Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom

In Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom, Maya Wind delves into Israeli universities’ ties to the military occupation and subjugation of Palestinians. This work is groundbreaking because it uses data from Israeli state and military archives to document how harm, repression, and dispossession are constructed, justified, and enacted in higher education. Palestinians have reported on the impacts of the policies and practices laid out in the book for years; so while Wind may add nuance and depth to that conversation, the effects of these policies on Palestinian lives is not altogether new information. However, the book’s detailed look into universities’ deep ties to the military, the mechanisms that justify repression, and the overall implication of Israeli higher education in the occupation is original. For example, the people of Susiya, a small Palestinian village in the southern tip of the West Bank, reported for years on having been expelled from their homes in 1986 and the subsequent exposure to regular settler violence that they experience in the makeshift village they constructed on their agricultural land nearby (Chatelle, 2023). Through her access to Israeli archives, Wind demonstrates how the 1986 expulsion, which happened when Israel deemed the village a “national archeological site,” was justified using archeological research conducted through Israeli universities, how some of the appropriated lands were then transferred to a settlement, how nearby settlements have grown in tandem with the archeological site, which was supported through state-sponsored research, and how selective preservation (i.e., preserving and documenting only the remains that represent ancient Jewish presence in the region) at the site is used to justify continuing dispossession and settlement expansion (24–28).This book is a critical exploration of Israeli academia through a decolonial lens. In some ways it is an accounting of how universities reproduce something similar to what Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang (2012) call “settler moves to innocence,” mindsets that justify settler colonialism and the structures that support it by reducing feelings of guilt and complicity. As with Susiya, the way this plays out in Israel looks like supporting research that deepens a connection to an ancient past, even if it means displacing people who have lived at that site for many generations and ignoring their history. For example, Wind uncovers archival documents which demonstrate that there was also a mosque at the same site where an ancient synagogue was discovered, but published research only reports the existence of the synagogue. However, in Tuck and Yang’s (2012) framing, these “settler moves to innocence” serve as “fantasies of easier paths to reconciliation” that may reflect the fact that in the United States, settlers have expanded and settled on nearly all native land (1, 4). Wind’s book makes clear that expansion, not reconciliation, appears to be the goal in Israel. Our current moment of ongoing human rights violations in Gaza, which the International Court of Justice has deemed a plausible genocide, and increased violence in the West Bank also support that reconciliation does not appear to be the goal (Albanese, 2024; ICJ, 2024).Wind states that her access to the archival material used in the book is due to her positionality as a white Jewish-Israeli citizen, demonstrating reflexivity and self-awareness. In addition to archival data, she relies on student interviews and observations at Israeli universities, especially in the sections of the book that document repression of Palestinian students and epistemologies.The book is laid out in two sections, with Part 1 focused on Israeli academic complicity in the military occupation and Part 2 on academic repression of Palestinians and Palestinian ways of knowing. Chapter 1, “Expertise of Subjugation,” explores academic complicity through the roles of three specific fields in the subjugation of Palestinians: archeology, legal studies, and Middle Eastern studies. Chapter 2, “Outpost Campus,” examines how the establishment of Israeli universities is a tactic of Israeli expansion and land seizure. Chapter 3, “The Scholarly Security State,” looks at the construction of pro-occupation propaganda and what Wind calls “the University-Military-Industrial Complex,” referring to the collaboration and significant role universities play in the development of weapons and military technology, including (but not limited to) weapons manufacturers like Elbit and Rafael; the promotion of student enrollment in coursework that will serve their company’s future needs; the role of Israeli universities in long-standing military research and development collaborations; and the hiring of shared personnel between the military and some universities.Part 2 begins with the exploration of how Palestinian knowledge, history, and epistemologies are repressed within Israeli institutions in chapter 4, “Epistemic Occupation.” In chapter 5, “Students Under Siege,” Wind documents how Palestinian access to education has been considered a privilege, not a right, even for those with Israeli citizenship or permanent residency in Jerusalem, and addresses censorship of commemorations of the Nakba and protests against Israeli policies that harm Palestinians. Chapter 6, “Academia Against Liberation,” documents how the Israeli state represses Palestinian resistance to continuing occupation and dispossession at universities in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This chapter also highlights that the most effective force that has served as a check on Israeli authority over Palestinian students has been international pressure, especially from the US government (182).Bookending these sections are a foreword by Nadia Abu El Haj and an afterword by Robin D. G. Kelley. Abu El Haj appropriately presages some of the points that Wind makes with her argument that Israel is not a democratic state, given that racial inequality is enshrined in law (vii). And Kelley contextualizes what we learn for the US context, reviewing recent repressive laws that impact students and faculty in the US, such as rescinding the ability for colleges and universities to consider race as a factor in applications. Kelley also references the role of the US as the largest funder and protector of the Israeli state.One of the biggest contributions of Towers of Ivory and Steel may be that it shatters the notion that institutions of higher education in Israel are bastions of democracy and liberalism. For this reason, it is highly relevant for critical scholars of higher education, settler colonialism, and militarism and policing. The book is also a reminder for everyone in academia that our institutions may be complicit in harmful activities despite projecting a liberal or equity-focused image. Finally, it is a relevant read for academics who may wish to reflect on their positionality and learn more about settler colonialism in making decisions about participating in the boycott of Israeli academic institutions and how that may ultimately support Palestinian freedom.