...In recent weeks, the foundation has received two rejections from British academics to review an application. In one, received last month, the unnamed academic describes his "utmost respect" for the academic whose grant he's been asked to review, but refuses on the basis that it is Israeli money and he disapproves of their government's actions towards the Palestinian people. "I hope you understand this is nothing personal," he adds.

The second, also received last month, again says the author won't review the proposal. "I support the academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions, as a means of registering my protest against Israelis' lack of respect for human rights and continuing illegal occupation of Palestinian land."

Almost three years ago to the day, moves towards an academic boycott of Israel began in earnest when a moratorium on European funding for Israeli research was suggested by Steven and Hilary Rose and 120 other academics, in a letter to the Guardian. The issue has burst on to the front pages intermittently: when Umist's Mona Baker sacked two Israeli linguists from a translation journal she edited; when Oxford's Andrew Wilkie refused a place to an Israeli PhD student; and last year, when the School of Oriental and African Studies hosted a conference on the subject entitled Resisting Israeli Apartheid: Strategies and Principles...

...Blackwell says that over the past three years the boycott has been as active as ever, but on a quiet and individual level - "a covert boycott where people are quietly getting on with it. It's a passive boycott that dares not speak its name"...