The signatories said that Ariel was an illegal settlement whose existence contravenes international law and the Geneva Convention. “It was established for the sole purpose of preventing the Palestinians from creating an independent state and thus preventing us, the citizens of Israel, from having the chance to ever live in peace in this region.”

The issue of settlements is one of the thorniest issues that stall the resumption of peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said on several occasions that Ariel would not be detached from Israel under any circumstances. Israel has long been claiming that major settlement blocs in the West Bank would remain under Israeli control under any possible peace agreement with the Palestinians.

The Israeli daily Haaretz and the Israeli Channel 7 television said the signatories include Israel Prize laureates prof. Yehoshua Kolodny of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, prof. Benjamin Isaac of Tel Aviv University and prof. Itamar Procaccia of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

In the petition, the signatories said they will refuse to participate in any functions, conferences or symposiums held at Ariel University. “Ariel is not part of the sovereign state of Israel, and therefore it is impossible to require us to appear there.

“We, academics from a variety of fields and from all the institutions of higher learning in Israel, herein express publicly our opposition to the continued occupation and the establishment of settlements,” the petition states.

“Ariel was built on occupied land. Only a few kilometers away from flourishing Ariel, Palestinians live in villages and refugee camps under unbearably harsh conditions and without basic human rights. Not only do they not have access to higher education, some do not even have running water. These are two different realities that create a policy of apartheid,” the petition also says.

Yigal Cohen-Orgad, chairman of the Ariel college's executive committee, was quoted by Haaretz as saying in response that “a tiny and bizarre minority of some 150 lecturers is behind the petition, out of 7,000 faculty members. The cooperation between the Ariel University Center and many hundreds of scholars from universities in Israel and many hundreds more from 40 universities abroad, is the response to this petition. We know the heads of the universities oppose the call for a boycott and all it entails. I am sure that academia will continue to cooperate with us.”