After a heated debate a narrow majority of the 190 delegates at the Association of University Teachers (AUT) conference voted to cut all links with Haifa and Bar-Ilan universities.

The move was in protest against the alleged ill-treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories and in support of Israeli academics who claim that they are not allowed to conduct studies into the establishment of the state of Israel.

Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors and principals, condemned the move as “inimical to academic freedom”. The Academic Friends of Israel, whose patron is Dr Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, called it “a backward step in the current climate of positive moves being made in the region”.

The Israeli Embassy said the resolution ignored improvements in Israeli-Palestinian relations. “Israeli universities are beacons of academic freedom where Jews and Arabs alike study together,” the statement said. “In particular, Haifa University has a substantial Arab faculty and student body.

“We are certain that the British Government and British university authorities will make it clear that no discrimination or bias on the grounds of nationality, race or religion will be tolerated in UK higher education.”

Dr Sacks said: “I am most distressed by this outcome. Academic life is about building bridges of dialogue, not destroying them; opening minds, not closing them; hearing both sides of an argument, not one alone.”

The AUT, which represents 49,000 academics, carried the resolution by 96 votes to 92 at its meeting in Eastbourne.

The call to boycott the two universities and their staff was led by Sue Blackwell, a lecturer in English at Birmingham University, and Shereen Benjamin, a Birmingham-based linguist, after pleas by more than 60 cultural and academic groups in the West Bank and Gaza. Ms Blackwell gave details of alleged abuses by the Israeli Army in the occupied territories. Ms Benjamin, who is Jewish and declares herself to be a “supporter of Israel”, held up photographs that, she said, illustrated the destruction of the home of a Palestinian family last November which, she alleged, was carried out to allow the expansion of the He- brew University of Jerusalem.

She also highlighted the case of a senior lecturer at Haifa University allegedly threatened with court action and dismissal for defending a graduate’s thesis on a massacre of civilians by the Haganah, the Jewish militia preceding the state of Israel. She said: “There are far too few academics in Israel who are prepared to speak out against the (Israeli) Government’s past and ongoing culpabilities in the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

The delegates postponed a boycott of the Hebrew University, to investigate the alleged confiscation of land.

Haifa, Bar-Ilan and the Hebrew universities firmly deny all the allegations.

There was confusion last night over how the boycott would operate and whether it would breach equal opportunities regulations. Hugh Mason, of the AUT executive, said he feared that the vote would cause the AUT difficulties in dealing with academics in the Middle East, but “in practice it won’t have much of an impact. People will make their own decisions.”

This week Professor Avishay Braverman, head of the Israeli Association, a group of Israeli academics, and president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, warned the union that severing links would freeze Israeli participation in bilateral research and “neither aid Palestinians nor promote dialogue”.

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