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Cornell student assembly votes to cut ties with Israel’s Technion

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Cornell University’s Student Assembly on Thursday voted to cut ties with Israel’s Technion University and condemned the university for hosting center-left Israeli politician Tzipi Livni.

The resolutions highlighted how campus anti-Israel activism brings together university politics, unproven international legal allegations and representative groups dedicated to other causes to advance opposition to Israel.

The Student Assembly represents Cornell’s undergraduate student body to the university administration and is meant to improve student life on campus through issues like transportation. Resolutions approved by the assembly are brought to the university president, who can accept or reject the measures.

The resolution targeting the Technion called on Cornell to “terminate its institutional partnership” with the Israeli university, one of Israel’s leading institutions of higher education.

The measure cited “serious ethical concerns” and “complicity in genocide,” alleging that Technion’s involvement with the Israeli military violated international law.

Cornell operates a campus in New York City in partnership with the Technion.

The assembly adopted the resolution on Thursday with 17 votes in favor and five opposed.

The second resolution condemned Cornell’s “use of programming to platform individuals implicated in war crimes,” due to a Cornell program called Pathways to Peace that hosted Israeli lawmaker Tzipi Livni.

Livni is a former Knesset member and minister, a critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a supporter of a two-state solution, at one point heading peace talks with the Palestinians.

In 2009, a UK court issued a warrant for Livni over alleged war crimes committed by the IDF during the previous year’s conflict in Gaza, but Livni did not go through with a planned trip to the UK. A summons that UK police issued to Livni in 2016 was also dropped. Those police moves came after pressure from UK anti-Israel activists.

The Cornell resolution said Livni’s participation in campus events created “a hostile and coercive academic environment for students” and exposed students to “state propaganda.”

The resolution demanded the university “reaffirm its commitment to academic integrity and ethical leadership” by not inviting individuals “implicated in war crimes or mass human rights abuses.”

The resolution passed with 19 votes in favor, two against, and three abstentions.

Campus activist groups had encouraged supporters to “pack the student assembly” to voice support for the resolutions.

Cornell did not respond to a request for comment.

International crimes like genocide have strict legal definitions that have not been proven against Israel in international courts, but the accusations themselves are often deployed against Israelis.

Israel and its supporters have long accused biased activists of weaponizing the international legal system against Israel.

The Cornell assembly’s resolutions are part of a broader, ongoing assault by activist US university students against any connections to Israel. Jewish students and federal authorities have said the activism sometimes veers into discrimination against Jews.

Student unions and governing bodies have played a role in stigmatizing Israel, as do unions representing other industries that are nominally dedicated to improving worker conditions.

Late last year, Cornell’s graduate student union adopted a boycott resolution targeting Israel that supported Palestinian resistance “by any means necessary,” a slogan seen as endorsing violence. The university distanced itself from the union and condemned antisemitism.

The graduate student union at Columbia University this week approved a labor strike to further the demands of anti-Israel activists on the campus, as well as other demands.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech group, placed Cornell at 227 out of 257 US universities in its free speech rankings.

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anti-Israel activity on campus


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