On Monday 17th March, students, academics, and activists protested Western Sydney University’s (WSU) National Institute of Complementary Medicine Health Research Institute (NICM) for their research partnership with Israeli medical technology company Syqe.
In a press release from WSU for Palestine, they have raised concerns around Syqe’s support for the Israeli military and said that NICM staff were not informed of Syqe’s military ties.
WSU for Palestine added that staff “were disturbed to learn about this research agreement, some of whom have family in Gaza and Lebanon” and said that concerns raised to NICM management were ignored.
Dr Diana Karamacoska, an academic at NICM, spoke in a personal capacity about her opposition to the Syqe partnership. She spoke for “staff and students with family members in refugee camps in Gaza” and stated that “[by] accepting this research agreement with Syqe and the IDF that it proudly supports, you’ve diminished their voices, identities, trust and hope. It is not safe to be here.”
Liz Tilley, the Greens candidate for Parramatta and alumnus of WSU, said she “was appalled, but wasn’t surprised” to hear of NICM partnering with Syqe amidst the ongoing repression of pro-Palestine voices. She cited Universities Australia’s recent adoption of a definition of antisemitism that conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
Tilley called for the community to stand up against a university that “wants to align itself with an apartheid state,” to call on our MPs to “sanction Israel and restrict Australian universities from partnering with [Israeli institutions],” and to “demand that our universities are properly funded so they don’t need to be sponsored.”
Cassie from Nurses and Midwives for Palestine called into question why WSU would create this “disgusting alliance with a corporation that has celebrated its relationship with the Israeli Defense Forces.” She noted the murder and illegal detention of healthcare workers in Palestine.
Cassie also condemned the continuous disregard for Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim voices as a “inhuman, disturbing, and distressing example of othering” which forms “a key factor in all genocides.”
Yehuda, an anti-Zionist Jewish WSU student, prefaced his speech by stating that he was speaking in an individual capacity, and that he would continue to speak “despite their [the Department of Education’s] attempts to silence teachers from speaking out against Palestine.”
He highlighted the parallels between genocides across the world over time, highlighting the ongoing genocide in Palestine and the continued disposession of Indigenous peoples across the world. Yehuda spoke as a descendant of Holocaust survivors that “there is nothing more offensive to me than the fact that we are standing silently amidst a genocide.
“They claim to be working on medicine right here, when, in fact, they’re easing the conscience of war criminals. And they drop bombs on schools when [sic] claiming it’s too expensive to fund our schools and education systems.”
Sign the petition calling for WSU to cut ties with Syqe.
