Dear friends, partners, supporters and advocates for justice,
We at the JAI kindly request your attention to the following:
Cornell University has recently agreed to partner with Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) on a massive new tech campus in New York City. Our friends at Cornell and activists in NYC are lobbying against this partnership, lately with some success. The provost of the University requested a meeting with members of Students for Justice in Palestine at the university, a sign that the university's administration is noticing the pressure.
Technion is a leading Israeli institute with thousands of graduates that end up, according to the institute's website, in the military service or being part of the Israeli elite. The institute itself has a history of collaboration with the Israeli defense electronics company Elbit Systems Ltd., which builds military, surveillance and security equipment both in Israel and worldwide. The military technology that is being used by the occupation forces in Palestine are either directly or indirectly being designed in Technion. The partnership between Cornell and Technion is a slap on the face of those who advocate for justice. Now is the time for the academic institutes to join the academic boycott against Israel --until it complies with international law-- rather than building partnerships and coalitions with the Israeli institutes and universities. Technion is an obvious and productive part in the oppressive machinery of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and a contributor to the systematic apartheid policies that are being practiced against the Palestinians on daily basis. It should therefore be isolated within the academic circles.
The Students for Justice in Palestine movement at Cornell has launched a petition campaign against this partnership and is circling it around. We are forwarding this to our network with an encouragement to sign it.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/in-opposition-to-cornell-universitys/signatures
Thank you for your continuous and ardent support to the Palestinian cause.