Ties of the TU Eindhoven with Israeli universities, companies and institutes
These resources accompany a conversation in the RaraRadio studio in Eindhoven, with people who are working on a report about the ties between the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and Israeli institutions.
We hope that, by listening to this conversation, people can get a good idea of the most important parts of this report (for those who have no time to read, but who can make time to listen while doing chores).
In this way, we try to inform members of ethical committees and anyone who has questions on the complicity of universities with the occupation of Palestine.
Horizon Europe (2021-2027): 191 Israeli organisations: 666 projects, €729,008,635 for apartheid and genocide
Horizon 2020 (2014-2020): 572 Israeli organisations: 1666 projects, €1,280,603,874 for apartheid and genocide
Funding Israeli entities under Framework Programme 7 (FP7, 2007-2013):
300 Israeli organisations: 1645 projects, €863,569,891 https://complicitymap.eu
‘Documenting Academic Complicity’ lists 35 projects of Eindhoven University of Technology with Israeli partners or companies arming Israel: https://academiccomplicity.nl/
Who Profits - The Israeli Occupation Industry: Reports, updates, infographics exposing the role of the private sector in the Israeli occupation economy
‘Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom’ by Maya Wind: https://www.versobooks.com/products/3009-towers-of-ivory-and-steel
Recordings of Maya Wind’s talk on her book (Erasmus university Rotterdam): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG7nquuro9Y#
‘Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom’, by Maya Wind, documents how Israeli universities directly constrain Palestinian rights by supporting and even developing the policies of occupation and apartheid used by the Israeli state. “In the West, Israeli universities are considered bastions of pluralism and democracy. But in fact … they are a central pillar of Israel’s regime of oppression against Palestinians,” says Wind. She also discusses Israel’s “scholasticide" in Gaza, the "intentional destruction of Palestinian education,” and the movement of conscientious objectors to Israel’s mandatory conscription, in which she took part when she refused to enlist in the army at age 18 and served 40 days in a military prison. (7:53 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p3uyX3jmPI
Tech For Palestine report (Feb 2025): ‘Israel and Big Tech’
‘The Israeli startup ecosystem is famed for its connection to the military with a great many startups being founded and staffed by former soldiers. As Israeli VC Roi Carthy says: “Due to mandatory army service, the tech industry and the army in Israel are intertwined. They can’t be separated. [-]
As a result of these policies and contracts, we believe that the tech industry—Big Tech in particular—should be considered a direct participant in the occupation in Palestine and the genocide in Gaza.’ https://updates.techforpalestine.org/israel-and-big-tech/
From the report ‘Ties of the TU Eindhoven with Israeli universities, companies and institutes’ (2025):
Table 4.1: Consortia around Photonics, Meta-Materials, Quantum computers and Quantum communication
Strategy on research and innovation of the European Comission:
“Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of €95.5 billion available over 7 years (2021 to 2027). [-]
The Association Agreement, signed in Brussels on 20 November 1995 and having entered into force in June 2000, provides the legal framework for EU-Israel relations. It establishes a regular dialogue on scientific, technological, cultural, audio-visual and social matters. Israel is also part of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and under the European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plan, ten sub-committees were established, including one on research, innovation, information society, education and culture. [-]
…more than 5000 joint research projects on record. Israel also has a number of agreements with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.”
On the ethical impacts of quantum technologies in defence (Nature Comment, October 2024)
“We recommend setting up an independent oversight body for quantum technologies in the defence domain, similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency. As with AI, such measures need to be taken well before the wide-spread adoption of quantum technologies.”
”[Q]uantum sensing poses known known risks for privacy and mass surveillance”
“Quantum technologies hold great promise for aiding national defence, by sharpening how countries collect data, analyse intelligence, communicate and develop materials and weapons. For instance, quantum sensors — which use quantum behaviours to measure forces and radiation — can detect objects with precision and sensitivity, even underground or underwater. Quantum communications systems that are resistant to jamming can revolutionize command and control.”
However, as well as promises, these uses come with ethical risks (see ‘Key risks of using quantum technologies in defence’). For example, powerful quantum computers could enable the creation of new molecules and forms of chemical or biological weapons. They might break cryptographic measures that underpin secure online communications, with catastrophic consequences for digitally based societies. Quantum sensors could be used to enhance surveillance, breaching rights to privacy, anonymity and freedom of communication.”
