Kalaniyot says it is “not a political organization,” on its website. This claim — that Kalaniyot and similar partnerships with Israeli universities are apolitical — is untrue, disingenuous and ironic. It is a blatantly political choice to seek out partnerships with Israeli universities while Israel faces backlash on campus and internationally for ongoing crimes against humanity. Deepening ties with these universities is intrinsically political because these universities are deeply embedded in the security apparatus of Israel.
For example, Tel Aviv University, a Kalaniyot-eligible university, partners with the IDF through programs such as Erez, a rigorous training program designed to produce “platoon and company commanders in the IDF’s ground combat units” by combining “comprehensive military training with academic study”.” The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, another Kalaniyot-eligible university, gives course credits to students to volunteer at Im-Tirzu — a right-wing, pro-settler organization which blacklists academics critical of Israel, harasses human rights groups and seeks “to take control of territories in Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and Judea and Samaria,” according to their website. The university has also increased financial aid for students “called into active reserve service” after the start of the war in Gaza , and provides “diverse logistics equipment to several military units.”
In a particularly stark example, Ariel University, one of the universities eligible for Dartmouth-Kalaniyot’s Collaborative Ventures in the Sciences, resides on a settlement in the West Bank, and gives academic credit to students who volunteer on farms at settlements around the West Bank. Through “deepen[ing] ties” with universities like this, Dartmouth’s collaboration with Kalaniyot is normalizing Israel’s colonization of the West Bank; by presenting such universities as neutral hubs of purely academic discourse, Kalaniyot administrators whitewash the role of these universities in promoting militarism and Palestinian erasure. Institutions like Ariel University aren’t somehow delinked from Israel’s apartheid policies aimed at stealing land from Palestinians — they actively facilitate it.
One could argue that Kalaniyot does not directly support the military projects of these institutions and only supports faculty research. Yet, there are intrinsic ethical problems with partnering with institutions who promote such militarism in the first place — to say nothing of the politics of normalization and “reputational laundering” involved in presenting such universities as liberal bastions of science. So no, the College cannot delink the two despite the intellectual gymnastics of Kalaniyot-affiliated professors.
In one example of these gymnastics, government professor Benjamin Valentino recently claimed that hiring Israeli professors to Dartmouth’s government department is merely an attempt at dialogue, in order to establish “contact between American and Israeli scholars.” This rhetoric is a way to skirt the responsibility that Dartmouth bears for partnering with these institutions and normalizing their role in upholding Israel’s occupation, settlement and genocide. Even taking Valentino’s argument at face value, communication cannot be effective if it is one-sided. The only way for such an initiative like Kalaniyot to be communicative would be to involve Palestinian universities. Yet, one would be hard-pressed in involving Palestinian universities in such an initiative because Israel routinely arrests and attacks their students for nearly any sort of political activity — just last month Israeli soldiers opened fire on Palestinian university students attending a student union protest, injuring at least 41, according to the United Nations. This is to say nothing of the mass destruction of universities in Gaza, where more than 80% of schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to United Nations experts. The prerequisite for this “communication” or discourse that Valentino envisions would have to involve standing up for Palestinian higher education in the face of its destruction, which would be political.
For the government department, of all places, to ignore all these ethical considerations and paint this project as apolitical is particularly ironic. If a government education feels apolitical for professors in that department, it reflects their insulated and privileged ivory towers, where their decisions have no impact. The truth is that everything is political: that is why we show up to our classes every day, in hopes of being in a position of influence one day to positively impact the world and the systems that run it. Dartmouth’s repeated emphasis of framing everything as apolitical or too complex and nuanced is a disservice to its students, making us feel helpless in the face of these overarching power structures.
The truth is, when you whitewash the war crimes of a country like Israel through “deepening” ties with its institutions, you are normalizing and justifying such actions. You are promoting a world where crimes can be separated, siloed off and delinked from the institutions that enable them so that no one is held accountable. In a time when this country’s politics are so polarized, the least higher education can do is to be transparent with their students. We should all be able to make our own judgments about difficult issues rather than blur our moral consciousness by feigning apoliticism.
Angela Zhang is a member of the Class of 2028. Guest articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
