By Sam Landis, BA Social Anthropology and International Relations
On November 29, 2022, over 50 students gathered outside SOAS for a rally held on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. Organized by the SOAS Palestine Society, the group called attention to the recent violence experienced by Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. According to the Middle East Eye, 2022 has been the West Bank’s deadliest year since 2006, with 167 Palestinians murdered by Israeli forces.
With a banner labeling SOAS as the ‘School of Occupation and Apartheid Studies’, protestors also criticized the university’s relationship with the Israeli state and resisted recent efforts by SOAS management to crack down on Palestinian activism. For years, SOAS students of Hebrew were offered spots at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an institution responsible for racism against Palestinian students, as well as the dispossession of countless Palestinians from their territory. SOAS students were also allocated accommodation in Israeli settlements located in occupied East Jerusalem. In 2020, SOAS switched partners to Haifa University, built on colonized Mount Carmel and home to three military colleges and a military base where students planning to join the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) can train and receive degrees.
According to the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, as of 2019, SOAS had invested £1.8 million in companies complicit in Israeli apartheid, although questions have been raised regarding the accuracy of this figure. In 2019, SOAS had £405,914 invested in Albemarle Corp – a U.S.-based chemicals manufacturer involved in the production of weaponry sent to Israel from the United States and used against Palestinians. SOAS also had £668,544 invested in Barclays, which invests over £1.1 million in companies supplying the Israeli military with weapons, and £775,754 invested in Sony, which provides surveillance equipment to Israel. Last spring, SOAS students occupied the Main Building for nine days confronting SOAS management on a number of issues, including their harmful investment practices and relationships with Israeli universities. Management responded to the occupation through various brutal methods of suppressing student activism which culminated in a violent eviction, a cost which amounted to £200,000. As students continue to fight for the Palestinian cause on campus, SOAS has responded with an ever-increasing security presence, all while marketing itself as an institution which prides itself on social justice. Students may question whether ‘The World’s University’ has some thinking to do.
The situation at SOAS speaks to the ties universities all across the United Kingdom have with the Israeli State. The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign projects that UK universities have over £490 million invested in companies complicit in Israeli apartheid and in its breaking of international law. Institutions such as the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford have £120 million and £160 million investments respectively. Quite ironically, UCL has BAE Systems (the world’s fourth-largest arms firm with countless ties to the Israeli war industry) sponsoring their ‘Centre for Ethics and Law’. The University of Manchester, despite claiming to abide by an ‘ethical investment policy’, has £734,000 invested in Caterpillar, a company providing the Israeli military with bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes, schools and other infrastructures. Similar to SOAS, countless universities have study abroad programs in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This all comes as UK universities are pressured by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) to adopt a distorted definition of antisemitism in their anti-racism policies.
“If we don’t even acknowledge that our attendance [at SOAS] is complicity, then we can’t really begin to even move forward.”
So, where do we go from here? Matthew Zimmer, SOAS student and co-president of the Palestine Society, urges students to join the PalSoc, back the BDS movement, raise questions and points about Palestine in classes, and join rallies, protests and events when they’re held. Most important of all, says Zimmer, is reckoning with your positionality as a SOAS student and using this reckoning as a means to support and campaign for Palestinian liberation: ‘As much as most people at SOAS say they’re pro-Palestine, they don’t think about the ways that their everyday actions are complicit. And one of the ways their everyday actions are complicit is through attending SOAS. If we don’t even acknowledge that our attendance here is complicity, then we can’t really begin to even move forward.’
The SOAS Palestine Society holds frequent meetings and events. Stay updated through their Instagram (@soaspalestinesocietybackup) and Twitter (@SOAS_Palestine). Also, keep an eye out on SOAS Solidarity’s Instagram (@soassolidarity) to get informed on upcoming rallies and protests at SOAS.
Photo Caption: SOAS students protest the University’s complicity in Israeli Apartheid – November 29, 2022 (Credit: Sam Landis).