A senior academic at Rhodes has pulled out of an international conference at his university in protest against the presence of Israeli academics. Robert van Niekerk, the director of Rhodes's Institute of Social and Economic Research and a pro-Palestinian campaigner, petitioned Rhodes's senate to deny access to the three academics unless they stated their positions on the occupation of Palestine.When this, and a request for a debate on the Middle East conflict, was denied, Van Niekerk withdrew from the International Society of Critical Health Psychology's conference."My concern is that their participation occurs in a context of a global campaign to institutionalise an academic and cultural boycott of the government of Israel and its institutions in response to documented human rights abuse in Palestine and occupied territories on the part of the government of Israel," he wrote.The issue led to a heated exchange between academics and members of the psychology society across the world.story_article_left1Dr Leeat Granek of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, one of the three academics, was so offended that she also threatened to pull out.In an e-mail, Granek said: "I don't think it is fair to punish me as an academic for what happens on a national level, any more than it is fair to punish American academics, for example, for their government's role in major human rights violations around the globe."Would I ask Robbie [Van Niekerk] or any other South African academic to debate [President Jacob] Zuma's views on homosexuality, teenage pregnancy, minority rights, rape, corruption ... if they came to a conference in Canada or in Israel?"The society is a community of scholars whose aim is to disseminate research and scholarships in critical health psychology. Granek and Van Niekerk were to present papers at the conference, for which more than 130 delegates will gather in Grahamstown from July 12 to 15.In an e-mail, a member of the society, French research professor Alain Giami, defended Granek. "I feel personally offended that an academic woman who has a score of 28 publications ... should be criticised by an obscure academic showing no more than ONE paper."Conference organisers warned Granek that Rhodes had an "active Palestinian student movement that may organise protests outside the venue".Conference chairwoman Professor Catriona Macleod, a professor at Rhodes's psychology department, said this week: "Any academic has the right to withdraw and to state their position on a matter."..