I didn’t learn about the University’s complicity in genocide in Palestine from a press release or a seminar. I learned it walking past tents in Brunswick Park, reading the slogans on the archway splashed in red paint, and hearing the chants outside Whitworth Hall.
Like many students, I realised through these moments how deeply the University’s ties run: from its collaborations with arms companies like BAE Systems, whose technology feeds into the fighter jets used in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza (including F-35), to its formal partnership with Tel Aviv University, an institution embedded in Israel’s security establishment.
Over the past two years, those moments have multiplied: the encampment in Brunswick Park on 1 May 2024, red paint thrown on the archway on 13 May, and the occupation of the Simon building in March 2025.
These were not impulsive or performative acts; no student willingly risks disciplinary action or their place at the University for a trivial issue. And those consequences are real: from students facing disciplinary hearings after a banner dropped in 2017, to recent suspensions and threats of action against protestors in 2024. They were deliberate efforts to expose what the institution works hard to keep quiet. And that silence matters.
Most of us didn’t learn about these ties because the University was transparent about them – we learned because other student activists forced it into our view. This makes the University’s evasions (its technical denials of “investment in Israel” and refusal to confront implications of its partnerships) all the more revealing. Because neutrality in the face of apartheid and systematic oppression is not neutral. It is a political decision. A decision that Manchester has made painfully clear.
Rather than meeting demands, it has managed optics: quiet logistical shifts, procedural language, and statements that sound neutral but signal alignment through inaction.
When students occupied Whitworth Hall, exams were quietly relocated rather than the administration engaging with their demands. As encampments persisted for weeks, the University invoked “health and safety” rhetoric to keep protesters at a distance; a framing that painted student activism as a disruption to be controlled, not a political stance to be heard.
Eventually, those encampments didn’t simply fade out; they were pressured and dismantled through sustained administrative measures and disciplinary threats that forced protesters to either leave or face serious repercussions.
Throughout, the public face of the University has been its Vice-Chancellor, Duncan Ivison — the senior executive responsible for shaping institutional direction and external messaging. His statement, released in November 2024 after months of student protest and following the red paint on the archway, addressed the removal of two busts. These included Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president and a prominent Zionist, and Harold Baily Dixon, a 19th-century chemistry professor at the University.
Ivison described the act as “an act of vandalism that makes no contribution whatsoever to a better understanding of the current conflict in the Middle East”. The University singled out Weizmann by name — a figure symbolising the ideological roots of the state whose actions today are causing mass death and displacement — while omitting Dixon entirely and offered no meaningful engagement with the genocide students were protesting. In that same statement, Ivison stressed that the University “welcomes the exchange of strongly held views” and seeks “mutual understanding, and not vilification or hate.” It is a deliberate shift: outrage at mass killing is treated as a question of tone, and protest is framed as incivility.
Meanwhile, the University repeatedly leaned on the claim that it has “no investments in Israel.” This line may be technically accurate, but it deliberately diverts attention from the deeper issue: the research partnerships, funding channels, and institutional affiliations that directly link it to those arming and enabling mass atrocities. These connections often take the form of joint research projects with defence-linked universities like Tel Aviv University, collaborations with companies such as BAE Systems, whose technology underpins Israeli military operations, and the acceptance of grants or industry funding tied to the arms trade. Through these relationships, the University’s resources and reputation become part of a broader network sustaining the violence – even if no money flows directly to the Israeli state. And while the University tries to frame its position as neutral, its treatment of student activists reveals otherwise.
What makes the University’s evasions even starker is the scale of what they are distancing themselves from. This isn’t an abstract policy debate — it’s a genocide. More than 61,000 Palestinians have been killed, over 150,000 injured, 90% displaced, and over 2 million people are facing extreme hunger in Gaza and the West Bank. Entire neighbourhoods have been levelled; hospitals reduced to rubble; children starved under a blockade designed to cut off food, water, and aid. Humanitarian organisations, including the United Nations, have described the situation as an ethnic cleansing, a genocide, and a violation of international law. These are the conditions against which students are protesting, and which the University knowingly side-lines to protect its partnerships, funding flows, and global image.
