The University of Salamanca (USAL) has suspended two lectures by Israeli doctor Galit Nahari following pressure from student groups because the researcher has an “openly Zionist profile and is in favor of Israel’s extermination campaign in Gaza .” The university made this decision to “avoid any incident that could endanger coexistence.” The lectures by Nahari, who has developed interrogation and lie detection techniques and whose main research interests are those of the university, were scheduled to take place on September 17 and 18.
Several university associations have deemed the presence of this academic “unacceptable.” She compares the Palestinian population to Nazis on social media and spreads messages that generalize, treating all Gazans as terrorists of the armed group Hamas. The deans of Law and Psychology have condemned Israel’s war in Gaza, but emphasized that “it is unacceptable to single out a researcher simply because of her nationality.”
The Alternative Student Collective (CEA) has posted a message on social media lamenting that the University of Salamanca has “systematically failed” to comply with a “minimal agreement” signed “to end its complicity in the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people.”
“Regardless of the content of [Galit Nahari’s] lecture, her presence at the University of Salamanca is unacceptable, but what’s more, the fact that her field of study is ‘police interrogation and verification techniques,’ that is, repressive methods used to dominate and abuse the Palestinian people,” the group emphasizes.
Nahari, in one of his last posts, at the end of 2023 and shortly after the Hamas attack that unleashed the repression of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, posted on his social network X an image, in which under the comment “This is what a free Palestine would look like”, several soldiers and people of Muslim appearance are seen forcing a woman, holding a baby face down, several corpses on the ground, the Palestinian flag and a swastika.
The CEA recalls that in 2024 there were several encampments and demonstrations in support of Gaza and that the University agreed “not to participate in or fund any academic event that whitewashes or normalizes violence or the domination of some peoples or social groups over others.” The group details that the researcher comes from Bar-Ilan University, “established in occupied Palestinian territory,” and that she collaborates with the Israeli security service, which has been condemned by the UN.
The deans of Law and Psychology explained that “both faculties have shown ample respect in the defense of human rights and firmly condemn the unsustainable humanitarian crisis occurring in the Palestinian territories.” However, they emphasized that “the targeting of a researcher solely on the basis of her nationality is unacceptable.”
Dr. Galit Nahari “is an internationally recognized expert in lie detection during police interviews. Her work is used by researchers and police officers around the world, and this is the academic and scientific interest of the scheduled events,” they emphasize, and emphasize that “we must keep in mind that the University is a space for free intellectual debate and for harmony and respect among people.”