“By embracing the enigmatic principles of quantum mechanics, Elbit Systems is paving the way for resilient battle communications and pioneering new Electronic Warfare and intelligence-gathering measures.” https://elbitsystems.com/blog/schrodingers-cats-two-way-radio/
On AI: “Nozomi Takahashi, a member of the board of directors of the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine, told Anadolu they are aware of allegations about EU funds aiding AI technologies targeting civilians.” [-]
Noting that identifying which EU-funded project underpins those used by the Israeli army is impossible due to confidentiality and secrecy, she said "the potential high risk associated with such technology in the hands of a government that has a record of human rights violations should raise an alarm.” (January 2025) https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/eu-funding-for-israeli-tech-raises-fresh-concerns-of-complicity-in-genocide/3444314
On 6G: 6G will transform military-industrial applications: impact on military, geopolitics and cybersecurity
“The introduction of 6G technology in the military will significantly impact war formation, equipment development, and battlefield communications, transforming security-based systems and management.”
The 6G will redefine areas in Aerial and Space communication, Autonomous military systems, 3D Connected Intelligence in Cybersecurity, Electromagnetic, Microelectronics and Photonics.
[I]nnovations like the situational awareness module for the army (SAMA) and advanced pattern recognition software for satellite imagery analysis are notable outcomes that will radically change the high-stake intelligence, Surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. The application lies in extending super coverage through the geostationary satellites (GEO), low earth orbit satellites (LEO) and high-altitude pseudo satellite (HAPS) in mapping and covering ISR across mountainous areas, sea and space and other remote areas with precision which is not possible using the current frequency. Already the software to read the Enemy's Electronic Order of Battle (ORBAT) and pattern recognition, are functional now and are based on the 5G. https://archive.li/4AUJ5#selection-829.0-829.50
Extra resources:
Report to UN, documenting TUDelft’s Complicity in Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
[By] maintaining partnerships with organizations involved in such activities, [TU/e] is potentially complicit in these ethical and criminal violations. This necessitates immediate action to critically reassess and terminate these partnerships to ensure compliance with both international and domestic ethical and legal standards.
https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/view/DjA36cmXniLfTyTsH876sfjANO84BdHa4iQc9M5U7L4/
- From the Leiden report ‘MAPPING LEIDEN UNIVERSITY’S TIES TO ISRAEL’
"This report addresses a knowledge gap when it comes to ties between Leiden University (LU) and Israeli institutions, drawing on publicly accessible information.
At the same time, this dossier follows PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) guidelines. PACBI is primarily concerned with how different institutions including universities are complicit in the Israeli system of oppression, denying Palestinians basic rights guaranteed by international law.
The PACBI guidelines do not prevent scholars in the Netherlands from working with Israeli individuals, as long as the collaboration does not encompass ties with the Israeli state and/or with complicit institutions.
