Brave face: but confrontation is taking its toll. Credit: AP

Joint research projects between Israeli and Arab scientists are continuing despite the current confrontation, but at a reduced level, scientists in the region say.

A study last summer counted 132 projects in the natural sciences involving collaboration by researchers from Israel and the Palestinian authority or other Arab countries.

There has been no comprehensive survey on the status of these projects since the outbreak of Israeli–Palestinian violence in September. But although some activities have been cancelled and military restrictions on travel have made it difficult for Palestinian students to reach Israeli campuses, researchers say that individual cooperation continues as much as possible.

Several international scientific conferences scheduled to take place in Israel have been delayed or switched to other venues. The most important was that of the Red Sea research programme, an oceanographic and environmental endeavour involving scientists from Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt.

Immediately after the outbreak of violence, some scientists lost touch. Moein Kan'an, for example, a researcher at Bethlehem University who is involved in several projects with Israeli scientists, says that for the first two weeks of the conflict he heard nothing from his Israeli research partners. “We had a serious talk and resolved that we were going to proceed,” says Doron Lancet of the Weizmann Institute of Science, who is working on a project with Kan'an.

The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities held a day-long seminar last summer to evaluate scholarly cooperation between Israelis and Arabs. Many Israeli scholars voiced their belief that science was one field in which this was increasing, although others expressed doubts.