https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-chemistry-of-anti-israel-propaganda/
When the prominent Switzerland-based chemistry journal Molecules recently announced that its special January 2021 issue would feature a paper from a researcher at Ariel University in Samaria, a group of scientists immediately protested.
Their response had nothing to do with the content of Mindy Levine’s study, however. No, the academics—led by 2018 Nobel Chemistry Prize laureate George Smith and Royal Society of Chemistry fellow Malcolm Levitt—did not concern themselves with their colleague’s work.
All that mattered to them was the mailing address of the institution of higher learning, where Levine heads a lab that engages in toxicant detection, environmental remediation and supramolecular organic chemistry.
In their letter to the editors of Molecules, the group—made up of academics who support Palestinian academics’ non-recognition of Ariel University—demanded that Levine’s article be nixed unless the location of her academic affiliation is “correctly and factually” edited.
But Levine, a new immigrant to Israel from the United States with a background from the University of Rhode Island, Columbia and MIT, had listed the school’s address as “Ariel University, 65 Ramat HaGolan Street, Ariel, Israel.”
The “chemical reaction” on the part of Smith, Levitt and their followers was rage born of believing that their scientific credentials award them automatic knowledge in fields far beyond their purview. They insisted, thus, that the address be changed to read: “Ariel University, illegal Israeli settlement of Ariel, Occupied Palestinian Territory.”