Israel as a Rogue State 336

'Editor’s note: - Dr Vacy Vlazna of Justice for Palestine Matters (JFPM) has
written an excellently researched article which uncovers some very
disturbing facts about the relationship between Israeli and Australian
universities.  Certainly, it should concern us enough to speak out against
this normalisation of academic exchange when in fact Israeli is using the
Palestinian people as guinea pigs to test the lethal weaponry that is touted
as security.   - SK 

Israeli hawkademia in Australian universities

The Israeli 'defense' industry is embedded in Israeli universities and in
universities around the world including Australia. It plunders overseas
intellectual property for Israel’s military research-and-development (R&D)
programs while strategic bi-lateral research and exchange missions
deliberately whitewash or ‘normalize’ the Zionist military occupation of
Palestine and her people.

In Israel, Zionism and the military are undifferentiated. The IOF (Israeli
Occupation Forces), the world’s fourth most powerful (nuclear) army, since
the inception of the state of Israel, is duty bound to secure the fanatical
Zionist goal of Eretz Yisrael or Greater Israel, which incorporates the
whole of historic Palestine and beyond (from the Nile to the Euphrates).

The 1948 Nakba, the Catastrophe, which accounted  for the destruction of 500
Palestinian villages and the forceful expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians
by Israeli terrorist militia (Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah) that metamorphosed
into the Israeli army, has never ended with Israel’s relentless policies of
ethnic cleansing through the expansion of its illegal colonies and the
illegal Annexation Wall on stolen Palestinian land perforated moreover by
hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks manned by belligerent IOF.

Under international law, Israel’s military occupation of Palestine is
illegal and yet it has impunity to defy UN Resolutions and to daily commit
war crimes because of US, EU, Canadian and Australian support as well as the
$3.1 billion in Israeli military assistance granted annually from the US
State Department budget.

“Israeli defense sales in 2010 totaled 7.2 billion U.S. dollars, making the
small nation the world's fourth largest exporter...Most of the sales are
from four leading companies: Elbit Systems, Israeli Aerospace Industries
(IAI), Rafael, and Israel Military Industries ..Strong points of Israel's
arms industry include unmanned aerial vehicles, armoured vehicles, smart
munitions, military and civilian aircraft avionics, weapons platforms and
structural upgrades for foreign governments and private clients.”

It is Palestinian men, women, teenagers and children who are the guinea pigs
of Israel’s 'battle-tested' weaponry.

Israeli defense companies as well as their joint venture US/UK defense
partners have subsidiaries in Australia- Elbit Australia, Oracle Australia,
Thales Australia, Raytheon Australia and have footholds in and associations
with Australian universities.

In November 2011, Elbit Systems joined the Australian Defense Department's
Rapid Prototyping, Development and Evaluation Program. The University of
Western Australia and Edith Cowan University also joined. “Elbit Systems and
its subsidiaries contribute directly to two of the most insidious facets of
the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory: the indiscriminate assaults
on civilian populations, through the provision of unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAV's or ‘drones') and other military equipment to Occupation forces; and
the ever-tightening ghettoization of the West Bank, through the provision of
surveillance and electronics systems along the Apartheid Wall and
settlements. During Israel's 23-day assault in Gaza in 2008-09, missiles
fired from drones were directly attributed to the killing of 78
Palestinians, including 29 children. Like all Israeli firms operating the
military technology sector, endless war and occupation create valuable
marketing opportunities. Elbit UAVs, for example, can be sold on the global
market as ‘battle tested' devices, significantly increasing their appeal and
leading to their adoption by a number of militaries.”

The ZEN Entrepreneurs’ Challenge is a student business planning competition
run by the Entrepreneurship, Commercialization and Innovation Centre at the
University of Adelaide. ‘Participants work with dedicated mentors to
cultivate their entrepreneurial plans including marketing thanks to Dr.
Ben-Ari who joined Elbit Systems in 1978 and is, since 2001, Managing
Director of Elbit Systems Singapore.

