A group of archeologists go to a mountain. They bring a bulldozer, crushing the artifacts they don’t want, picking and choosing the pieces that support the narrative they want to tell. They damage and take over homes in the way of their excavation.
Anyone who has ever taken an archeology class (or thinks about it for more than a couple of seconds) knows this is wrong. It is bad practice, bad science, and bad ethics. Bryn Mawr College, however, sends students to universities that use these very methods.
Bryn Mawr College offers study abroad programs to Hebrew University and the University of Haifa, schools that routinely engage in academic discrimination, partner with and promote the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), support the occupation of Palestinian land while justifying apartheid, and of course, engage in what even high-ranking officials from the Israeli Antiquities Authority call “bad archeology.” On Wednesday, Feb. 17, students from Bi-Co Jewish Voice for Peace gathered for a teach-in on the harmful practices of these universities and how students can get involved in the campaign to end Bryn Mawr’s partnerships with these universities. By approving these study abroad programs to Hebrew University and the University of Haifa and advertising them on their website, Bryn Mawr is endorsing their practices and sending students into an academically and physically unsafe environment.
Students began by describing the financial relationships between Bryn Mawr College and these universities. As stated on a slide at the teach-in, Bryn Mawr’s payment of the schools’ tuition per student attending amounts to “financially supporting Public Israeli Universities as their government commits genocide.” For those unaware, groups including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and the United Nations have declared that “Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians there.” Israeli universities are deeply complicit in this genocide and Israel’s apartheid policies, maintaining close relationships with the military and participating in and building the country’s infrastructure of oppression, which has led Palestinian civil society to call for a boycott of these academic institutions.
According to Israeli scholar Maya Wind, in her internationally acclaimed book Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom which was the basis for much of the teach-in and the main source for this article if not cited otherwise, both Hebrew University and the University of Haifa have a history of academic discrimination. Over ninety percent of students summoned to disciplinary committees at the University of Haifa between 2002 and 2010 were Palestinian. Hebrew University led a smear campaign against renowned Palestinian Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian for calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza, asking her to resign and then suspending her, leading to the search of her home and her arrest by Israeli forces. In the infamous “Tantura affair,” Theodore Katz, a master’s student at the University of Haifa, wrote his thesis on the 1948 forced displacement and massacre of around 250 Palestinians from the village of Tantura. His thesis was published in 1998 and in 2000, Amir Gilat, an Israeli investigative journalist, corroborated Katz’s findings and published a story about the massacre. There was a swift backlash and the University of Haifa, despite having accepted Katz’s thesis and awarding it high marks, withdrew legal support, rescinded his degree, and disciplined Ilan Pappé, a professor and expert on the subject, who defended Katz’s research. In 2022, the university reaffirmed its rescinding of Katz’s degree, calling the Tantura massacre “alleged.”
Students leading the teach-in also described the universities’ support of Israeli settlements. The Mount Scopus Campus, where Bryn Mawr students study, is built on expropriated Palestinian land, which is a clear violation of international law. With tall walls lacking windows and guards stationed at every entrance, Hebrew University acts as a fortress, separated from the neighboring East Jerusalem Palestinian communities, its imposing water tower used as a lookout by the Israeli military. Israel has seized over 90% of the land from the Palestinian neighborhood of Issawiyeh, first to expand Hebrew University and then to build other settlements. The Hebrew University administration and student groups have worked to increase their segregation and increase policing of the neighborhood, with the Israeli Police conducting surveillance of Issawiyeh from university buildings in coordination with campus security. Through these methods and more, the university is institutionally supporting the ongoing oppression of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
Hebrew University and the University of Haifa have specialized programs and technological ties with the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF. The former president of the University of Haifa called the school the “academic home of the [Israeli] security forces” due to its work providing training for senior IDF soldiers, in addition to financial support and scholarships. Hebrew University also houses a military base, and holds training and special degree programs for the IDF, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement. Hebrew University’s Arabic department (where Bryn Mawr students could study) is deeply tied to the IDF, with the department exchanging research on Palestinian citizens with the government and giving students training to monitor the Arab press and surveil Palestinians. In terms of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Hebrew University boasts on its website of providing “diverse logistics equipment to several military units.”
Throughout the teach-in, students in the audience shared their thoughts on the information they were learning and how it connected with their own lives. One person pointed out parallels between the Israeli universities’ academic discrimination and the encampment at Bryn Mawr and other universities across the United States. Another expressed their fear as an international student due to President Trump’s executive order threatening to cancel student visas of pro-Palestinian protesters and because of the rhetoric of Bi-Co professors like Barak Mendelsohn who has advocated on X for disciplining students who have protested against the genocide. Finally, one student expressed how working on the campaign to end Bryn Mawr’s study abroad programs in Israel felt like a tangible way to make change and support the Palestinian cause in their own community. Students who want to support this mission should reach out to Bi-Co JVP (bico@jewishvoiceforpeace.org and @bicojvp on Instagram) and vote for the upcoming Plenary resolution to end Bryn Mawr’s study-abroad ties with these unethical and actively harmful Israeli universities.
