University of Warwick staff and students outline complicity in Israel’s war crimes and genocide

The Demilitarisation Working Group of the Warwick Staff Student Solidarity Network (SSSN) has released a shocking report, “An Investment in Injustice,” which reveals the University of Warwick’s ties to companies complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Palestine.

The University of Warwick claims to be a community and global leader in innovative and socially responsible research. However, the report, based on months of research, exposes the university’s widespread involvement in the military-industrial complex and links it to global militarism, war crimes and human rights violations.

In the context of the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, the report suggests how the university may be contributing to the UK’s complicity in the genocide, associated crimes against humanity and other war crimes, potentially placing it at risk of possible criminal liability.

“For years, the University of Warwick has refused to disclose its investments or research partnerships with companies complicit in war crimes. What we have uncovered makes clear that there is blood on the university’s hands,” a speaker from the SSSN explained to a packed audience at the report launch last Friday, 18 October.

“We know that the defence industry is the single largest cause of rising CO2 emissions driving climate change,” said another speaker. “How can the university claim to be fighting climate change, while investing in and creating research partnerships with this sector?”

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The report calls on the University of Warwick to commit to ending its research partnerships with and divesting from companies involved in the arms industry; create a policy ensuring that international research activities and collaborations are in line with its commitment to social responsibility; and to support the rebuilding of universities in Gaza destroyed by the Israel Defence Forces.

The report is part of a broader campaign led by staff and students to pressure the University of Warwick into living up to its commitments to be a local, national and world leader in social responsibility. Over the past year, the university’s Students Union, University and College Union (UCU), UNISON and Assembly have each passed motions urging the University of Warwick to sever ties with arms manufacturers due to concerns about their role in war crimes and human rights violations in Palestine and elsewhere. There have also been mass protests, an encampment lasting more than two months, and an occupation of Warwick Manufacturing Group’s International Digital Laboratory.

The speaker further explained that, “The findings in this report have strengthened our resolve as staff and students to continue to work together to ensure that our university ends its complicity in [Israel’s] occupation, apartheid and genocide.”

The SSSN brings together staff and students at Warwick to campaign for better working and learning conditions, in solidarity with trade unions representing staff and student campaigns for better living standards. The Demilitarisation Working Group is composed of Warwick Stands with Palestine Coalition (WSWP), Warwick UCU, Warwick Unison and other campus-based student societies and groups.

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