movement (coordinated content, strategy) and through local university chapters worldwide—including the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, South America, and Asia.

• Recent Shift: Escalation post-October 7th, surging demands on university administrations to cut ties with Israeli institutions amid student encampments and faculty activism.

  “The gist behind this is that academia and particularly everything related to innovation and knowledge is one of the major strengths of Israel... and so hitting that and going against it could be a major way to sort of bring Israel down.”
  — Neta Barak Koren (09:04)

Bottom-Up and Top-Down Dynamics (12:02–14:22)

• Process: Student-led protests, often supported by faculty, create institutional pressure.

• Ceasefire Paradox: A notable uptick in boycotts occurred after the 2024 Gaza ceasefire, as BDS groups pressed universities to “consolidate gains” amid perceived vulnerability.

  “The real sort of flood and landslide... has actually been when the ceasefire of 2024 began... They were saying explicitly, like, we have invested so much, let's not let it slip. We have to capitalize and consolidate our gains now.”
  — Neta Barak Koren (13:24)

BDS’s End Goals & Effects (14:22–18:32)

• Strategic Objective: Not mere ceasefire—BDS aims to “dismantle Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.”

• New “Stickiness”: Official boycotts by major institutions (e.g., University of Amsterdam) confer legitimacy to BDS’s accusations, making them harder to undo even after facts are presented.

  “Those lies that are currently spinning on Israeli universities are sticking, I'm afraid. And they've been having success channeling their campaigns to official university resolutions…”
  — Neta Barak Koren (16:46)

What’s at Stake for Israeli Academia? (18:32–23:02)

• Global Integration: Israeli academia, a global enterprise, relies on collaborations, exchanges, and joint research with hundreds of institutions worldwide.

• Direct Consequences:

  • Preventing Israeli scientists from attending or presenting at conferences.
  • Journals refusing to publish (or even review) Israeli papers.
  • Israeli researchers shut out from large international research consortia—sometimes explicitly told their inclusion would risk funding for entire collaborations.

• Real-World Examples: Consortium participants and conference organizers pulling Israeli participation to avoid controversy or BDS pressure.

  “Academia, by its nature, is global and universal. Knowledge has no borders... Most Israeli scientists have those ties, and they rely on these ties to create good science.”
  — Neta Barak Koren (18:57)

  “Now, all of the examples I'm giving are real cases me and my colleagues have been combating over the past two years or so.”
  — Neta Barak Koren (22:47)

The Nuance of Funding vs. Participation (23:02–25:00)

• Funding: Israel could theoretically substitute lost European research funding, but cannot replace the legitimacy, international feedback, and competition that come from global partnerships.

  “You will never get... stamp of both approval, legitimacy. The Horizon and the ERC, these are the most competitive and lucrative grants in the world... You won't be able to replace that.”
  — Neta Barak Koren (24:13)

Strategies for Combating BDS (25:00–29:13)

• Three-Pronged “Toolkit”:

  1. Knowledge/Information: Collect and share evidence to counter BDS narratives (e.g., examples of Jewish-Arab cooperation on Israeli campuses). However, facts alone rarely sway institutions under intense activist pressure.
  2. Social Pressure (“Friends”): Mobilize allies—faculty, students, and international partners—to exert counter-pressure on university administrations and conference organizers.
  3. Legal Arguments: Deploy legal strategies that invoke anti-discrimination and academic freedom laws in relevant jurisdictions, often appealing to oversight bodies and funders rather than the courts.

  “One of the main things that we have been doing is to sort of set the record straight... Unfortunately, I discovered that this is a really limited tool because when universities are under a lot of pressure... they just succumb to the pressure.”
  — Neta Barak Koren (25:48)

  “The third tool is legal strategies... working with regulators of science... to make sure that universities are actually complying with laws...”
  — Neta Barak Koren (28:16)

• Outlook: Successes have been achieved, but as political and social legitimacy for Israel declines in Europe and beyond, the BDS threat—and the fight against it—will likely intensify and become even more challenging.

Timestamps of Memorable Segments & Quotes

• On BDS as a structural, global movement: 09:04–11:50
• On changes since the Gaza ceasefire: 13:00–14:22
• On the “stickiness” of reputational damage: 16:30–18:20
• On real-life examples of exclusion: 19:30–22:55
• On the irreplaceability of global legitimacy/funding: 23:37–24:42
• Summary of BDS-countering “toolkit”: 25:23–29:13

Notable Quotes

• “The end goal of the BDS movement has been clear from the start... their project is to dismantle Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.”
  — Neta Barak Koren (14:31)
• “Imagine somebody who is wrongfully accused of sexual harassment... even if they clear their names, the stain stays... That's like the effect of these [BDS] lies.”
  — Neta Barak Koren (16:10)
• “We are worried that we're in this situation for a while and we will need extensive informational campaign and other things in order to show the real face of the universities to the world.”
  — Neta Barak Koren (18:17)
• “You will never get... stamp of both approval, legitimacy... By going through this process, Israeli science gets better, it gets feedback, it competes on the international stage. You won't be able to replace that.”
  — Neta Barak Koren (24:13)

Hosts’ Reflections and Closing Thoughts (29:43–32:32)

• Yonatan recognizes that attacks on Israeli academia represent a new “front” in modern global conflict—but expresses faith in Israel’s “best brains” to meet the challenge (29:55).
• Michal and Yonatan critique equivocal statements from Norway’s sovereign wealth fund divesting from Israeli firms: “‘Simplifying the management of our investments in Israel.’ What a cop out... If you're going to do it, just come out and say what you're doing.”
  — Michal Avram (31:17)

Takeaways

• The BDS movement’s threat to Israeli academia is real, increasingly institutionalized, and now extends to official ruptures with major universities and research networks.
• The key damage is less about immediate funding and more about reputational harm, loss of international legitimacy, and exclusion from the global “marketplace of ideas”.
• Counter-strategies exist, but grow harder to deploy as Israel’s international standing erodes. Facts alone cannot counter coordinated pressure—a creative mix of coalition-building, legal strategy, and ongoing information campaigns is required.
• The episode ends with hope for resilience, but a sober outlook: this is a long-term challenge with profound implications for Israel’s role in global science and knowledge networks.