Accordingly, this report seeks to unravel the academic and financial complicity of Leiden University in Israel’s system of oppression against Palestinians by investigating the extent to which there are
1) collaborative projects with Israeli institutional participation through programs financed by, for instance, Horizon Europe or the NWO;
2) institutional exchange programs with Israeli universities for students;
3) investments in Israeli and international companies complicit in Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian human rights, mainly through university funds and pensions funds; and
4) procurement tenders and contracts for products or services with complicit companies. [-]
“Even before the adoption of the UN resolution calling all member states to suspend cultural and educational ties including the exchange of scientists, students, and academics with South Africa in 1980, Dutch students and academics either allied with anti-apartheid organizations or acting individually were urging and struggling for academic boycott.” [-]
’ Leiden’s University Council would finally make the decision in February of 1978 that all contacts with South African institutions both at the institutional level as well as individual scientific collaborations, would be severed unless they ‘contribute to improvement and restoration of basic human rights in South Africa.’ [-]
‘It is evident that without the continuous pressure and coalition building between students, academics, and anti-apartheid organizations, Dutch universities [-] would have not severed their ties with South Africa by the mid and late 1970s. Beyond the question of governmental mandate, Dutch universities were faced with a moral and ethical responsibility to respond to the South African case based on the demands of their internal and external communities. They were pressured to adhere to their commitment to human rights and academic freedom–an adherence that meant the enactment of these norms and values as binding and lived principles, rather than as merely abstract guidelines safely tucked into statements of political neutrality, distancing, and passive condemnation.’ [-]
‘[I]t is telling that no Dutch university objected to cutting ties in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the grounds that it would inexcusably violate academic freedom. Academic boycott was implemented without a single objection.’ [-]
…implementing boycott and cutting ties with institutions complicit in acts of aggression and gross human rights violations. [-]
+References to Maya Wind ‘Towers of Ivory and Steel’ on, e.g., pages 11, 18, 24&25 of this report:
‘The [book] of Maya Wind, Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom, demonstrates how Israeli universities have, from their inception, contributed to the structural oppression of Palestinians. The most diverse academic disciplines - ranging from Computer Science and Civil Engineering, Law faculties, Archeology and Middle Eastern Studies - are involved in facilitating and legitimizing persecution, occupation, apartheid and genocide. All Israeli universities contribute to discrimination against non-Jewish students and staff and to the production of propaganda (hasbara) that serves to delegitimize criticism of the Israeli state.’
‘There are a great number of reasons why having a partnership with Bar-Ilan University is problematic, not least for its role in carrying out research for the Israeli military and security services. Together with Technion and Ben-Gurion, Bar-Ilan also runs the Bareket master’s program -in data engineering, which trains soldiers in data science, coding and programming for military application. {p. 102} Its engineering faculty has run ‘hackathons’ together with the Israeli military and with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms producer. Bar-Ilan University also has played a key role in supporting and expanding illegal settlements, including the founding of what is now called Ariel University on illegally occupied West Bank land, with the explicit goal of promoting ‘Judaization.’ {p. 80} And in similar fashion to the activities of other Israeli universities later discussed, Bar-Ilan’s Archeology department holds strong linkages with Israeli settler movements.
Dehumanizing settler-colonial tropes are used as justification for archeological excavations there, such as claiming Palestinian land in the village of Susiya to be ‘totally empty,’ {pp. 31-32}. Similar collaboration between Bar-Ilan archeologists and settlers has transpired at the Khirbet al-Mazra’a excavation and on Palestinian village lands in the occupied West Bank at Khirbet Jib’it and Khirbet Marajim in 2020, and in Kirbet Tibnah in 2022. There are also ongoing collaborations with the Israeli settler organization Elad in joint courses, excavations, and research. {pp. 36-38} There are several examples of Bar-Ilan faculty and leadership promoting violence against the Palestinian people: In the wake of Israel’s Gaza offensive in 2014, Bar-Ilan Middle East Studies professor and former Lt. Col. Mordechai Keidar argued on Israeli radio that a Palestinian insurgent could only be deterred if ‘his sister or mother will be raped.’ {p. 51} In 2017, Bar-Ilan’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies put out an advertisement on Facebook arguing for generating ‘hopelessness’ among Palestinians for this would result in a decline in terror: ‘When hopeful, Terrorism increases.’
The Weizmann Institute of Science is one of the three universities first established by the Zionist movement, prior to the founding of Israel, together with the Hebrew University and Technion in Haifa, with the goal of advancing technological and scientific developments of Israel as a Jewish state in historic Palestine. At their three campuses, the leading Zionist militia, the Haganah, established a Science corps, to research and refine military capabilities and to develop and manufacture weapons. Rafael and IAI – Israeli Aerospace Industries – two of Israel’s largest weapons producers, known for selling their weapons abroad as ‘battle proven’, were developed out of the infrastructures laid out by Technion and Weizmann Institute of Science. {pp. 13-15}
Senior administrators and faculty have advocated for Israeli science as the basis of Israeli military power by developing experimental and particularly harmful advanced weaponry. {p. 91}
Weizmann operates a high-tech science park – Kiryat Weizmann – where it facilitates Israel’s weapon companies Rafael, Elbit, Elbit’s subsidiary El-OP, etc. Its National Laboratory for the Development of Space Cameras works on technology for detecting targets photographed by drones developed by the Weizmann Institute and Ben-Gurion University. {p. 109}
In 2021, The Weizmann Institute together with Tel Aviv University collaborated with the Israeli Antiquity Authority to conduct research on scrolls excavated and illegally seized from the Occupied Palestinian Territory. {pp. 30-31}
Ø The Weizmann Institute and the Technion both have joint research programs with weapons and drones’ manufacturers Rafael and Elbit. The Technion also works closely with Israel Aerospace Industries, IAI.