The Edith Cowan University’s Security Management program is offering
academic credit to delegates on completion of the 2013 “Security
Fundamentals Tour of Israel designed to provide a select group of security
specialists and professionals with an insight into Israel’s critical
infrastructure security and what continues to drive Israel to be one of the
leading security technology providers.” The tour includes the
euphemistically named ‘Separation’ Wall which is in fact an
Apartheid/Annexation Wall deemed illegal by the International Court of
Justice in 2004 and also includes the security, passenger screening and
deterrence applications of Ben Gurion Airport which last month detained and
deported volunteers invited to Palestine to help build a school for blind
children. Last year, Australians Vivienne Porzsolt and Sylvia Hale were also
arrested and detained at Ben Gurion for having the temerity of wanting to
visit Marrickville’s sister city, Bethlehem.

In February, a guest speaker at Deakin University’s 7th Annual International
Electromaterials Science Symposium was A/Prof. Yair Ein - Eli, He had been
Director of Research and Battery Technology at Electric Fuel Ltd before
joining the Department of Materials Engineering at the Technion. Electric
Fuel Ltd is a subsidiary of the Arotech Corporation which has facilities in
Israel and “operates through three major business divisions: High-level
armoring for military and nonmilitary air and ground vehicles; interactive
simulation for military, law enforcement and commercial markets, and
batteries and charging systems for the military’.

Each Israeli university has societies worldwide that encourage and
facilitate academic and scientific exchanges and collaboration. ‘Recent
exchanges organized by The Technion Society of Australia have included
Technion staff at Sydney University, University of NSW, University of
Newcastle, Victoria University, University of Adelaide and Australian
National University.’ On staff at the University of Western Sydney is a
professor with Technion associations and experience in military and civilian
R&D. Both Elbit and Rafael Advanced Systems (run by the Israeli Ministry for
Defence)have long-standing partnerships with the hawkish Technion.

In May 2008 was the launch of the AICC s inaugural WA Innovation and
Business Development Mission to Israel, supported by the WA State
Governments Department of Industry and Resources and coordinated by the
Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce (WA) Inc. (AICC). Among delegates were
representatives from the University of Western Australia and Murdoch
University. Mr R McCulloch representing Murdoch University’s interest in
water research and renewable energy institutes praised Israel’s “immediate
interest and openness to finding partners” though, of course this excludes
Palestinians whose critical water resources are stolen, controlled and/or
demolished by Israel.

The University of Johannesburg which had a joint water project with Ben
Gurion University severed links in 2011 because it found "detailed, factual
evidence and information regarding Ben Gurion's direct and indirect role in
further entrenching the violations of human rights and international law by
the Israeli state".

Innocuous academic interchange can promote normalization whereby Israeli
oppression, racism and apartheid is accepted as the ‘normal’ status quo.

The Yachad Accelerated Learning Project designed to improve outcomes and
address inequalities in Indigenous and Remote education was set up with the
support of  Melbourne and Monash Universities and The Hebrew University
(Michael Federmann, the Chairman of Elbit Systems is a member of the
Executive Committee of the Board of Governors of Hebrew University). In 2007
an Australian Yachad delegation enthusiastically visited the Bedouin village
of Kseyfeh aware or unaware that the per capita spending per Bedouin student
is less than half Israel’s average and that 40% of indigenous Bedouins are
threatened by forced transfer policies and live in Unrecognized Villages
systematically deprived of water, electricity, health care, education yet
not deprived of incessant home demolitions.

The information presented here about the relationship between Australian
universities and the Israeli occupation of Palestine is merely the tip of a
very grubby iceberg. Australian universities by their degrading prostration
to funding donors associated with Zionist Israel have lost their moral
equilibrium and the purpose and ideals of academia. Dissenting academics are
rare. Few emulate Professor Jake Lynch’s protest of the 2011 Israel Research
Forum at the University of Sydney with guest experts from the The Weizmann
Institute of Science, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, and Tel
Aviv University, all of which collaborate with the Israeli military
industry.

Academics and students, concerned for the human rights of the people of
Palestine, must investigate their university finances and demand divestment
from and boycott of companies and Israeli universities that are implicated
in the war crimes and crimes against humanity that Palestinians suffer
daily.

- Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was
Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace
talks, Helsinki, February 2005 and was coordinator of the East Timor Justice
Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from
1999-2001.
AFP Link: http://www.australiansforpalestine.net/62462#more-62462Original Link: http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=19268'