Cover image: Pro-Palestine protesters in Cardiff recently
Student groups and anti-war campaigners have condemned Cardiff University for hosting an event with BAE Systems, an arms manufacturer supplying the Israeli military, including with components for F-35 fighter jets used to bomb Gaza.
The Cardiff University event had been due to be held in person, but has now been moved online after pro-Palestine protesters had planned to demonstrate outside the event in Cardiff city centre.
But campaigners still plan to protest on Thursday outside the Centre for Student Life on Park Place.
In a statement, a student organiser from Cardiff Stop the War Coalition, one of the groups behind the event, called the decision to move the event online a victory for the protesters.
“Cardiff University are on the run and have shifted their careers event with arms company BAE Systems online. But Cardiff University still has not pulled the event. Therefore we are moving our protest outside the Centre for Student Life where Student Futures who invited BAE Systems are based.”
“BAE Systems products have been used to kill Palestinians, Kurds, Yemenis and others. With the International Court of Justice recent ruling that there is a plausible case of genocide against Israel, Cardiff University must break links with arms companies supplying Israel”
BAE Systems shares recently rose on news of Israel’s multibillion-dollar F-35 order.
This week a court ordered the Dutch Government to block the delivery of parts for F-35 fighter aircraft to Israel in a case brought by Oxfam and human rights groups over concerns they were being used to violate international law. Spain has also suspended arms exports to Israel.
“It is undeniable that there is a clear risk the exported F-35 parts are used in serious violations of international humanitarian law,” the court said in the ruling.
Adam Johannes from Cardiff Stop the War Coalition said that with the International Court of Justice ruling that there is plausible evidence that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Cardiff University should immediately cancel its event with BAE Systems who supply the Israeli military.
“A university hosting arms manufacturers is especially revolting when every university in Gaza has been systematically destroyed, and almost 100 Palestinian professors and over 4,000 students have been killed by the Israeli military. Green industries are a more appropriate partner for an educational institution than arms manufacturers supplying serial human rights abusers,” he said.
Cardiff Student Action for Refugees, another group hitting out at the university over its links with BAE systems, said it was hypocritical of Cardiff University to be classified as a University of Sanctuary when it partners £with one of the biggest arms trade companies that fuel war and create refugees.”
“We demand Cardiff University end all forms of engagement with BAE Systems that profit from war crimes.”
Other student societies at Cardiff University who condemned the university arms event included Cardiff University Palestinian Solidarity Society, the Philosophy Society, the Green Party, Socialist and Communist societies.
Cardiff UCU, a trade union who represent thousands of university staff, also condemned the BAE event.
The trade union branch previously voted to call upon Cardiff University to join the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to isolate Israel as apartheid in South Africa was isolated.
This is not the first time students have challenged Cardiff University to sever links with arms companies. In 2009, Cardiff University became the first university in the UK to divest from arms companies supplying the Israeli military after a successful 3-day student sit-in in solidarity with Palestinian students whose universities had been bombed.
The protest will go ahead on Thursday 15 February, 5 pm, outside Centre for Student Life, Park Place, CF10 3BB
