[News] EU signs huge number of science grants for Israel amid Gaza genocide

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/eu-signs-huge-number-science-grants-israel-amid-gaza-genocide>
EU signs huge number of science grants for Israel amid Gaza genocide

David Cronin <https://electronicintifada.net/people/david-cronin> Rights
and Accountability
<https://electronicintifada.net/blog/rights-and-accountability> 9 April 2024
------------------------------

Urusula von der Leyen and the European Commission are maintaining research
funding for Israel.
SIPA

The European Union has given the green light to a large number of new
science grants for Israel amid the genocidal war on Gaza.

Trawling through an EU funding database, I counted almost 90 projects
involving Israeli firms or institutions which the Brussels bureaucracy has
approved since 7 October.

Israel Aerospace Industries, a weapons maker that has boasted of playing a
“pivotal role” in the current war against Gaza, is taking part
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/eu-funds-weapons-firm-playing-pivotal-role-gaza-genocide>
in at least two of those projects
<https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101135965>.

Many other projects include Tel Aviv University
<https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101116423>, the Technion
<https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101104240> and Hebrew University of
Jerusalem <https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101117845>. All three of
those colleges are offering
<https://en.huji.ac.il/news/enhanced-financial-package-our-students-serving-idf>
special <https://english.tau.ac.il/news/uniform_university_fund> funding
<https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2023/12/supporting-reservists-final-exam-exemptions-and-make-up/>
to students who – as reserve soldiers with the Israeli military – have
perpetrated a genocide over the past six months.

I discussed the close connections between Israel’s universities and the
military on The Electronic Intifada livestream last week.

Mossad connection

The EU is implicitly allowing Israel to portray its oppression of
Palestinians as defensive.

On 8 November – just over a month after the Gaza genocide began – the
Brussels bureaucracy authorized
<https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101119985> a new research project on
terrorism.

Among its participants are Reichman University. That Israeli college has a
“counterterrorism institute” co-founded
<https://ict.org.il/ourteam/mr-shabtai-shavit-zl/> by the late Shabtai
Shavit, who had previously been a director of Mossad, the infamous spying
and assassination agency.

Some EU projects involving Israel’s universities were given the formal
go-ahead <https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101158206> after
<https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101123407> the International Court of
Justice found in January that there is a plausible case
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/world-court-orders-israel-halt-gaza-genocide>
Israel is committing genocide.

By signing the new grant agreements, EU officials are siding with a state
ordered to stop committing genocide, widely recognized as the worst crime
against humanity.

It is an open secret that Israel has exploited
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/podcast-ep-78-how-israel-tests-weapons-palestinians>
the opportunities afforded by its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza to
develop a lucrative arms industry.

The EU has no qualms about giving research grants to businesspeople with
deep connections to the weapons trade.

The Israeli firm RunEL is participating
<https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101139292> in a new EU-financed
project on the future of wireless communications. Zion Hadad, the firm’s
CEO, used to be a leading scientist <https://www.runel.net/zion-hadad> with
Tadiran, now – under its current name Elbit Systems – Israel’s top
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/court-orders-netherlands-stop-sending-warplane-parts-israel>
weapons producer.

In the early stages of the Gaza genocide, Ursula von der Leyen, the
European Commission’s president, promised
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/eu-boss-backs-israels-acts-genocide>
Israel her full and unconditional backing.

Officials working for the EU have shown such support by striving to
maintain a business as usual approach. Amid the genocide, the EU’s embassy
in Tel Aviv has run a seminar celebrating
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/eu-wants-everyone-accept-israels-mass-rape-lies>
how Israel “excels” at gaining access to research grants.
Sordid irony

Israel is the second largest beneficiary of the EU’s science program, that
seminar was told. Known as Horizon Europe, the program has been
allocated a total
budget
<https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/programmes/horizon>
of nearly $104 billion between 2021 and 2027.

Medical innovation <https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101136299> is among
the objectives of the new EU research projects involving Israel.

There is a sordid irony in awarding Israel grants for health projects at a
time its troops have been laying waste
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/al-shifa-hospital-ruins>
to Gaza’s hospitals. Babies in incubators have not even been spared
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israeli-military-left-palestinian-infants-die>
during the current genocide.

Nor should the EU be excused for agreeing
<https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101129732> to a new research grant for
Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, since the war on Gaza was declared.

Israel has long abused the Holocaust in order to get away with its violence
against Palestinians. Yad Vashem has been central
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/invoking-holocaust-support-gaza-genocide-abuse-history>
to those efforts.

Few things can be more obscene than helping Israel abuse the Holocaust
while carrying out a holocaust in Gaza.
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