BDS movement Autonomous University of Barcelona and European Sciences at the Service of Israel – El Salto
On November 10, 2023, the government team of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) said it “strongly expresses our rejection of the military aggression of the State of Israel” and expressed “solidarity with the Palestinian population”. UAB’s statements contradict its actions. Behind closed doors, international relations between UAB and the Israeli military-scientific apparatus, as well as Israeli educational institutions involved in apartheid and genocide, continue to be normalized.
An investigation of UAB’s relationships with public and private Israeli institutions following a request for access to public information on the university reveals a close relationship between European universities and Israeli R&D, whose intellectual and technological support to the apartheid regime was widely Got it from. Documented, as in Israeli researcher and activist Maya Wind’s recent book, Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom (Verso, 2024).
Academic Generalization from UAB
In July 2023, UAB signed an agreement with Tel Aviv University to establish a student and faculty exchange program, as well as joint coordination of research projects and the organization of conferences or seminars. On December 18, 2023, as the United Nations announced that Israel’s attack had already killed more than 18,205 Palestinians (of whom more than 7,000 are estimated to be children), Tel Aviv University’s Office of International Relations immediately Asked UAB to expand. The relationship between the two universities, through a possible new Erasmus exchange agreement.
It is not surprising that, at a time of increasing criticism of Israel from various governments and civil society, this Zionist university is working to achieve the international academic recognition that is key to its normalization. With the euphemism typical of the language of apartheid institutions, from Tel Aviv University he wrote on December 18: “Our cooperation is not only valuable, but a source of strength for us. “Together with our partners, we look forward to tackling the complexities of today and contributing to a more interconnected and empathetic global community.”
UAB responded that Tel Aviv students would be welcomed from September 2024 and, “as soon as the conflict ends,” they would begin sending students from Barcelona.
This call for international sympathy reserved for white residents received a response from the UAB International Office. Immediately, the next day, on December 19, UAB responded that students from Tel Aviv would be welcomed from September 2024, and, “as soon as the conflict ends,” they would begin sending students from Barcelona.
Three weeks later, UAB reiterated that it was “saddened not to be able to send students or staff,” but they should not worry: UAB can receive students and faculty from Tel Aviv University. Furthermore, UAB stated that they would be in favor of expanding their relations through the Erasmus exchange program “as soon as the situation returns to normal”. It seems quite clear that, for the UAB, the situation of settler colonialism and apartheid, long before October 7, is a “normal” situation.
We observe an institutional double standard (on the one hand, denouncing through public institutional statements and, on the other hand, maintaining institutional ties) at La Escola Massana, an art and design center associated with UAB.
Institutional double standards – on the one hand, denouncing through public institutional statements and, on the other, maintaining institutional ties – are seen in La Escola Massana, an art and design center associated with UAB. In November 2023, it positioned itself “in solidarity with the Palestinian people” and “called for action”. When communicating this, he concealed that from 2009 to the present, La Escola Massana has maintained an exchange program with the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.
In the public eye, Bezalel Academy does not appear in the list of partner schools on the Escola Massana website, but this is temporary. According to the Wayback Machine, Escuela Massana superseded Bezalel Academy after November 2023, but Bezalel Academy includes Escuela Massana in the list of institutions with exchange programs. According to statements from La Massana, Escola has suspended the exchange “as long as the war continues.” Once again, for Escola Massana, the long-standing normality of apartheid is actually an optimal condition for exchange, and solidarity with the Palestinian people, who have been calling for a boycott of Israel for decades, is temporary. And there is lack of action.
Research conducted into UAB and Israeli military system
While exchange agreements contribute to Israel’s academic and cultural normalization, in the case of research, European funds directly contribute to enriching the coffers of Zionist and military companies and universities. In turn, the European scientific-technological infrastructure benefits from research coming directly from Israeli military R&D.
UAB is not an anomaly. Within the current (Horizon Europe) and previous (Horizon 2020) European funding framework, UAB participates and has participated in several consortia, such as ILIAD (2022-2025), Water-Mining (2020-2024), KAILIDOS (2024-2024). 2026) and Clearfarm (2019-2024) partner Israelis, some of whom are directly linked to the IDF, Israel Defense Forces.
