The University of Galway recently signed a new EU-funded project in the area of seawater treatment and green hydrogen production. The more than €3 million project led by the University of Galway includes the Technion, Israel’s Institute of Technology, which is deeply embedded and complicit in Israel’s regime of apartheid, illegal colonial settlement, and occupation. The Technion prides itself on its financial, technological, and personnel contribution to the Israeli military and its occupation of Palestinian territory and has been described for many years as “an elite university for Israeli student-soldiers … the Technion, its lecturers, researchers and students have become an essential cog in the Israeli war machine, a pillar of hard-line Israeli policy.” The University of Galway’s shameful decision to lead a new project with the Technion is indefensible and runs counter to its own statement that the “University of Galway is committed to human rights and is anti-apartheid.”
In particular, the Technion works with Israel’s arms industry, including its top weapons manufacturer Elbit systems, has joint programs with the Israeli military, and develops technology used in Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. As highlighted by Dr Maya Wind, who spoke at several Irish universities in 2024, including at the University of Galway, Technion even offers “courses on arms and security marketing and export.” This is a central part of the Technion’s history and ongoing identity. Before, during, and since the forced displacement and expulsion of three-quarters of the Palestinian people in the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe), the Technion was part of the original group of universities that became “the military-scientific center of the Israeli state” and “led the development of Israeli military industries.” The Technion helped create both Rafael, “one of Israel’s leading state-owned weapons corporations,” which is a major supplier of missiles to its military, and Israel Aerospace Industries, another of the country’s major arms manufacturers, which supplies the Israeli military with jets, drones, and weapons systems. The extent of military research, laboratories, and partnerships are such that Israel’s military industries are “embedded in the Technion and are often difficult to distinguish from the university.” This is reflective of the sector as a whole: while there is, as Wind puts it, sometimes a misunderstanding in the West that Israeli universities are liberal and progressive spaces that are independent of the Israeli security state, “they are actually central to sustaining it.” Entering into major joint institutional projects with Israeli universities such as the Technion grants significant legitimacy to this complicity, at a time when our duty as members of the international academic community compels us to do precisely the opposite.
The University of Galway’s latest decision, following 16 months of the ongoing EU and US-backed Israeli genocide, stands in stark contrast with the commitments the University made last February when it became the first Irish university to demand an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, a decision lauded worldwide. Academics for Palestine welcomed this at the time, wrote to the President of the University of Galway to commend them for taking this position, and wrote to the heads of all other Irish higher education institutions to urge them to follow Galway’s lead. In a statement then issued by former University President Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, the University of Galway further pledged a review of all ties with Israeli institutions. This had followed a call from almost 1,000 scholars across Ireland, including many in Galway, calling for an academic boycott of Israel and the suspension of any partnerships or affiliations with Israeli institutions in the context of the ongoing genocide. Just days after we had made that call in November 2023, as United Nations experts were increasingly warning of the devastating impacts of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza and legal submissions against Israeli genocide were being prepared for the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and various national courts, the Technion announced the creation of additional financial grants and benefits for its 3,000 soldier students who joined the genocidal assault on Gaza.
For over two decades, the Palestinian movement for freedom, justice, and equality has called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions “as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid.” Calls for boycotting the Technion have been made throughout Israel’s ongoing genocide due to the institute’s involvement in the Israeli weapons industry and development of technology used in Israel’s genocide and destruction of Palestinian homes, schools, universities, medical facilities, emergency shelters, water and sanitation, and other vital infrastructure. Our Palestinian higher education colleagues have called for isolating Israeli universities such as the Technion in support of freedom and justice in Palestine. They have also highlighted Israel’s scholasticide in Gaza, where 494 schools and universities have been partially or completely destroyed by the Israeli occupying forces. According to the Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, 12,800 students, 760 teachers and educational staff, and 150 academics and researchers are estimated to have been killed in Israel’s ongoing genocide.
In signing a new partnership with the Technion on 8 December 2024, the University of Galway management not only expressly disregarded legitimate calls for boycotting complicit institutions, but further went against the findings of its own working group set up in April 2024 to review ties with Israeli institutions and industry. The working group had published the results of its review in June 2024, insisting that the University’s relationships must be assessed on the basis of human rights and international law, taking into consideration the broader context, rather than being “viewed through the prism of the academic freedom of the individual researcher.” The working group report, which was noted by the University’s Governing Authority, identified five Israeli suppliers providing services to the University in addition to the University’s involvement in 11 research consortia involving Israeli partners. It recommended that “going forward, University of Galway does not accept funding for research services from Israeli and other complicit companies and institutions” and that “Participation in all future research consortia will be subject to [a] human rights impact assessment.” This is a clear acknowledgement of the complicity of Israeli institutions like the Technion in serious breaches of international law and human rights, which makes entering into a major new institutional research project partnership with them unjustifiable and untenable.
In addition, we note that University Management’s decision was undertaken without any meaningful consultation, despite good faith engagement by students, staff, and researchers with the University for over 16 months of Israel’s ongoing genocide. The partnership with Technion also represents a double standard in the University’s response to serious breaches of international law. Over a year ago, the Palestine Solidarity Society on campus had demanded that the University of Galway uphold its stated commitment to human rights by immediately enforcing a comprehensive and consistent boycott of all Israeli academic institutions in line with the precedent set in its response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the latter case, the University reviewed its “collaborations and connections with Russia,” cancelled “research engagements and collaborations,” and announced that no new research collaborations “with any Russian institution will be approved by University of Galway.”
As University Management is set to meet this week to discuss this shameful decision, following calls by students, researchers, and staff, and ahead of the planned protest by the Palestine Solidarity Society on campus today, Academics for Palestine issue this urgent call. In particular, we:
1. Condemn the University of Galway’s decision to enter into partnership with the Technion as indefensible in the context of Israel’s genocide, settler colonial apartheid, and occupation.
2. Express our full support for the University of Galway Palestine Solidarity Society protest against this latest decision on campus on Wednesday, 19 February 2025, and any ongoing protests until the University fully withdraws and ceases its new contract with the Technion.
3. Call for the urgent implementation, without further delay, of the recommendations of the 2024 working group set up to review ties with Israeli institutions and industry, toward ending all complicity in Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation, as required by international law.
4. Call for full transparency in the University of Galway’s decision-making, including good faith engagement with students, staff, and researchers. As such, we request as a matter of urgency:
a. Disclosing the status of the University of Galway’s development and implementation of the Human Rights Impact Assessment tool and its application to the partnership with the Technion, detailing the grounds on which the new contract was approved;
b. Establishing a mechanism for students, researchers, and staff to raise issues regarding the University of Galway’s existing partnerships, agreements, or investments that do not comply with its human rights commitments, allowing for the possibility of review and termination of such ties.
5. Call on the University of Galway to urgently reverse its decision and fully withdraw from any partnership involving the Technion or any other institution complicit in serious breaches of international law. This commitment requires the University of Galway to fully divest from, cut existing ties, and not enter into any new partnerships, including research consortia, with Israeli institutions and all other complicit companies and institutions.
academicsforpalestine.org 