Copying my response to an unlisted communication. Highly recommend reading Ora Herman's "The Furnace and the Reactor: Behind the Scenes at the Eichmann Trial"
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@[…] you raise important questions but I’m not sure what you mean by building bridges. Israel, in a way, is the #golem Europe created and now is in full control, destroying everything in its wake and it’s not limited to Palestinian resistance.
Apropos investment in Israel’s economy, science and military, in the 1960s #Germany used #Holocaust guilt to justify funding Israel's nuclear program while demanding the #Eichmann trial not implicate ordinary Germans in genocide. Today's Europe uses "shared values" rhetoric to justify continued research cooperation.
Ben-Gurion insisted on "Nazi Germany" versus "Germany" to protect German sensibilities and secure nuclear funding. Today's discussions about Horizon Europe carefully avoid confronting Europe's role in enabling Israeli capabilities used against Palestinians. The program has provided Israeli institutions with billions in research funding, much of which has enhanced dual-use technologies, surveillance systems, and military applications now deployed in Gaza and the West Bank.
IMHO Suspending Horizon Europe participation wouldn't just be about current Israeli actions - it would force Europe to confront how its historical and ongoing support has made those actions possible. The current framing avoids this uncomfortable truth about European complicity.
See Ora Herman's "The Furnace and the Reactor: Behind the Scenes at the Eichmann Trial"
Maybe the solution is to encourage brain drain. Support Israeli scientists who will come and work in Europe, make them sign a cooling-off period preventing them from working with any industry complicit, supporting or enabling the occupation in any way. The world will benefit from continued investment in research, and #Israel will be left to deal with the consequences of adopting messianic #Zionism.
Regardless, polling shows that most Israelis support the continued occupation, and now more than ever, they also support population transfer - I believe the figure is around 86% of the Jewish population. There's little reason to assume that scientists and academics are somehow exempt from these broader societal attitudes.
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