Cornell group circulates petition ‘refusing to collaborate’ on Technion deal

Digital rendering of Cornell Technion planned campus. (Image: BerlinRose)

Students and faculty at Cornell University are challenging the school's partnership with the Israeli Technion Institute to build a complex on New York City’s Roosevelt Island. Cornell’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is circulating a petition calling into question the deal with Israel's key weapons development institute.

The student-run Cornell Daily Sun covered the story earlier this week. In addition to the SJP campaign, two professors condemned the planned campus:

Prof. Eric Cheyfitz, English, who signed the petition, said the partnership raises ethical questions about how universities should collaborate.

'The Cornell University bylaws state: that one of ‘the functions of the University Faculty shall be to consider questions of educational policy which concern more than one college, school or separate academic unit, or are general in nature,’ Cheyfitz said in an email. 'In the case of the Technion partnership, no such consideration was afforded the faculty through its representatives in the Faculty Senate.'

Professor Elizabeth Sanders also commented:

'[A]n endorsement of a university that is heavily involved in the Israeli military-industrial complex, and that decision was taken in complete secrecy, as the Provost acknowledged, without any consultation with the faculty.'

She adds that, without faculty input, the project endorses the Israeli occupation:

'This could be, and no doubt will be, interpreted as a warm embrace of the [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu government that funds Technion, and of the Israeli occupation,' she said. 'And Technion –– much to the surprise, I think, of faculty –– is not putting forward any money whatever, so it has to be seen as a very symbolic decision. Nobody would argue that this is the best university in the world with which we could have partnered.'

The SJP petition explains Technion's connection to the Israeli occupation, focusing on the institute's contracts with two weapons companies:

More than any other university in Israel, the Technion, which is involved in the research and development of military and arms technology, is directly implicated in war crimes. Its joint programs with the Israeli military and its cooperative research programs with two of Israel’s major weapons corporations, Elbit and Rafael, renders Technion a full participant in the actions carried out by the Israeli military. Those actions include targeting civilians, as in the 2006 invasion of Lebanon and the 2008-2009 Cast Lead operation against Gaza, and physically contributing to Israel’s discriminatory practices in the West Bank with the construction of the separation wall that cuts sharply into the occupied West Bank and disrupts the lives of Palestinians in countless ways. The Cornell administration cannot plead ignorance of these facts. We refuse to collaborate with this.

Rafael Advanced Defence Systems LTD., which established a three-year ‘in-house’ MBA program at Technion University, has worked with students and faculty there to develop the ‘Ramtech’ rockets and different unmanned aircraft to be used in Israel’s ongoing occupation. Rafael also developed the armor used by the Merkava-4 tanks, which enabled the Israeli military forces to carry out urban warfare, as they did during the Cast Lead operation. In the course of that warfare, actions were taken that constitute war crimes under international law. We refuse to collaborate with this.

Elbit Systems, which established a training program for engineers in the Technion and has given research grants to Technion consisting of half a million US dollars a year for 5 years, is one of the two main contractors for Israel’s separation wall—which has been declared illegal by the international Court of Justice—and is the producer of the Hermes 450 drones, which were used during the flotilla attack, as well as during some of the deadlier incidents during the 2006 war against Lebanon and the 2008-2009 attack on Gaza. Human Rights Watch has condemned Israel’s use of drones for targeted killings. Such killings have prompted Amnesty International to call for a suspension of UK arms sales to Israel. Technion is complicit in these killings. We refuse to collaborate with this.

Cornell Hillel's "thank you."

The iPetition received 576 signatures, according to the university's student paper. In response, Cornell’s Hillel posted on its website a "thank you" letter extending congratulations to those who've supported the partnership. The thank you does not address the Israeli military or weapons industry, but calls Technion "an embodiment of Israel’s culture of innovation."