In the past two years, universities in Israel, Germany and the US have undergone an unsettling transformation. Once bastions of open enquiry, they are increasingly engaged in ideological gatekeeping.

Across all three self-described democracies, criticism of Israel¡¯s war in Gaza or expressions of solidarity with Palestinians have led to resignations, rescinded appointments, defunded programmes, cancelled lectures, deportations, arrests and imprisonments. The mechanisms differ, yet the pattern is strikingly similar: dissent is reframed as a threat, academic freedom becomes conditional, and universities prioritise managing political risk over hosting scholarly debate.

In Israel, repression is overt. Since October 2023, emergency regulations have criminalised political expression, enabling the state to suspend or expel students and dismiss faculty for statements interpreted as undermining the war effort. Palestinian citizens of Israel ¨C around 20 per cent of the population ¨C have been the most affected, but Jewish Israeli academics critical of the war have also faced disciplinary measures.

In some cases, faculty members have been imprisoned for speech alone. Civil society watchdogs publish blacklists and run public campaigns targeting academics by name, fostering an environment where colleagues self-censor to avoid becoming targets.

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Germany¡¯s crackdown is more bureaucratic but equally effective. A postwar doctrine known as Staatsr?son ¨C the idea that unconditional support for Israel is a moral obligation ¨C has been formalised through parliamentary resolutions, the appointment of ¡°antisemitism commissioners¡± with broad powers to intervene in academic and cultural programming and the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism ¨C whose inclusion of certain criticisms of Israel among its ¡°illustrative examples¡± enables administrators to treat political dissent as discrimination.

The result is a pervasive chill. Job candidates are asked to affirm positions on Israel during the hiring process, and public institutions cancel events or disinvite speakers for perceived connections to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, often without any legal finding of antisemitism.

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In the US, government intervention dovetails with legal threats and donor demands, which have also led universities to adopt expansive definitions of antisemitism and discipline students and staff for speech deemed unacceptable. Scholars have been arrested and in connection with their speech or participation in campus protests. International scholars have faced . At one major university, a government settlement required both the reporting of certain international students to immigration authorities and the adoption of the IHRA definition.

The cost to universities is more than reputational. Research agendas shift away from politically sensitive topics; curricula avoid contested histories; students steer clear of activism that could jeopardise their degrees or careers. Academic freedom becomes unevenly distributed, with certain viewpoints ¨C often those aligned with state policy ¨C protected, while others are treated as security risks.

Scholars whose work focuses on Israel, Palestine and related subjects face heightened scrutiny, withdrawn collaborations and stalled careers. Blacklist sites and watchdog groups such as Canary Mission (US), Ruhrbarone (Germany) and Im Tirtzu (Israel) share dossiers with governments and institutions or mount public campaigns to discredit targeted individuals. In some cases, entire areas of enquiry ¨C such as settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing or genocide ¨C are marginalised or treated as inherently suspect, regardless of scholarly merit.

The dynamic is internationally self-reinforcing. When one country enforces a speech restriction, others point to it as precedent. The same moral and political language travels with these measures: safeguarding students, protecting public order, combating hate. Yet the effect is not safety; it is the targeted silencing of dissent.

Resistance persists. Faculty unions, student coalitions, legal advocacy groups and international scholarly networks have mounted challenges ¨C in court and through public campaigns. Lawsuits in the US have contested the government¡¯s authority to condition funding on political compliance. In Germany, administrative courts have occasionally overturned blanket bans on pro-Palestinian events. In Israel, grassroots networks have organised alternative teach-ins and underground study groups.

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These acts matter, but they reveal how far academic freedom has been undermined. The necessity of mobilisation to defend a lecture, conference or faculty appointment would once have been unthinkable.

For university leaders, the challenge is not only to resist external pressure but to examine their own role in enabling it. Too often, decisions are guided by risk management rather than principle. ¡°Neutrality¡± is invoked selectively, often to avoid controversy rather than to protect difficult conversations. Diversity and inclusion frameworks, meant to expand participation, are sometimes instrumentalised to exclude Palestine advocacy under the banner of protecting other students.

Like the challenges themselves, responses must be transnational. This means building networks of legal, financial and institutional support that operate across borders; documenting repression so patterns are visible; and developing principles of academic freedom that cannot be overridden by political expediency.

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It also requires reframing the conversation. The question is not whether certain viewpoints are offensive, but whether universities will defend their expression. True academic freedom is not a licence to speak only within approved ideological boundaries ¨C it is the recognition that knowledge production requires confronting power, even at personal or institutional risk.

At stake is more than the future of scholarly debate on Israel-Palestine. If universities will not host contested narratives about one of the most urgent conflicts of our time, they are failing in their responsibility to protect the ability of both scholars and students to think, research and speak without fear.

The precedents being set now ¨C loyalty tests in hiring, donor-driven research agendas, the policing of political associations ¨C can and will be applied to other issues, too. Once this machinery of suppression is normalised, academic freedom will not be easily restored.

Katharina Galor is Hirschfeld associate teaching professor of Judaic studies at Brown University. Her latest book is Out of Gaza: A Tale of Love, Exile, and Friendship (Potomac Books, 2025).

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Noga Wolff teaches at the College of Management Academic Studies in Israel. She writes on historiographical interpretations of antisemitism and the intersections of identity, pedagogy and society in contemporary Israel.