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Cambridge University digs heels in on Israeli investments
University will continue to put money into companies with links to Israeli defence industry
Cambridge University will continue its investment portfolio in companies with links to the Israeli defence industry — despite fury from pro-Palestinian campaigners on campus.
Last month, according to the Cambridge Reporter, the university’s journal of business, Mark Lewisohn, chair of the board of trustees which manages Cambridge’s £4 billion endowment fund, said that it would not only continue current investments, but almost certainly would increase them.
Lewisohn, a former senior banker with UBS, is the son of Oscar Lewisohn, whose Jewish family fled to Sweden from Denmark during the Holocaust.
Mark Lewisohn was reported as telling the trustees: “As more investment in defence is mandated by governments around the world, the proportion of global market capitalisation represented by defence is likely to further increase”. Effectively that means that constant conflict around the world only increases the call for superior defence material — and so such investment will continue to be profitable.
The Times, which originally reported the story, made it clear that only about 1.7 per cent of the total fund — £85 million — is invested in defence companies, not all of which are Israel-related. But it is known that Cambridge’s money has gone to Palantir and GE Aerospace, which supply technology equipment, a aircraft engines, to the Israel Defence Forces.
The funds were apparently invested in a tracker fund administered by BlackRock, the asset management giant once chaired by the former Conservative chancellor, George Osborne.
However, angry pro-Palestinian activists on Cambridge’s campus — both faculty and students — have strongly criticised the continuing investments.
Professor Jason Scott-Warren said: “Given that it is now commonplace for legal and conventional weapons to be used to commit war crimes, it would be prudent to screen out all arms industry investments, rather than merely to increase monitoring after the fact.”
A spokesperson for Cambridge for Palestine, which has held numerous campus demonstrations against Israel, told Varsity: “Educational institutions must uphold human rights and moral accountability, not profit from systems that fuel occupation, violence, and genocide.
“We urge the university to immediately commit to a full divestment from arms companies, any company complicit in violations of international law, including those connected to the occupation of Palestine.”
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