The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex and Israel's War Machine
S Krishnaswamy
ISRAEL’s genocide in Gaza and the 12-day war between Israel and Iran saw Israel destroying all universities in Gaza and assassinating top scientists of Iran. Not a tear or word of condemnation from the US and European powers. But when in retaliation Iran struck the Weizmann Institute in Israel – by intent or by chance – the media of the West and other allies of Israel like India were all over the place about how research was affected and so many projects and so many dollars worth had been destroyed by the evil Iran. But why was the Weizmann Institute a target assuming it had really been by intent. The answer lies in the history of how Israel had from its inception planned the intertwining of military with the institutions of research and higher education. And it was not only Israel but of course its master USA that is notorious for the existence of a vast military industrial academic complex (MIAC). UK is not far behind. India is just catching up now thanks to Adani-Modi nexus and the emerging privatised National Research Foundation of the illegitimate National Education Policy (NEP).
ACADEMIA AS
WEAPONS LABS
The roots of the deadly coalition of military, industry and academia were first examined by sociologist C Wright Mills, who prophesied the shift of US to a "permanent war economy" in which military interests controlled corporate and academic domains. Mills reported how Ivy League universities in the US were turned into financial satellites of the Pentagon, with some schools receiving three to four times more money from military contracts than all other sources put together. In Second World War alone, four of the leading universities in US won over $200 million in defense contracts for research, establishing the model for the weaponisation of the academy that Israel would later develop.
US universities have developed some of history's most abhorrent weapons projects. During First World War, well-known universities like Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Chicago were developing chemical weapons; 1,294 scientists were involved in this process as early as 1918. The US military, chemical companies, and academic scientists developed Agent Orange in the 1950s and 1960s. Major locations were the experimental and research facilities at Fort Detrick and Edgewood Arsenal, the production facilities of Dow and Monsanto, and the original herbicide science labs at the University of Chicago/USDA. During the Vietnam War (1955-75), the US Air Force sprayed tens of millions of gallons, causing dioxin contamination, health issues, and court battles. University participation was one method through which the universities assisted, but many institutions later withdrew their claims.
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (1932–1972) was the clearest example of the human cost of this militarised science. The US Public Health Service deliberately refused to treat 600 Black men, allowing the disease to worsen and their children to contract congenital syphilis. Like Nazi doctors, US researchers defended these crimes with racist pseudoscience and the false rationale of promoting a "greater good." The Pentagon further normalised such violence by dehumanising opponents in propaganda and comparing them to rodents that need to be exterminated, a strategy Israel continues to employ in its depiction of Palestinians today.
ISRAEL'S WEAPONISED
ACADEMIA
Israel has taken the military-academic model to unprecedented levels. The Weizmann Institute, which seems like an untainted research institution, employs 2,500 scientists doing research on artificial intelligence technology to be used in targeted killings, drone warfare systems, and nuclear energy applications. Its deep integration with Israel's security apparatus traces a line of ancestry that started in 1946, when Haganah (pre-state Zionist militia) organised HEMED – a clandestine university-based institution charged with the manufacture of biological weapons, like typhoid and dysentery cultures used to allegedly poison Palestinian water sources in the Nakba. This early joining of academia and ethnic cleansing set the precedent for Israel's current war economy.
Rather than being an exception, the Weizmann Institute is a part of a long-standing tradition. From the start of the Zionist project, establishments such as the Technion and Hebrew University functioned as weapons laboratories. By 1948, microbiologists at Hebrew University were cultivating pathogens for Operation Cast Thy Bread, an effort to prevent displaced Palestinians from returning to their villages. By the 1950s, HEMED had evolved into Rafael (Israel Armament Development Authority) – Israel's state arms manufacturer, while the Technion led to the formation of Israel Aerospace Industries, a global leader in "battle-tested" drones.
Israel's top students are prepared for careers in military research through programmes like Talpiot and Havatzalot, which facilitate a smooth transition from university labs to weapons factories. The defense industry employs 80 per cent of engineering graduates from Israel's MIT, the Technion. In the meantime, Gaza has developed into a useful testing ground for these technologies. As AI systems like "The Gospel" automate target selection and drones like Elbit's Hermes are honed through live combat against Palestinian civilians before being marketed globally, the enclave has turned into what one whistleblower referred to as a "mass assassination factory."
The United States propels this killing machine with $158 billion in military assistance since 1948, of which $38 billion is committed through 2028. Amazingly, 25-30 per cent of that aid has to be used purchasing Israeli arms, setting up a self-sustaining loop in which US money subsidizes Israel's war economy. This client-patron relationship has Israel test-weapons for US companies and act as Washington's attack dog in the West Asia – a division of labour that has commodified Palestinian existence and universities have become weapons design centres.
HYPOCRISY
The double standard among the international community is stunning. When Israel demolishes Gaza's entire university infrastructure – a willful elimination of Palestinian education which UN experts call "scholasticide," Western leaders do nothing. Scholasticide is a term to describe the organised destruction of education by arresting, detaining or murdering teachers, students, and faculty, and destroying education infrastructure. But when military-associated institutions such as Weizmann are attacked, these powers lament "attacks on academic research."
This hypocrisy unveils the reality: Israel is the golden boy who cannot be touched. After the strike against Weizmann, there was widespread coverage of ‘academic’ research that was destroyed – a far cry from international media coverage of Gaza's devastated universities. The funding for Israeli institutes, sourced from the Israeli government and complicitive US and European donors, implicates academia around the world for such atrocities.
The militarisation of universities is a global issue, but Israel's strategy, which blends apartheid with alleged "innovation," is particularly egregious. To eradicate academic collusion, it must be revealed. Instead of remaining neutral, universities like Weizmann and the Technion actively support occupation. Their research on drone swarms, AI targeting, and urban warfare directly contributes to genocide. There must be a demand for divestiture. International organisations must cut ties with Israeli universities and war-crime-related weapons manufacturers. The University of Cape Town's 2021 decision to sever its relationship with Technion sets a precedent. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement needs to grow. After successfully opposing South Africa's apartheid, it now targets the Israeli regime.
The bombing of Gaza's universities and the assault on Weizmann are two sides of the same coin. One context defends education as a tool for control, while another destroys it as a tool for resistance. Israel's genocide in Gaza is not an exception; rather, it is the inevitable result of a system that blends militarism, imperialism, and academia.
The MIAC must be dismantled in Israel, as well as in the US, UK, and other nations. To support Palestine means to oppose not only the Israeli military but also the research institutes and educational institutions, wherever they are, that are in such military industrial academic complexes.
