Documents released after a Freedom of Information (FOI) request was submitted by members of Students Against War (SAW) have confirmed that USyd is committed to continuing its exchange programs with Israel.
In July, an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling stated that no relationships are to be made with Israeli institutions involved in the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, having ordered all states to “abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory.”
Speaking to the release of the documents, SAW member Vieve Carnsew said that “The documents confirm what Palestinians and pro-Palestine activists have been saying for over a year: Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott and USyd management are complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and by continuing these exchange programs USyd is breaking international law.”
USyd made efforts in May and June of this year to run sessions in 2025 of its ‘OLES2155: Experience Israel’ exchange unit with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ).
In the same period Scott sent an all-student email promising that his management was “committed to genuinely responding to the deeply held concerns of the encampment.”
The agreement for a January 2025 session of the ‘Experience Israel’ unit was signed in June by a representative of the HUJ and the Dean of USyd’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Lisa Adkins.
The agreement lists the accommodation option for participating students as the HUJ’s ‘Student Village’ located on Mount Scopus.
HUJ’s Mount Scopus campus, including its ‘Student Village’, is built on Palestinian land illegally seized after the six-day war of 1967.
In response to the accommodation, Amnesty International said “a student village is little different to a settlement in its illegality if it’s been built on stolen land.”
Carnsew told Honi “by renewing and signing off on an agreement which openly declares that USyd students will be sent on exchange to a campus operating on illegally occupied Palestinian land, USyd has proven how little it cares for human rights or international law.”
The University confirmed to Honi that the January session would not go ahead due to ongoing travel advice.
This agreement is just one of the many exchange programs that USyd runs with Israeli universities. The released documents confirm that, as of June 2024, USyd had active exchange agreements to send students to Belazel Academy of Arts and Design, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and Tel Aviv University.
When asked about future sessions a University spokesperson said “future exchanges with the Israeli universities with which we have active programs, including the Israel Institute of Technology and Tel Aviv University, will similarly be dependent on expert travel advice at the time.”
All of the Israeli universities that USyd has exchange partnerships with have direct ties with the Israeli government and military.
HUJ hosts the Havatzalot Program which trains officers within the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and recruits for Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence agency. Tel Aviv University hosts the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS) which staffs predominantly former senior IDF and state security officers. Technion has produced technology crucial to Israel’s regime; it developed the remote-controlled D9 bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes in the West Bank, and the ‘Scream’ technology used to suppress peaceful Palestinian protestors.
The function of these exchange programs is to promote Israel to students, with “cultural activities” described in the exchange program as “organised visits to sites of historical and cultural interest including museums, theatres, concerts, place of worship, exposure to indigenous customs and rituals.”
Carnsew said the real function of these programs is “Israel attempting to normalise its apartheid regime. USyd management, and the Israeli universities that they partner with, recognise this.”
The first communication revealed in the documents is a letter from Israeli universities forwarded on 3 November 2023 by the office of USyd Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott to his Chief of Staff, as well as then-Registrar Peter McCallum.
The letter calls for university leaders to stand in solidarity with Israel as they find themselves “facing a war on two fronts”; in Gaza against Palestinians and the resistance, and in the “global arena of public opinion” which they note is increasingly anti-Israel.
On the day that this letter was sent to, and forwarded by Scott’s office, Israel committed multiple massacres in Gaza including an attack on a medical convoy near Al-Shifa hospital that killed 15 civilians.
The email communication also highlighted a section of the letter for its relevance to discussions regarding campus protests: “We urge you to delineate the boundaries between constructive discourse and destructive propaganda, and promote evidence-based, nuanced thinking that challenges simplistic narratives.”
The leaders of the Israeli universities, which includes the universities USyd has exchange programs with, finish their letter by saying; “we are calling for a sea change in clarity and truth in academia on the matter of Israel’s war against Hamas, so that light will triumph over dark, now and always.”
This echoes the genocidal rhetoric from former Israeli “defence” minister Yoav Gallant – who the ICJ served an arrest warrant for – when he said while touring the Gaza border with IDF officers preparing to invade in October 2023 that Israel is fighting “human savages” in “a war between light and darkness”.
Carnsew said that “USyd wants to enhance the exchange programs with Israel so it can help Israel win the “war of public opinion” and whitewash the crimes of Western imperialism.”
“USyd management and Prime Minister Albanese know that when the tide of public opinion turned against apartheid South Africa, it helped spell the end of the regime. They now fear it could happen to their crucial ally, Israel. This is why the exchange programs are so important to Israel and its backers in the West, and why students and staff must build the fight against them.”
Since Israel began its genocidal offensive in Gaza in October last year, students have protested against the ties to these Israeli universities. Hundreds of students, staff, and community members have signed petitions and attended protests calling for the university to cut ties with Israel.
In March, Students Against War organised a sit-in that forced representatives of Tel Aviv University off campus when management invited them to participate in an exchange fair. In May, staff in the NTEU passed a motion calling for an academic boycott of Israel and a similar motion was carried at the union’s national council in October.
Similar action has occurred around the world. The University of Bergen in Norway cut ties with Belazel earlier this year after it organised a workshop to design and sew uniforms for the IDF. In June, the University of Helsinki in Finland suspended its exchange partnerships with HUJ and Tel Aviv University. In May, the Centre for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico cut ties with Tel Aviv University after student and staff mobilisations. These make up just a few among the growing list of universities around the world that have joined the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
A University spokesperson told Honi Soit, “We believe strongly in the importance of international exchanges and partnerships for fostering learning and understanding, including student exchanges.
Our student mobility schemes to Israel provide opportunities for our students to gain valuable insights and international perspectives into the complexities of the Middle East. Our ties with Israeli and other institutions remain in place because we are committed to academic freedom, freedom of speech, and human rights as the University’s central pillars.”
The spokesperson said that the University “share our community’s distress at the events in the Middle East and how that conflict is reverberating in Australia” and that community safety is “always our top priority”.
“To help ensure this, we formulate travel advice based on risk assessments from DFAT’s Smartraveller and from International SOS, which identifies location-specific hazards and safety measures.”
Disclaimer: Angus Dermody is a member of Solidarity