Senior leadership speaks with legal precision and moral vagueness: statements of ‘concern’, stripped of accountability, carefully avoid their own role in sustaining this machinery. This reflects a calculated choice to protect institutional prestige, funding relationships, and external partnerships rather than take principled stance. In doing so, they choose to safeguard their reputation over real human lives – the lives directly endangered by the systems and partnerships the University continues to uphold. This detachment also has tangible consequences on campus, where students are left to navigate the emotional and political weight of the University’s silence and complicity.
Many like to believe they would have spoken out in the face of past atrocities – to imagine that moral clarity would have been obvious to us then. But those tests of conscience aren’t confined to history books. They happen in real time, in moments like this. Every carefully worded press release, every appeal to “complexity”, every procedural deflection is a choice to preserve power over justice.
The recent ceasefire is already being sold as if the war is over, as if a deal signals resolution, forgiveness, or justice. But that’s a convenient illusion, not a reality. Gaza remains devastated, Israeli forces continue to control borders and movement, and Palestinians still face systematic violence. And ceasefires like this are nothing new. Similar truces in May 2021 and November 2023 were hailed as turning points, only for airstrikes, raids, and blockades to resume within weeks. This October’s deal risks becoming just another pause that masks (not ends) the violence. The University cannot use this illusion of ‘peace’ as cover to maintain its ties and profits with institutions complicit in that violence. A ceasefire is not a moral reset.
The students and activist groups have done their part. They have made the links visible, sustained pressure, and faced the consequences. The responsibility now sits squarely with the University. No amount of procedural language or technical disclaimers can change the fact that its research and partnerships are tied to the machinery of war. Silence here is not neutrality. It is alignment. The blood may not be on their campus, but it stains the institution all the same.
In response, President and Vice-Chancellor Duncan Ivison said:
“The ongoing and evolving crisis in the Middle East is truly horrific, marked by catastrophic and tragic loss of life. Members of our University community are directly affected, and the events of the last two years have understandably caused deep concern and strong feelings.
Since I arrived, I have consistently defended the right of students to express their views through lawful and peaceful protest and other means, while also arguing that, as an educational institution, we should also be seeking mutual understanding – especially with those with whom we profoundly disagree.
We understand and acknowledge the diverse views and feelings expressed by many of our students, including those about the University’s partnerships – particularly with Tel Aviv University (TAU) and BAE Systems.
Our position has been one of considered disagreement with calls to stop academic enquiry, which is protected by law. We believe that taking a balanced approach is essential to open, rigorous and respectful debate within a global university community. The extent to which a university can or should be equated with the actions of any government is itself a complex topic of discussion, as is the legitimacy of defence research in a liberal democracy.
Our research collaborations, including those with TAU, are academic in nature and exist to advance knowledge. They are carried out within UK law and our ethical and research governance frameworks, and staff participation is entirely voluntary. Academic freedom means researchers must be able to pursue lawful inquiry without political or ideological restriction.
Decisions of this kind are taken collectively and with great care. The University’s governing bodies, including Senate, have voted against ending the partnership with TAU. That decision reflects careful consideration of legal, ethical and academic principles, as well as the importance of global collaboration in addressing shared challenges. Because international research can raise complex ethical questions – especially where legal and regulatory frameworks differ from those of the UK – the University has published its Policy on Responsible International Activities and Collaborations.
We know many members of our community feel deeply about the situation in Gaza. The University continues to support affected students and academics through our Humanitarian and Article 26 Scholarship schemes, and our partnership with the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA). We are also in discussions with other HE partners through UUK about joint efforts to help rebuild the higher education sector in Gaza, as soon as conditions allow.
We welcome ongoing dialogue on these important issues. We remain committed to freedom of speech and freedom of debate and will take all reasonable steps to ensure that members of our community can express their views safely and lawfully. Our campus must be a place where free debate and protest can take place while, at the same time, our staff and students can carry out their work and studies safely and without significant disruption or intimidation.”
