I’ve just been sent this story of a report on the Ben Gurion University political science department. This is a department I know quite well, having visited it twice to give talks. The report is critical and suggests closing the department as a last resort. It is impossible not to see this as an attack on a department that has many critical voices of the Israeli state within it. Several instances of criticism of individuals and the department have been recorded in the past (the links in the story above take you to some examples). The report claims the need for balance – presumably pro-state views – but I wonder how much it requires the opposite in all the other, more conservative, political science departments? One of the defences against the proposed boycott of Israeli universities was that they were one of the places were the free exchange of ideas could be had. It would send a terrible signal if one of those dissenting voices was silenced.