Israel’s academic institutions are complicit with Israel’s violations of international law and abuses of Palestinian human rights, making them a legitimate target for boycott.
At a Palestine Solidarity Campaign event on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, journalist and activist Ben White used this argument to make the case for the academic boycott of Israel.
The main points of Ben White’s speech are summarised here by Jas Irbal:
The intrinsic link between Israeli academic institutions’ promotion of propaganda, and active involvement in the occupation, cannot be ignored. The complicity of such institutions is a strategic component to the state tools used in apartheid that are responsible for the daily oppression faced by Palestinians.
These are a few examples of how Israeli universities are both complicit and actively involved in the occupation:
• The Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) helped to develop a remote control bulldozer that is used by the Israeli army in occupied territories.
• The Technion also has ‘tailored programmes’ which it offers to the IDF and Israel Ministry of Defence.
• Tel Aviv University is proud of its role at the ‘front line of the critical work to maintain Israel’s military and technological edge’
• The University of Haifa has a National Security Studies Centre which offers a special programme in national security and graduate studies that has trained hundreds of senior officers in the Israeli army.
• During the massacre in Gaza (2008-2009) Ben Gurion University gave a special government benefit for every day that students partook in reserve service in the defence forces.
• Hebrew University has an army base on campus for science students working with the defence forces.
• Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University both offer programmes in Hasbara (a public relations method to promote Israel internationally, A.K.A propaganda). The programmes are linked to different departments in the Israeli government.
• Hebrew University sent out an advert to encourage students to take part in a leadership and public diplomacy programme. The programme was an initiative of the pro-Israeli advocacy group Stand With Us and the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
There are of course, many more examples of Israeli academic institutions’ complicity in the occupation, but the few given highlight some of the ways in which this complicity is manifested.
These institutions actively contribute towards the oppression of Palestinians, as seen in the practical use of technology developed by the Technion and the fellowship between the Israeli army and academic institutions.
Furthermore they help to perpetuate the state ideology that keeps the occupation going and continues to see Israel violating international law and Palestinian human rights.
All of the above breeds a hostile environment for Israeli students and academics who support the Palestinians and an end to the occupation. The difficulties of speaking out against this, as an Israeli pro-Palestinian academic, are explored by Illan Pappe, who works to protect the memory of the Nakba.
His book Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel gives a first-hand account of Israeli academic institutions’ consistent participation in propaganda and their strong affiliation with the Israeli government and army.
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How to join the boycott:
If you study or work at an institution that has links with an Israeli academic institution – eg research links – you can explain to your institution why it should sever those links.
If you’re invited to visit or speak at an Israeli academic institution, please remember the Palestinians’ call for an academic boycott of Israel.
You can access the video of Ben White’s full talk (2012) here:http://www.palestinecampaign.org/the-case-for-cultural-academic-boycott-of-israel-with-intro-by-ken-loach/
Palestine Solidarity Campaign: http://www.palestinecampaign.org