“This is the first known American-Israeli weapons manufacturer partnership to end at an American university since the war on Gaza began.”
The MIT Coalition for Palestine has announced victory in pressuring the university to cut ties with the MIT-Lockheed Martin Seed Fund, which finances collaborations between MIT and universities in Israel.
The development was “a major divestment win for the Scientists Against Genocide (SAGE) movement here at MIT: the MISTI-Israel Lockheed Martin Fund has been shut down after sustained pressure,” the coalition said in a statement on Friday.
“This is the first known American-Israeli weapons manufacturer partnership to end at an American university since the war on Gaza began,” it added.
According to the statement, the Lockheed Martin Seed Fund has, since 2019, been a program administered by the MIT International Science and Technology Initiative Israel, or MISTI-Israel, to connect students and researchers on this campus to the Israeli offices of Lockheed Martin, a global arms manufacturer.
“Well not with MIT labor anymore. Under pressure from students and scientists of conscience at this Institute, the MIT administration has discontinued MISTI-Israel’s Lockheed Martin Seed Fund and will not renew its contract,” the coalition stated.
“We have recently received official confirmation of this,” it pointed out, adding that the Lockheed Martin Fund “was removed” from the MISTI-Israel website “between December 2023 and February 2024.”
Months of Protest
This, the coalition explained, “was a major target of our divestment action” which comes “after months of protest against it last fall, including letter deliveries, sit-ins, and public information campaigns.”
📍Lobby 7 Steps, MIT
Footage from the MIT Coalition for Palestine yesterday announcing the end of the MIT-Israel Lockheed Martin Seed Fund.
Full statements from the organizers and supporters is available at https://t.co/WXEP4RD3AS
Video by @BostonPSL 🚨 pic.twitter.com/YTpKcIVqVK
— Francesca Riccio-Ackerman (@still_francesca) September 14, 2024
However, it said, “The Institute might say unconvincingly that they simply let the fund expire, but the reality is that MIT and Lockheed Martin felt the heat and backed down.”
“We know it’s specifically about Israel because MISTI-Germany, for instance, still has a Lockheed Martin Seed Fund. MIT actively chose not to renew the MISTI-Israel contract in particular under our pressure and scrutiny,” the coalition added.
Weapons Sold to Israel
Lockheed Martin is one the world’s largest companies in the global security, defense and aerospace industries, specializing in areas such as defense technology, according to its website.
Largest European Companies Arming Israel and Their Financiers – Report
It is one of six arms producers in the world that have sold weapons or weapons systems to Israel, according to a report published by a group of civil society organizations and trade unions.
“Lockheed Martin has sold several billion dollars of weapons to the apartheid state of Israel and profited from the genocidal war on Gaza,” the coalition said further.
“In particular, Lockheed has supplied the Israeli government with Hellfire missiles, attack aircraft, and heavy artillery which they have used to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza over the past year: its schools, hospitals, universities, holy sites, and vital infrastructure – directly killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and expelling millions in the process.”
MIT’s Response
According to a report by the Boston Globe on Friday, an MIT spokesperson told the paper that “several seed funds supported by Lockheed Martin and established as part of the larger MIT Global Seed Fund program have either wound down or soon will.”
In an email to the Globe, Kimberley Allen said that programs have been run in various countries including Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland.
“It was a Lockheed decision not to continue the seed funds for all of these country programs,” she is reported as saying.
The Coalition maintains that “MIT will always try to spin a narrative around this, but we know it was the steadfastness of protest that achieved this victory.”
It said that MIT “has continued to demonstrate very little empathy toward Palestinians here at MIT and abroad,” and urged the university to “not only shift their rhetoric and acknowledge Palestinian humanity and rights to free speech but also put their money where their mouth is and end MIT’s ties to an apartheid state.”
‘Complicity with Genocide’
The MIT Coalition for Palestine includes MIT Divest, whose mission “is to end MIT’s complicity not only with genocide but with ecocide and environmental destruction.
‘No Business as Usual during a Genocide’ – Columbia Students Resume Protests
“This is a collective victory for the coalition, and the first among many we hope to see,” the statement said.
Students at some US campuses have resumed protests demanding divestment and an end to Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians since October 7.
Nearly 2,500 people were arrested at pro-Palestinian rallies at college and university campuses across the US during the last academic year which began at Columbia University in New York City.
Three university presidents resigned following campus tensions, including Columbia’s Minouche Shafik.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
