The presidents of Haifa and Bar-Ilan universities this week immediately began planning personal appeals to British lecturers to work against the Association of University Teachers' boycott of Israeli universities.
Aharon Ben-Zeev, president of Haifa, denied the university had threatened to discipline a lecturer who defended a student's controversial thesis.
Yosef Yeshurum, rector of Bar-Ilan, is to seek sanctions against Birmingham University and the Open University, where initiators of the AUT boycott teach.