Representatives of Tel Aviv University (TAU) were forced out of the University of Sydney’s Sydney Abroad Fair on Tuesday after pro-Palestine activists involved with the group Students Against War (S.A.W.) organised a snap speak-out and sit-in at the New Law Annex where the TAU stall was held.
The sit-in began when students stormed the New Law Annex at around 10:45am on Tuesday morning, chanting “Uni is for education, not for Gaza’s devastation”. Speeches were made in front of the stall, where S.A.W. member Angus Dermody told the crowd “we’re here to say that we don’t want Sydney University partnering with Israeli universities, with arms companies… we want an education that is for public good.”
Tel Aviv University, and other Israeli universities, are directly involved in Israel’s system of apartheid, as well as the genocide that Israel is currently committing in Gaza. TAU sits on stolen Palestinian land, on the site of the village of Al-Shaykh Muwannis, which was destroyed in the Nakba in 1948. The last remaining building of the village has been taken over by TAU as the faculty club building.
TAU maintains particularly close links with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). One of the university’s most famous alumni Asa Kasher, who is currently the Professor Emeritus of Professional Ethics and Philosophy of Practice, authored the IDF’s code of ethics, and has publicly argued in favour of mass killings of Palestinian civilians.
Additionally, Kasher co-authored an amended version of the ‘Hannibal Directive’, which stipulates that a dead soldier is better than a live captive. While denied by the IDF, it recently laid the grounds for the IDF killing of Israeli civilians on October 7.
TAU also hosts the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS) which staffs predominantly former senior IDF and state security officers. Gabi Siboni, former IDF commander and head of the INSS’s Military and Strategic Affairs Program, has advocated for the ‘Dahiya doctrine’, which promotes the use of force ‘disproportionate to the enemy’s actions and the threat it poses’; a doctrine on full display right now as Israel decimates civilian infrastructure in Gaza and massacres tens of thousands of civilians.
They are partnered with Israeli arms companies like Rafael, IAI, and Elbit Systems who create the weapons being used to rain devastation on Gaza. Their most recent tweet celebrates that their students have worked on improving the remote-controlled vehicles used by the IDF to “revolutionize battlefield strategy.”
Despite TAU’s clear links with the genocide being committed now in Gaza, management at USyd are eager to maintain this exchange relationship and are willing to invite representatives of TAU onto campus to promote their apartheid university to students.
Students occupied the New Law Annex for an hour and a half before representatives of Tel Aviv University hastily exited the building and their stall was packed up. Students then joined staff members and other pro-Palestine activists who had gathered outside the building in support of the sit-in for a larger rally.
At the rally, S.A.W. member Jacob Starling, a participant of the sit-in, announced to the crowd “This campus supports Palestine. The student body supports Palestine. There is no room for apartheid on this campus.” The rally then marched through the Sydney Abroad Fair and down to the F23 administration building to celebrate TAU’s departure and argue for further action against USYD’s ties with Israel.
This snap speak-out was just one part of the student-led campaign to cut USyd ’s ties with Israel and with the arms companies arming and profiting from their genocide. S.A.W. and other student activists have previously spoken out about the repression of pro-Palestine activism on campus including the banning of student meetings about Palestine and faculty-wide bans on lecture announcements about Palestine, in addition to the University’s well-documented partnership with French arms company, Thales, among USyd’s other ties to the military.
S.A.W. has organised another rally for Wednesday March 27, where students and staff will meet at 12pm outside the F23 administration building at to present their petition calling on USyd to cut ties with Israel to management, before marching to UTS to join staff who are protesting against their own university’s ties with Israel, and the Defence Innovation Network which UTS hosts and USyd participates in.
You can sign the petition here.