<from: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom and What Dutch Universities Should Do https://www.dutchscholarsforpalestine.nl/factsheets
- A review of how Israeli universities deny Palestinian freedom (Wind: ‘Towers of Ivory and Steel’, Part I)
- More information on how to hold Israeli universities accountable (Part II)>
The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
According to the Industry Guide to Technion, the university maintains close ties with prominent defense companies such as Elbit Systems, Rafael, Advanced Defense Systems, and Israel Aerospace Industries. These collaborations focus on research and the development of technologies relevant to military applications, including weapons systems, artificial intelligence, and drones. (Report TU/e ties p. 9. NB: link 154 doesn’t work anymore)
As Maya Wind notes in her book Towers of Ivory and Steel, the Technion has gone “so far as to explicitly offer courses on arms and security marketing and export.”
Its close links to Israel’s top weapons maker Elbit System was recognized in the recent past when Bezalel Machlis, the firm’s CEO, was awarded the title “guardian of the Technion.” https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/war-criminal-gadi-eisenkot-nabs-1-million-eu-funding
The Technion works with Israel’s arms industry, including its top weapons manufacturer Elbit systems, has joint programs with the Israeli military, and develops technology used in Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. As highlighted by Dr Maya Wind, Technion even offers “courses on arms and security marketing and export.” This is a central part of the Technion’s history and ongoing identity. Before, during, and since the forced displacement and expulsion of three-quarters of the Palestinian people in the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe), the Technion was part of the original group of universities that became “the military-scientific center of the Israeli state” and “led the development of Israeli military industries.” The Technion helped create both Rafael, “one of Israel’s leading state-owned weapons corporations,” which is a major supplier of missiles to its military, and Israel Aerospace Industries, another of the country’s major arms manufacturers, which supplies the Israeli military with jets, drones, and weapons systems. The extent of military research, laboratories, and partnerships are such that Israel’s military industries are “embedded in the Technion and are often difficult to distinguish from the university.” This is reflective of the sector as a whole: while there is, as Wind puts it, sometimes a misunderstanding in the West that Israeli universities are liberal and progressive spaces that are independent of the Israeli security state, “they are actually central to sustaining it.” Entering into major joint institutional projects with Israeli universities such as the Technion grants significant legitimacy to this complicity, at a time when our duty as members of the international academic community compels us to do precisely the opposite. https://academicsforpalestine.org/2025/02/19/call-for-the-university-of-galway-to-fully-withdraw-from-partnership-with-israels-technion/
“Tel Aviv University is running an “engineering war room” developing technology for the Israeli army including a live-streaming facility for a dog-mounted camera used by a canine unit linked to deadly attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
In a video posted by the university, a graduate describes how they "take care of fighters".
The Israeli canine unit has been linked to brutal attacks on civilians in Gaza, including the mauling of a man with Down's syndrome who was left to die in July 2024.” https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDNIwN3AQfq/?igsh=dHpjazJpdm44ZWhu
“Lavender, together with another AI tool called Where’s Daddy, placed unprecedented numbers of Palestinians on Israel’s target list and then targeted them and their families in their homes, resulting in significant acceleration of the genocide in Gaza. [-]
Tech [-] contributes significantly to the Israel budget. Tech employs 12% of the Israeli workforce but contributed 20% of the Israeli GDP (US$91B) in 2023 and 36% of income tax in 2021 (24% of all tax revenue). Without tech’s R&D centers, the financial support for the apartheid and genocide would be significantly more difficult.”
https://updates.techforpalestine.org/israel-and-big-tech/
“I naively thought the EU was merely inconsistent in its application of international law. I considered it possible that the EU did not prohibit settlement trade because the international law behind that obligation was complex.
