Overview: Drawing parallels to historical movements against apartheid and the Vietnam War, a new report highlights concerns regarding unreported Israeli military funding within American universities. Researchers found millions in inconsistent funding linked to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, sparking renewed calls for institutional divestment. Critics argue that these resources prioritize military spending over domestic social needs during the ongoing conflict in Palestine.
S.E. Williams
You can call it “deja vu all over again,” as they say. Or, you can call it a morally compelled call to consciousness, or, an urgent request to do what we can to help save lives. This time, the “what” is as simple as helping to spread the word.
As a baby boomer, I was vocal in the 1980s’ call for colleges and universities to divest from the egregious South African government after witnessing the horrors of apartheid being perpetuated against Black South Africans with intentional malice and forethought. The South African government exhibited the same soul-gripping, “white supremacists” brutality historically fostered upon Blacks here in America.
What started as a small student movement with support of outside organizations that were simultaneously working to end the repressive Apartheid regime, calls for colleges and universities to divest from South Africa eventually helped turn the tide in America against the racist South African government. By the movement’s conclusion in 1985 and 86, history notes that more than 200 colleges and universities across the country, from historically Black colleges to Ivy League universities —succeeded in their divestment effort.
Today, the world faces another regime with a white supremacist mindset that is ruling over another minority population and deploying a new version of vicious and indiscriminate apartheid-type tactics fueled by a perverted form of religiosity. As a result, men, women, both young and old, as well as children are being slaughtered indiscriminately and apparently without remorse. Meanwhile, the American government stands by in silence…complicit. America is serving as a willing partner in the destruction of the Palestinian people.
I feel strongly that we as Americans should not stand idly by as this genocide continues. In Martin Luther King Jr. ‘s speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”, delivered at the Riverside Church in New York on April 4, 1967, King bravely spoke out against another unjust war—the war in Viet Nam.
“Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. . . I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home. . . I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.”
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
King was widely criticized for this speech and a year later, he was shot dead in Tennessee—some believe there was a connection. There are experts who see a connection and ponder the thought that as long as King stuck to criticizing the nation’s treatment of Black people in America he was reluctantly tolerated. But, when he crossed the line and spoke out on the issue of international racism, war, destruction, occupation and the economic exploitation of people of color around the world—that was a bridge too far.
There is a thread of racism that weaves through and connects Viet Nam, South Africa and the plight of the Palestinians. By the zenith of activists’ calls for the economic isolation of the South African government, more than 200 colleges and universities across the U.S. had joined the divestment effort.
It is almost unimaginable, but by the end of the war in Viet Nam, it is estimated that nearly two million Vietnamese civilians died from bombings, combat, and related violence and in 2024, it was estimated the U.S. spent over one trillion dollars on the Viet Nam War when adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, according to a special Times report, during the Viet Nam era about 25% of Americans lived in poverty.
Returning to the genocide in Palestine, to date, civilian deaths at the hands of the Israeli military in this current conflict continues to rise. According to the Gaza Death Toll Live Tracker, the number of civilian deaths has already reached well beyond 74,000.
As the death toll rises in Palestine and the genocide continues unabated, a recent report has ignited a new call for colleges to divest—this time from Israel. A Drop Site investigation revealed the “Israeli Ministry of Defense and Israeli defense companies have directed millions in unreported funding to U.S. university research programs. “According to the report, the funds are used for weapons development, sponsoring research either directly or serving as the pass-through entity for money.
Researchers identified millions of dollars in financial ties that span two decades. The ties are between the Israeli Ministry of Defense (MOD), Israeli weapons manufacturers, and American universities. The report further noted that much of this funding does not appear (with any consistency) in the tracking of foreign funding to U.S. universities that should be recorded in national databases designed to track such activity.
The research group Antiwar Initiative identified more than $15 million of unreported or inconsistently reported entries for funding tied to the Israeli MOD or defense manufacturers. There is also concern that the UC system may have taken millions from Israel in this regard.
The report stressed, however, that it is difficult, if not impossible to identify the real scope of Israeli dollars that are flowing into American colleges and universities. This is because, as noted by the researchers, “entries for such funding were often not reported in public filings mandating disclosure of foreign gifts.”
Researchers stressed this information was only discovered by a labor intensive process that required the manual cross-referencing of public and internal databases, the review of audit records, and by identifying acknowledgments in academic papers.
In addition, some of the university projects listed as being sponsored by the Israeli MOD or defense companies “did not include the amounts of funding provided, or contained inconsistent or contradictory records in audit databases.”
Not only is America allowing Israel to exploit the brain trust of our colleges and universities on the one hand; on the other hand, every taxpayer dollar given to the Israeli government in support of the genocide being perpetrated against the Palestians is also killing U.S. citizens in some of our most vulnerable communities who depend on the social fabric of this nation to help sustain them.
The threads of that social fabric are being used to weave financial security for Israel’s genocide and war machine against the Palestinian people rather than caring for the most vulnerable here at home. To date, America has provided more than $16.3 billion in direct military aid to Israel since the beginning of its current conflict with Palestine that started October 7, 2023, money that could be used for healthcare and food subsidies here in the United States.
Trump’s big beautiful bill cut $1 trillion from Medicaid and $186 billion from SNAP through 2034. This level of distorted morality is not absolutely sustainable. As King advised in his speech at the Riverside Church in April 1967, “A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings. . . of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane. . .cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Today, King’s words are more prescient than ever before.
Please share this information regarding Israel’s military funding seeping unnoticed into the bloodstream of American colleges and universities.
As always. this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.