In the ILIAD project, we find several Israeli institutions, such as Agora Partners, Doctec Ltd, Eco Wave Power Ltd and Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology. The Technion is one of the major technology centers that maintains and legitimizes apartheid. Technion scientists have developed remote-controlled bulldozers, which are routinely used to demolish Palestinian homes. Additionally, the Technion hosts military study programs, and maintains close cooperation with Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, the two largest Israeli weapons manufacturers.
Over the decades, various university groups in different countries have mobilized for their universities to sever ties with the Technion in line with requests from the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement in recent decades. Recently from the University of Technology Sydney, a letter was written to the President of an Australian university clearly detailing the level of the Technion’s institutional involvement in maintaining Israel’s colonial rule.
In the Kaleidos project, coordinated by the Barcelona company Wedo Project Intelligence Made Easy and in which the UAB participates, we find the University of Haifa as an Israeli collaborator, a direct participant in apartheid.
In the Kaleidos project, coordinated by the Barcelona company Vedo Project Intelligence Made Easy and in which UAB participates, we find the University of Haifa as an Israeli collaborator, a direct participant in apartheid. As condemned by the South African Academic Network against Israeli Apartheid (SAANAI), the University of Haifa excludes Palestinian citizens from education, develops study programs for military personnel, offers scholarships dedicated to former military personnel, and maintains an IDF base in the same complex. , as well as the Department of Geostrategy, which aims to “solve Israel’s demographic problem”, which SAANAI claims is a euphemism for the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians by Israel.
Of the European consortia in which UAB participates, one that clearly reflects the transfer of knowledge between European universities and Israeli military R&D in the service of domestication is the ClearFarm project (co-designed for pig and dairy cattle Gaya Welfare Monitoring Forum), which is funded by. Within the Horizon 2020 framework and coordinated by UAB.
Financed by the European Union with 5.89 million euros (of which 1.63 million for UAB), the project involves 5 universities in Spain and 11 private partners (University of Murcia, El Pozo Company and Cooperativa Ganadera of the Valley of Pedroches). , Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Finland and Israel. The project mobilizes artificial intelligence and remote monitoring technology, and promises expected improvements in “animal welfare” in the livestock industry.
The Israeli private partner, the company Herd-ITT (formerly called Cattle Watch and Cattle Sense) specializes in the use of drones and sensors for livestock monitoring, and received 420,467 euros from the European treasury. Its technology not only parallels in objectives and methods the technology used by Israeli military institutions for the control of Palestinians, but the technology comes directly from the development of military technology. Ilan Arbor, CEO and founder of this company, admits that before founding Cattle Watch he had no connection with the cattle industry and had never seen a cow. On the contrary, his experience came directly from the military system. His training as a mathematician and engineer led him to work for the Israeli Air Force’s “elite” R&D department between 1976 and 1986, where he was “involved in dramatic technological initiatives.”
Without knowing more details than this brief description on your LinkedIn profile, we can guess the application. His decade dedicated to military technological development earned him two IDF awards: one from the President of Israel, Chaim Herzog, and the other from the Chief of the IDF Intelligence Command. His time in the IDF was not his only foray into the Israeli military system. In 1995 he founded the Eagle company, which he ran until 2007, and which was part of the Elbit Group, one of the main Israeli arms manufacturers.
Human monitoring techniques are used to develop technology to monitor animals, in this case, livestock. A concrete example of civil-military technology in the service of control and subordination
“Knowledge transfer” is complete. Human monitoring techniques are used to develop technology to monitor animals, in this case, livestock. A concrete example of civil-military technology in the service of control and subjugation. Again, it is not too risky to affirm that the Israeli scientific-technological fabric is a parasite of domination, whether human or non-human. Then again, we must not forget the role of European science – in this case, Horizon Europe – and the role of Spanish universities in transforming military knowledge and technology into civilian knowledge and technology. This is undoubtedly an example of science in the service of human and animal dehumanization and domination.
The equality of domination is not merely metaphorical, but central to the Zionist project. As the newspaper said jerusalem post When I covered the first steps of Arbor and other Israeli engineers in 2012, the agriculture and livestock industry has always been at the center of the Zionist strategy of expansion and domination of the region and its inhabitants. In this case, science, through dreams of automation and artificial intelligence, has been put at the service of livestock production, territorial expansion, and dispossession of Palestinian land.