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Political duress within the academic community is a strong sense that there is a threat of external interference with core academic values and freedoms - free inquiry, free speech institutional autonomy and personal safety. After a short introduction to the background of Israeli higher education, this article focuses on two current threats: first, political intimidation originating from extreme nationalistic and religious groups aimed at silencing "nonloyal" voices inside and outside the Universities (for example, the pipe bomb that exploded on September 25, 2008, at the gate of Professor Ze'ev Sternhel's house, wounding him slightly, or the threats on the Israel-Academia-Monitor.com web site); second, a process of "commodification" - political and administrative pressures and the enforcement of a "management" and privatization policies (for example, budget cuts forcing internal institutional changes, shifts of resources, and competition). These steps have been accompanied by antiintellectualism under the slogan of the "democratization of higher education." Academic freedom is under duress in Israel because of the combination of these two attitudes and policies aimed at "taming" higher education.
