APAN backs university students’ demands to cut ties with Israeli universities, weapons companies

Oct 10, 2024

The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) stands in solidarity with the students and staff of the University of Melbourne (UoM) and Western Sydney University (WSU) as they demand that their universities end their relationships with Israeli institutions. 

These relationships that UoM has with, for instance, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (HUJI), and WSU has with weapons manufacturers, must be ended. 

APAN is appalled by both universities’ responses to these demands – the police intimidation and arrest of students, university administration’s threats of disciplinary action against students, and accusations that student protest and demands for divestment and academic boycott is “antisemitic”.

Attempts to smear student protests and actions that support the application of international law as “antisemitic” are further evidence of the dangerous and stifling effect that the IHRA definition of antisemitism has on legitimate criticism of, and calls for action against, the state of Israel.

Student demands at both these universities align with legal advice from UN experts following the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) historic Advisory Opinion declaring Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful.

The continuation of academic relationships with institutions like HUJI flies directly in the face of UN experts’ calls for the cancellation or suspension of “economic relationships, trade agreements, and academic relations with Israel” that contribute to its unlawful presence and apartheid regime.

Israeli universities play a key role in Israel’s occupation and settler-colonialism. They are involved in developing weapon systems used in Israel’s international law violations and war crimes across Palestine, and rationalise the ongoing colonisation of Palestinian land, while systematically discriminating against “non-Jewish” students.

HUJI is partially built on, and actively occupies, stolen Palestinian land and regularly hosts recruitment events for Israel’s notorious domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, which has been condemned by the UN Committee Against Torture for its use of violent interrogation tactics against Palestinians.

HUJI has also allowed Israeli police to use its rooftops to undertake surveillance of Paelstinians in occupied East Jerusalem.

There can be no “business as usual” with a rogue state and other entities that have been called out by the highest courts in the world for brutal and illegal occupation, apartheid, genocide and atrocity crimes against Palestinians.

Both the University of Melbourne and Western Sydney University must heed the demands of their students, staff and broader community and take immediate measures to sever relationships with and end investments in all institutions, organisations and businesses complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its illegal occupation and apartheid in the West Bank.