Molecules, a prestigious chemistry journal based in Switzerland, recently decided to cancel the publication of a special January issue over a single article by an organic chemist named Mindy Levine. But no objections were raised over Levine’s conclusion or the quality of her research; rather the issue at hand was her byline, which listed the university where she currently works as “Ariel University, 65 Ramat HaGolan Street, Ariel, Israel.” This address enraged group of chemists, led by the Nobel prize-winner George Smith, as Ruthie Blum explains:

[These scientists] demanded that Levine’s article be nixed unless the location of her academic affiliation were “correctly and factually” edited. . . . They insisted, thus, that the address be changed to read: “Ariel University, illegal Israeli settlement of Ariel, Occupied Palestinian Territory.” . . . Molecules asked Levine to correct the error of her affiliation.

Levine courageously refuse to give in. Blum continues:

This is not the first time that Ariel University—whose 16,000 students and 450 senior faculty members include all sectors of Israeli society, including many Arabs and Druze—has been targeted by left-wing academics who toe the Palestinian line.

As the Palestinian news agency WAFA proudly reported on Monday: “In 2018, more than half of the invited speakers withdrew from a scientific workshop at Ariel University following appeals from Palestinian and international scholars. Prominent scientists published a letter in the Guardian stating that science should not be used ‘to normalize [Israel’s] occupation of the Palestinian territories.’”

Indeed, it is Smith . . . and the editors of Molecules—not Levine—who are putting propaganda over academic freedom in the “larger interest of the global science community in unfettered publication of scientific ideas and results.”

As we mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter, Israeli special forces carried out a daring boots-on-the-ground raid on September 8 targeting the Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in northwestern Syria. The site was used for producing and storing missiles which are then transferred to Hizballah in Lebanon. Jonathan Spyer notes that the raid was accompanied by extensive airstrikes in Syira,and followed a few days later by extensive attacks on Hizballah in Lebanon, one of which killed Mohammad Qassem al-Shaer, a senior officer in the terrorist group’s Radwan force, an elite infantry group. And yesterday, the IDF destroyed a weapons depot, an observation post, and other Hizballah positions. Spyer puts these attacks in context:

The direct purpose of the raid, of course, was the destruction of the facilities and materials targeted. But Israel also appeared to be delivering a message to the Syrian regime that it should not imagine itself to be immune should it choose to continue its involvement with the Iran-led axis’s current campaign against Israel.

Similarly, the killing of al-Shaer indicated that Israel is no longer limiting its response to Hizballah attacks to the border area. Rather, Hizballah operatives in Israel’s crosshairs are now considered fair game wherever they may be located in Lebanon.

The SSRC raid and the killing of al-Shaer are unlikely to have been one-off events. Rather, they represent the systematic broadening of the parameters of the conflict in the north. Hizballah commenced the current round of fighting on October 8, in support of Hamas in Gaza. It has vowed to stop firing only when a ceasefire is reached in the south—a prospect which currently seems distant.