New research by Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has revealed that UK universities hold investments worth £456 million in companies that are implicated in Israel’s military occupation, system of apartheid and genocide against Palestinians. This information adds impetus to the growing divestment campaigns led by students and academics that have won significant concessions from university authorities in the past 18 months.
UK universities: complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza
Following freedom of information requests to every university, with responses from 87, PSC has published an updated database of university complicity through financial investments. It reveals, for example:
- University of Essex invests £29,396,693 in companies including HSBC, AXA, Alphabet, Barclays and Siemens through their account with Fasanara Capital.
- Kingston University has £34,800,000 in direct holdings with Barclays and HSBC.
- Queen Mary, University of London invests £40,494,514 in companies including Alphabet, Booking.com, Siemens and HSBC.
- University of Warwick invests £8,839,580 in companies including Alphabet, Booking.com and HSBC through Cazenove Capital.
- Aberystwyth University invests £455,349 in companies including BAE Systems, Safran, and Siemens.
In 2005 Palestinian civil society called for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights. The corporations listed in the database are all implicated in the commission of international crimes connected to Israel’s military occupation, regime of apartheid or genocide according to the BDS movement’s Corporate Complicity Criteria.
Overarching research
Direct complicity includes military, security, technological, financial, logistical, or infrastructure support. PSC’s research has found that British universities hold more than £32,000,000 worth of investments, shares and bonds in Barclays bank, which holds over £2 billion in shares, and provides £6.1 billion in loans and underwriting, to nine companies whose weapons, components and military technology are being used by Israel in its attacks on Palestinians.
This research has also found that UK universities have thousands of pounds worth of investments in companies including:
- Caterpillar, which supplies the Israeli military with the bulldozers used to illegally demolish Palestinian homes, schools, villages and infrastructure, including sewage and water pipes.
- BAE Systems, which plays a key role, alongside several other arms companies, in manufacturing F-35 bombers, described as the “most lethal…fighter aircraft ever built” and which are currently being deployed in the strikes on Gaza. It is currently under judicial review whether the British government should sell F-35 parts to Israel.
- Palantir, a highly controversial US company which provides advanced AI tools to the Israeli military, enabling Israel’s attacks on Palestinians, and entered into a “strategic partnership” with Israel’s Ministry of Defence in 2024.
- Alphabet Inc, Google’s parent company, which provides cloud computing services and other technologies to the Israeli military, allowing them to target Palestinians with deadly precision. Since 2021, Google Cloud Platform has co-developed the main cloud infrastructure platform for the Israeli state, dubbed ‘Project Nimbus’. This project has been widely condemned by Google workers.
UK universities must BDS immediately
In response to Israel’s wholesale destruction of education facilities in Gaza, and mass killing of teachers and students, support for divestment has been very strong across UK universities. Last year there was an unprecedented wave of student encampments on 35 campuses with activists holding protests to demand university authorities address their complicity.
There have already been some significant victories:
- Swansea University has committed to divest the £5 million they held in Barclays Bank.
- Trinity College, Cambridge’s wealthiest college, voted in 2024 to divest its multi-million-pound portfolio from weapons manufacturers.
- Queens University Belfast confirmed in their response to PSC’s FOI that it has divested entirely from complicit companies, which will result in a total divestment of around £800,000.
- University of Portsmouth has recently divested £800,000 from Caterpillar, following consistent student campaigning.
- King’s College London were reported to have divested from “companies engaged in the production or distribution of controversial weapons” in 2024.
Stella Swain, PSC Youth and Student Officer, said:
It’s absolutely shameful that any university is investing in companies complicit in genocide. The fact that our universities invest £460 million in these corporations is an outrage. But students across the country are taking action to demand an end to this complicity, standing in a proud history of student resistance to occupation, colonisation and apartheid.
Universities can choose to end their complicity: many have started divestment negotiations as a result of student organising over the past two years. These wins show that we need to keep up the pressure until we achieve divestment at every university.
Featured image via the Canary
