It is known that the CAF company of Beasain is building a tram that connects the illegal settlements of East Jerusalem with the city centre. HP develops the technology with which the Israeli Defence Forces control Palestinian movements at checkpoint and AXA insurer invests in the arms, banking and infrastructure companies involved in the colonization of the Palestinian territories.

The UPV/EHU has close links and high-profit contracts with these companies. The School of Engineering has a classroom of companies at CAF. Most of the devices used in the UPV/EHU belong to the HP company and the travel insurance of the stays is carried out with AXA. As if this were not enough, the public university will receive about EUR 4.2 million from European public funds for nine research projects involving various Israeli institutions. These include the research centre Technion, which has developed the bulldozers used to demolish the homes of the Palestinians.

Universities are also very much involved in the networks of complicity with the Israeli regime. For example, through the Horizon Europe programme, funds have been allocated to Israeli industry amounting to EUR 126 million. In this sense, the UPV/EHU, once again, is far from the concern of the majority of its community.

Israel is developing the most advanced technology to devise new practices of ethnic cleansing and genocide. It has already put it in Palestine and Lebanon, and threatens to extend it to other territories. In the words of the Palestinian Feminist Group, the “ecology of genocide” or “genocide of reproduction” is being carried out. That is, massive and strategic destruction of resources and infrastructures for survival and social reproduction.

The epistemicide and academicide in Gaza have also been accentuated on an unprecedented scale. The educational network, universities and knowledge systems have been destroyed. Israel has demonstrated its ideal: a militarized society, based on explicit racial segregations and clearly supremacist approaches.

This high-tech genocide is possible thanks to the political, academic and entrepreneurial complicity of many states that consider themselves democratic. In the face of this heartbreaking situation, and if governments do not, it is up to us to put pressure on the citizens. Thus, students, teachers, researchers and administrative and service staff have asked the UPV/EHU for a firm commitment to the protection of Palestine: Break any kind of relationship with the institutions and companies that are accomplices to the genocide, in addition to the Israeli universities. In this regard, the Governing Council of the UPV/EHU adopted on 24 April 2024 the manifesto of support for Palestine in the face of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. However, the relationship with the companies mentioned in the introduction remains the same. However, during the drafting of this article, the unions, the BDS movement of Gipuzkoa and the complaints and pressures of the UPV/EHU Palestine itself have paralyzed another agreement that the Campus of Gipuzkoa signed with CAF.

In this regard, beyond mere declarations of intent, we call for the active breakdown of the network of legitimation and protection of genocide. To this end, we request the creation of a committee to analyze the strategies and dimensions to be followed. It must be an open, public and transparent, effective and resourced committee. The first task would be to set in motion the breakdown with the above mentioned companies and institutions. Subsequently, the university would put in place procedures to monitor and break relations with other institutions that are accomplices to apartheid, colonization and genocide. It could also be a good committee to ensure that the refugee reception programme or the reconstruction of the university is in the interests of Palestine.

The University is an organization with great capacity for action. The university itself is aware of this, but it is not always ready to use this capacity. The establishment of a commission could be a step forward in the supervision and reorientation of colonial and military ties in Western societies. Of course, the university is not the only institution that should do so. But we want to influence him, because he assumes criticism and social commitment and we're going to learn, to teach, to research and to think.

UPV / EHU Palestine