18.12.24
Editorial Note
Earlier this month, Tel Aviv University (TAU) hosted a DefenseTech Summit 2025, titled “Shaping the future of defense technologies.” The event’s website stated that the summit draws “Lessons from the frontline: Highlighting complex, real-world scenarios, this summit will go beyond theoretical discussion to provide invaluable lessons from Israel’s cutting-edge technologies and strategies addressing global security challenges and shaping the future of defense technology.”
Academia for Equality (A4E), a group of radical anti-Israel academic activists that IAM reported on before, was quick to respond. In a recent post, it attacked TAU’s DefenseTech Summit, stating, “Ironically, while universities in Israel are pushing back against calls for academic boycott, their collaboration with the military seems to have never been more visible. Last week, for example, Tel Aviv University hosted a conference showcasing ‘Israel’s latest innovations in the field of defense.’ The conference included sessions on AI warfare and drone technology that appear to be directly derived from Israel’s ongoing war of annihilation in Gaza. The university, which is supposed to promote scientific breakthroughs that will improve humanity’s future, now takes pride in designing ‘The Warfare of Tomorrow’ (the title of one session), a war in which ‘innovative,’ robotic and faceless, technologies are used to sow destruction and death at unprecedented levels.”
In particular, A4E bemoaned that “Alongside the conference, the School of Engineering recently released a video about the ‘Engineering School Operations Center’ where they have been ‘inventing solutions for a year now for the challenges faced by our combat soldiers on the frontline,’ or, in other words, improving the killing apparatus that has already took the lives of tens thousands of children, deemed collateral damage.”
A4E added that the university’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center held a hackathon on “battlefield emergency”, when “groups of students and faculty members competed in developing ‘innovative solutions’ for challenges in combat. Are Palestinian lives a technical problem in need of ‘efficient solution’? Is improving the ‘efficiency and safety’ of carrying out the crime of mass annihilation a worthy intellectual mission for members of Tel Aviv University’s academic community?”
A4E used in their post an image provided by Abir Kopty, a PhD student at the Free University of Berlin, who, in 2010, was a “native of Nazareth, a graduate of Haifa University, a council member in Nazareth, and works as a spokeswoman for the Palestinian government.” She later worked in Haifa and Ramallah as a communication officer/ spokesperson for Palestinian human rights organizations.
In another post from November, A4E wrote, “The war that began with Hamas’s brutal attack on October 7, 2023, has almost immediately turned into a relentless and horrifying assault on the Palestinian civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Time and again, the Israeli government has shown that its declared war objectives — returning hostages and dismantling Hamas’s rule — are a pretext for erasing Palestinian existence in the Gaza Strip, or at the very least, large parts of it. This is being done by destroying all systems of life, health, education, culture, and religious beliefs; by extensive harm to journalists and media; repeated transfer and displacement of populations between different areas; by denying basic living conditions, starvation, and killing of thousands, including a high number of children and women.”
Arguing that, “As an organization of 900 academics who are citizens of Israel, we promptly sounded an alarm about Israel’s war crimes and the heavy toll they are taking, including the destruction of Gaza’s higher education system. As the criminal offensive has expanded to Lebanon and intensified in Gaza and the West Bank, we are even more committed to raising our voices now. The current attack on the northern Gaza Strip, which began on October 5 this year, aims to clear the area of its Palestinian residents and clearly constitutes a crime against humanity. At this moment, the Israeli military, under orders from the Israeli government, is committing severe and unprecedented crimes against a civilian population. Whether defined as ethnic cleansing, extermination, or genocide, it is the duty of every Israeli citizen to do all they can to stop these crimes. In addition to the immediate victims, these heinous actions are disastrous for people of both nations and the entire region.”
They continued, “Most of us live in Israel and speak Hebrew. We see how the government, popular media outlets, and large parts of civil society have rallied into a propaganda machine, manufacturing broad public consent in Israel and silencing dissenters and protestors, including survivors of October 7 and families of hostages, both Jewish and Arab. We are confident that our actions serve our loved ones and the long-term interests of everyone living between the river and the sea. As members of the academic community, we urge intellectuals, higher education institutions, and academic associations to join this call. We call on the international community, especially the United States that continues to arm and support Israel’s actions, to change course and do everything possible to stop these horrific crimes.”
As can be seen, the IDF, which protects everybody’s life in Israel, including Arab and Jewish members of A4E, is vilified by them. Evidently, A4E is a pro-Palestinian group inside the Israeli academy that openly proclaims its goals.
Moreover, their posts are a gross misrepresentation of the IDF’s action in the Gaza Strip and beyond. It is well documented that all of Iran’s proxies have adopted the “radical embedding” doctrine. This tactic orders terror groups to embed their fighters within the civilian population, notably in public sites like hospitals, mosques, and schools. These civilians are then used as human shields when the IDF responds to terror attacks. Interestingly, neither Hezbollah nor Hamas, which use radical embedding, allow their medical authorities to provide separate counts for civilian and combatant casualties, thus inflating the numbers of noncombatants killed. A recent report by a respectable British think tank, the Henry Jackson Society, discusses this issue.
As expected, A4E ignores these and other findings to present Israel as a country dedicated to indiscriminate killing.