But it’s quite straightforward. The key obligation is something called the duties of non-recognition and non-assistance.
In 2014, the EU condemned “the illegal annexation of Crimea” by Russia and declared that it “will not recognize it.”
EU leaders instructed their bureaucrats “to propose economic, trade and financial restrictions regarding Crimea.”
Within months, the EU issued a ban on imports from Crimea, framing this as an integral part of its obligation of non-recognition.
The EU also considers Israel’s settlements in occupied territories to be “illegal under international law,” but after five long decades of Israeli settlement building the EU has yet to impose such a trade ban.
The opinion that settlement trade violates international law is supported by a vast community of international legal scholars. Among those who signed an open letter to this effect are two UN special rapporteurs, two ad hoc judges with the International Court of Justice, a former president of the UN’s International Law Commission, a former judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and dozens of other experts.
These scholars affirm that if the EU fails to stop trade, its member states have a legal obligation to act unilaterally.”
Tom Moerenhout (2017) https://electronicintifada.net/content/trading-israeli-settlements-against-law/20141
Open letter from the academic community in Belgium:
“[T]he international community and individual states such as Belgium [and the Netherlands] are not only morally but also legally obligated to act against the various violations of international law. As a member state, Belgium that it must ensure Israel complies with its obligations under international law.
Given this legal framework, Belgian universities,, as public institutions that can legally be regarded as state organs, are bound by these obligations and must fulfill them. [-]
The actions of universities must therefore align with international law and international norms and values. Non-compliance would constitute a breach of international law and could expose universities to the legal and financial consequences that ensue.” https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oPwAKS4khtxs7ruDPuWsJz4V50bntF1HLFdfFvnq054/
Demand letter to the EU to stop all institutional collaboration with Israeli universities, and revoke Israel's status as a Horizon Europe associated country (July 2024)
“Israeli beneficiaries of Horizon Europe money extend beyond universities to include Israeli military-industrial complex and security industries, such as companies who have developed AI-assisted and drones carrying out automated warfare, currently used in the assault on Gaza (e.g. Israel Aerospace Industries: 44 projects for €24,18 million; Xtend Reality Expansion: 1 project for €50k). State bodies receiving funding include the Israeli Ministry of Defense (2 projects, for a total of €238k) and the Ministry of National Security (formerly known as the Ministry of Public Security; 19 projects for a total of €2.14 million). The head of the Ministry of Defense has a pending arrest application to the ICC for war crimes, and the Ministry of National/Public Security is responsible for escalating repression and violence in the West Bank, through the establishment of special police forces and the release of more than 100,000 gun licenses, mainly to settlers in the West Bank. The extent of both Horizon Europe and other European economic and political support of the Israeli military-security complex has been recently detailed in an investigative report from the Transnational Institute.
It is imperative to note that this funding has been granted despite the Horizon program explicitly forbidding the funding of “dual-use” research with potential military applications. In actuality, Horizon funding has played a critical role in the advancement of Israeli military technology. With each wave of Horizon funding over the past two decades, a new, more deadly and technologically advanced assault has been carried out in Gaza, in what was termed in 2014 an "incremental genocide". While the above highlights projects directly related to military and defense activities, recent scholarship has affirmed that every single Israeli institution is complicit in the state apparatus of oppression and war crimes. Moreover, given the recent ICJ ruling that Israel is committing a plausible genocide in Gaza, the continued funding of Israeli research and development risks rendering the EU both complicit in genocide and in negligence of their legally-bound duty to prevent genocide.”
“Europe has been exceedingly generous with the Israeli academy, bestowing it with recognition and funding. Israel is one of the few non-EU member states that enjoy “associated country” status in Horizon Europe, the EU research funding framework, and amongst non-European states, receives by far the most Horizon funding. This is not an insignificant “academic” matter. Indeed, the European Commission itself “stressed that the EU-Israel partnership is solid, spanning across various sectors from trade to research and innovation, being the most prominent area of bilateral cooperation thanks to Israel’s association to Horizon Europe.” Considerable sums of money have been granted to Israeli universities and institutions through these programs.“
List of consortia coordinated by the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA)
