Cambridge students calls for university to divest from apartheid Israel

Members of Cambridge Palestine Solidarity Society (PalSoc) joined with students across the country on Monday to call on all UK universities to “end their complicity in Israeli apartheid”.

Students demonstrated to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people and demand the university review its ties “with all corporations implicated in illegal Israeli policies” and “immediately severe formal links and partnerships with BAE Systems, Caterpillar and all other companies or institutions deemed complicit.”

“It is shameful that the University of Cambridge is amongst those with the highest investments,” Varsity reported the Palestinian Society saying, “standing at an estimate of £120,780,000 [$160,830,000].”

The action came as part of a larger movement across 30 universities in the UK whose students urged for divestment from apartheid Israel on International Day of Solidarity with Palestine.

Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA), which called for the action, said UK universities currently have £450 million ($598.7 million) in investments which are “complicit in Israeli apartheid”.

In 2020, the University of Manchester divested more than £10 million ($13 million) from companies complicit in Israel’s occupation of Palestine following years of campaigning by human rights groups. Companies affected include Caterpillar, a long-standing supplier of heavy machinery used to demolish Palestinian homes and infrastructure by the Israeli army.

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