REFERENCES:
אקדמיה לשוויון Academia for Equality أكاديميون من أجل ألمساواة
12 December
באופן אירוני בעוד האוניברסיטאות בארץ הודפות את הקריאות לחרם אקדמי, נדמה ששיתוף הפעולה שלהן עם הצבא מעולם לא היה גלוי יותר. בשבוע שעבר, למשל, התקיים באוניברסיטת תל אביב כנס שבו הוצגו לראווה ״הפיתוחים האחרונים של ישראל בתחום ההגנה.” הכנס כלל מושבים על לוחמה באמצעות בינה מלאכותית וחידושים בתחום הכטב”ם שנראה כי הם שאובים מהניסיון שנצבר תוך כדי מלחמת ההשמדה שמנהלת ישראל ברצועת עזה. אמנם, האוניברסיטה, שאמורה לקדם פריצות דרך מדעיות שישפרו את חיי האנושות בעתיד, מתגאה כיום בעיצוב “המלחמה של המחר” (כותרת אחד המושבים), מלחמה שבה טכנולוגיות “חדשניות,” רובוטיות וחסרות פנים, משמשות לזריעת הרס ומוות בשיעורים חסרי תקדים.
לצד הכנס, פרסמה לאחרונה הפקולטה להנדסה סרטון על ה״חמ״ל של הפקולטה להנדסה באונ׳ תל אביב״ בו ״ממציאים כבר שנה פתרונות לאתגרים של לוחמים ולוחמות שלנו בחזית״, או במילים אחרות, שיפור מערכות נשק קטלניות שחיסלו עשרות אלפי ילדים תוך כדי שהם מגדירים אותם ״נזק אגבי״.
כמו כן, מרכז היזמות והאתגרים של האוניברסיטה ערך בשבוע שעבר האקתון בנושא חירום בשדה הקרב שבו קבוצות סטודנטים וחברי סגל התחרו בפיתוח “פתרונות חדשניים” לאתגרים בשדה הקרב, תוך הפיכת חיי אדם פלסטיניים לבעיה טכנית שצריך “לייעל”. האם שיפור “היעילות והבטיחות” של ביצוע פשע של השמדת המונים הוא משימה אינטלקטואלית ראוייה לחברי הקהילה האקדמית באוניברסיטת ת”א?
Tel Aviv University | אוניברסיטת תל-אביב
Ironically, while universities in Israel are pushing back against calls for academic boycott, their collaboration with the military seems to have never been more visible. Last week, for example, Tel Aviv University hosted a conference showcasing “Israel’s latest innovations in the field of defense.” The conference included sessions on AI warfare and drone technology that appear to be directly derived from Israel’s ongoing war of annihilation in Gaza. The university, which is supposed to promote scientific breakthroughs that will improve humanity’s future, now takes pride in designing “The Warfare of Tomorrow” (the title of one session), a war in which “innovative,” robotic and faceless, technologies are used to sow destruction and death at unprecedented levels.
Alongside the conference, the School of Engineering recently released a video about the “Engineering School Operations Center” where they have been “inventing solutions for a year now for the challenges faced by our combat soldiers on the frontline,” or, in other words, improving the killing apparatus that has already took the lives of tens thousands of children, deemed collateral damage
Additionally, the university’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center held a hackathon last week on “battlefield emergency”, where groups of students and faculty members competed in developing “innovative solutions” for challenges in combat. Are Palestinian lives a technical problem in need of “efficient solution”? Is improving the “efficiency and safety” of carrying out the crime of mass annihilation a worthy intellectual mission for members of Tel Aviv University’s academic community?
תמונה 1: Abir Kopty
תמונה 2: הזמנה להאקתון מתוך האתר של ״דיפנס טק סאמיט״
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Tel Aviv University – Global TAU
21 November at 13:55What lessons can Israel’s defense technologies teach the world? 
Explore the latest in defense tech at the DefenseTech Summit, a two-day event with expert discussions, real-world insights, and exclusive networking. Top speakers from Israel and worldwide will showcase how Israeli innovations tackle global challenges.
When: December 10–11, 2024.
Where: Tel Aviv University.
Register now: https://deftech-summit.com/
Don’t miss the chance to shape the future of global security and innovation.
Yuval Ne’eman Workshop for Science Technology and Security
Cyber Week TLV
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אקדמיה לשוויון Academia for Equality أكاديميون من أجل ألمساواة
2 November
The war that began with Hamas’s brutal attack on October 7, 2023, has almost immediately turned into a relentless and horrifying assault on the Palestinian civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Time and again, the Israeli government has shown that its declared war objectives — returning hostages and dismantling Hamas’s rule — are a pretext for erasing Palestinian existence in the Gaza Strip, or at the very least, large parts of it. This is being done by destroying all systems of life, health, education, culture, and religious beliefs; by extensive harm to journalists and media; repeated transfer and displacement of populations between different areas; by denying basic living conditions, starvation, and killing of thousands, including a high number of children and women. As an organization of 900 academics who are citizens of Israel, we promptly sounded an alarm about Israel’s war crimes and the heavy toll they are taking, including the destruction of Gaza’s higher education system. As the criminal offensive has expanded to Lebanon and intensified in Gaza and the West Bank, we are even more committed to raising our voices now.
The current attack on the northern Gaza Strip, which began on October 5 this year, aims to clear the area of its Palestinian residents and clearly constitutes a crime against humanity. At this moment, the Israeli military, under orders from the Israeli government, is committing severe and unprecedented crimes against a civilian population. Whether defined as ethnic cleansing, extermination, or genocide, it is the duty of every Israeli citizen to do all they can to stop these crimes. In addition to the immediate victims, these heinous actions are disastrous for people of both nations and the entire region.
Most of us live in Israel and speak Hebrew. We see how the government, popular media outlets, and large parts of civil society have rallied into a propaganda machine, manufacturing broad public consent in Israel and silencing dissenters and protestors, including survivors of October 7 and families of hostages, both Jewish and Arab. We are confident that our actions serve our loved ones and the long-term interests of everyone living between the river and the sea. As members of the academic community, we urge intellectuals, higher education institutions, and academic associations to join this call. We call on the international community, especially the United States that continues to arm and support Israel’s actions, to change course and do everything possible to stop these horrific crimes.
israel-academia-monitor.com 