The UCL Students’ Union and UCL activists are right to condemn institutional affiliation with arms companies

Natasha Polomski responds to an Opinion article titled “Why I think the UCL Students’ Union has anti-Israel bias”.

Photo from flickr.

A recent Opinion article in this publication accused UCL’s Students’ Union, and student activists campaigning against the university’s connections with arms companies, of holding an antisemitic bias against Israel. However, in this Opinion piece I argue that the article is, to an alarming degree, fraught with its own biases and misinformation.

As the article mentions, last year an anti-arms trade policy proposal was submitted to UCL Student Union stating that the arms company BAE Systems has profited from humanitarian crises in Yemen and beyond. Contrary to the article’s claims, this assertion is evidence-based, not simply “alleged”. BAE has sold approximately £19 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia during the military campaign against Yemen, with an annual incoming revenue from these sales totalling over £2.5 billion. Meanwhile, their weapons have been used to deliberately target civilian bases; contributing to a humanitarian crisis that has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The profit which arms companies turnover at the expense of innocent human lives is undoubtedly an ethical issue, and it is one which demands our attention specifically as citizens of countries whose governments licence and contract these companies to trade in military weapons, logistics, and training, enabling gross violations of law and human morality. This is and has historically been the case for both Yemen and Israel. Any insinuation that these are fallacious claims or amoral issues is misleading and down-right harmful. 

Concerns regarding UCL’s connections with companies dealing with Elbit are equally valid. Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest weapons company and one of the most prolific providers of weapons and military technology for the Israeli military and police. The company has leveraged the Israeli armed forces’ use of their products on Palestinians as real-world exhibitions of the military value of their portfolio, attracting numerous customers from around the world to their benefit as a result.

This growth has been well documented. It’s why the company’s share price rose during the 2014 attack on Gaza when investors anticipated an increase in sales of newly tested weapons and equipment. It also explains why Operation Cast Lead - a 2008 operation which killed over 1,300 Palestinians - prompted one of the largest surges in Israel’s arms exports at the time, with sales reaching $6bn that year. This has been admitted by employees themselves, as documented in the Drone Wars 2019 report. A representative from Elbit Systems framed the Israel Defense Forces’s (IDF) use of drones as their “best promotion tool” and an employee of Israel Aerospace Industries was quoted to say that:

 “Over the past decade, the operational use of drones here has increased and there is a clear connection to global demand. People hear about it, and they want this wonderful technology too. The Lebanon war, Operation Cast Lead, targeted killings…whenever drone use is publicised it increases demand.” 

Therefore, the claim that these companies profit from the deaths of innocent people is well-substantiated. 

The Students’ Union’s statement following Israel’s violence in May 2021 is described in the aforementioned article as “one-sided”. However, the statement rightly outlined that “[t]here is a clear asymmetry of power, which has resulted in a horrifying and disproportionate impact on Palestinian citizens… These events… take place against a backdrop of continued illegal occupation and internationally recognised apartheid. In addition, there have been reports of rising antisemitic hate crime in the UK during the last week, this is abhorrent and unacceptable. Our priority remains to ensure our campus is safe for all students.”

Recognising such asymmetries of power is exactly what providing “vital context” looks like- something that the Student Union and activists are cautioned in the article to do. Rightly calling out the horrific accounts of antisemitism also evidences that the Student Union’s statement was certainly not one-sided, but well-proportioned.

Whilst the article reprimands the authors of the aforementioned policy proposal for their arguments, its own arguments are not validated with reputable sources. The response to condemnations of the 2014 attacks on Gaza are not helped by the fact that only the IDF’s official website is cited. It is important to emphasise that Israel has built up one of the most technologically advanced militaries in the world. To focus on Hamas’ “weaponry” budget as a reason for why 87% of deaths since 2000 have been Palestinian whilst calling Israel’s investment into “defense” (also weaponry) “responsible” is outrageous. 

Deflecting blame for the deaths of innocent civilians killed devalues the lives of those taken by Israeli violence; since attributing excessive deaths to this tactic by Hamas does not seem to be backed up by evidence. For example, Amnesty International, when investigating such claims for Operation Cast Lead, in which Palestinians accounted for most of the deaths, “found no evidence that Hamas or other Palestinian fighters” used civilians “to shield military objectives from attacks”. In contrast, there is evidence of Israeli military personnel, during Cast Lead and elsewhere, using innocent Palestinian civilians (including children) to shield themselves during house searches. This evidence sits alongside their findings of the Israeli military “deliberately targeting inhabited residential buildings and family homes”, “medics, journalists and human rights defenders”, leading to “displaced civilians during military operations, rendering tens of thousands of Palestinians homeless and displaced”. 

With this context, I believe the argument to “not blame Israel” for the Palestinian death toll is indefensible, and more in alignment with propagandistic talking points than reality.

The argument that the separation wall is a “security measure” similarly regurgitates propaganda. The International Court of Justice, in conducting an assessment of the consequences of its construction, found that the wall violated Palestinians’ freedom of movement and access to work, health, education, and generally adequate standards of living. It also stated that clauses invoking Israel’s need to protect its national security and right to self-defence - talking points which the article relies upon to justify it -  were not applicable. Whilst the article is right in stating that the ICJ’s advisory opinion is not “legally binding”, it does pronounce, and is considered to be the highest authority on, international law.

Finally, the article refers to apartheid as a “buzzword”. However, an exact description of the term (as determined by several human rights organisations including Israeli organisations B’tselem and Yesh Din, and Amnesty International, to adequately represent the situation in Israel) is given. The attempt to favourably contrast Israel’s “democracy” with South African Apartheid therefore makes for a weak argument at best. In 2013 an ex-UN Special Rapporteur and South African law professor declared that Israeli practices were “not only reminiscent of – and, in some cases, worse than – apartheid in South Africa”, but “are in breach of the legal prohibition of apartheid”. Even the former Attorney General of Israel has admitted this. The article is thus in the extreme and minority position in refusing this analysis. 

What ignoring “vital context” really looks like is denying the ongoing and violent oppression of a people dispossessed and subject to daily harassment, unlawful detainment, surveillance, home demolitions and general violence. An article that relies solely on pro-Israel sources whilst actively refuting the opinions of independent institutions and organisations exhibits the very bias that activists and the SU are accused of. All opinion articles should be scrutinised to the same journalistic standards, just as those from the left and those advocating for social justice causes are reminded so frequently.

Ultimately, activists' legitimate outrage at Israel's egregious long-standing and unpunished violations of international law should not be conflated with an unjustifiable prejudicial bias against the state. This conflation speaks to a larger and very powerfully backed campaign to undermine Palestinian activism by equating it with antisemitism. The UN’s Human Rights Office were not antisemitic for investigating companies complicit in Israel’s illegally occupied territories; nor should students be accused of being so for investigating our university’s dealings with them. 

We must also continue to call out our university’s connections with weapons companies complicit in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen and beyond, which are not just morally abhorrent but also in violation of humanitarian law. Both issues demand our attention and we will not apologise for giving them it.

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