Eviction compounds UCD’s complicity in partnership with suppliers to the Israeli military which implemented the genocide of Palestinians; and UCD academics were utterly ineffective
By Eoghan Harris and Roisin McAleer
The 132-day Break the Academic Chains of Zionism encampment at University College Dublin exposed the limits of dissent when confronted with legal and political power, as well as the depth of partnerships between Irish institutions and Israeli institutions that have been participating in what the International Court of Justice has said can plausibly be seen as genocide.
The encampment happened through the combined effort of students, alumni and activists. It began on September 2025 in response to UCD’s participation in EU-funded research consortia—such as CATALOOP, a €2.6 million artificial intelligence project that includes Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology as partners. These universities are not neutral teaching institutions separated from the Israeli state’s security apparatus; they are embedded in research ecosystems that intersect with companies that dominate Israel’s defence sector.
When partner institutions are integrated into weapons, surveillance and military systems, the risk of dual-use contribution cannot be dismissed as abstract
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel’s premier engineering university, hosts industry-linked programmes in aerospace, robotics and systems engineering. According to UCD Students Union, “Technion even offers ‘courses on arms and security marketing and export. This is a central part of the Technion’s history and ongoing identity”. Its Faculty of Aerospace Engineering acknowledges support from major arms producers Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, inviting them to sponsor student design projects and participate in research collaborations. These arrangements create formal channels through which academic research, talent and technological development are shared with companies directly involved in weapons development.
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev hosts the Homeland Security Institute, which maintains partnerships with the Israeli Ministry of Defence and weapons manufacturers, including Elbit Systems. Ben-Gurion’s campus is adjacent to what the Ministry of Defence described as a technology complex “reinforc[ing] the army’s operational capabilities,” and its technology transfer arm, BGN Technologies, co-develops unmanned ground vehicles and robot platforms for military use.
There are wide concerns about whether engagement with Israeli institutions that are integrated into a national defence R&D ecosystem is compatible with ethical and legal standards for research cooperation.
UCD does not maintain direct contracts with the defence corporations themselves. But in a framework such as the European Union’s Horizon research programmes, universities partner in large consortia where knowledge, funding and personnel are shared. When partner institutions are integrated into weapons, surveillance and military systems, the risk of dual-use contribution cannot be dismissed as abstract. It is a foreseeable consequence of cooperation in fields like AI, autonomous systems and aerospace research.
The encampment’s demand was narrow and legally grounded: that UCD review and suspend cooperation with any institutional partnerships that carry a credible risk of contributing to violations of international law. This followed provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice in South Africa v Israel, in which the Court identified a plausible risk of genocide and reaffirmed the State’s duty of prevention under the 1948 Genocide Convention. UCD refused to engage with the substance of that demand. No public legal assessment was produced, and no parsing was made between low-risk academic exchange and research with foreseeable military application.
This refusal was compounded by the absence of meaningful support inside the university. Senior management could not challenge the legal substance of the encampment’s case, thus resorted to false and entirely unfounded allegations that the protestors were “homeless” in order to activate Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in early January 2026. Most academics declined publicly to engage with the legal argument for suspension of partnerships. Representative bodies that routinely invoke institutional commitments to human rights treated the encampment as an inconvenience rather than a legal challenge.
People Before Profit, though they claim to be ideologically aligned with the protest, failed to co-operate formally with the encampment’s organizational processes and assemblies. However, they participated in the previous year’s encampment, where an agreement was signed without the consent of all of the voting participants, ending the three-week summer encampment. The agreement fell well and disappointingly short of providing for an academic boycott. Some of the protestors considered this process to be not a negotiation but an imposed settlement shaped entirely by asymmetrical power.
The students’ narrow and legally grounded demand was that UCD suspend cooperation with any institutional partnerships that carry a credible risk of contributing to violations of international law, following the ICJ ruling in South Africa v Israel, reaffirming the State’s duty of preventing genocide
Legally, the consequences of this posture are significant. For the Irish State, continued funding and authorisation of such partnerships after a credible risk has been identified exposes the State to claims of breach of its duty of prevention and non-assistance under international law. International law does not prescribe specific policy tools, but once a serious risk of genocide is established, suspension of cooperation becomes the default precautionary response against which continued engagement must be justified. The State must be able to show it used all means reasonably available to prevent material contribution by public bodies under its authority.
The State must be able to show it used all means reasonably available to prevent material contribution by public bodies under its authority. For UCD, the liability is domestic but real
For UCD, the liability is domestic but real. As a statutory, publicly funded body, the university is required to act rationally, proportionately, and with regard to relevant legal considerations. Maintaining institutional cooperation without differentiation or review in the face of such legal risk exposes UCD to judicial review challenges on grounds of failure to take relevant considerations into account, irrational decision-making, or disproportionate response — particularly where students are disciplined for protesting those same risks.
That refusal to act culminated at 5.30 am on 13 January 2026, when An Garda Síochána and Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council dismantled a small protest structure on public land following an invalid notice. UCD’s involvement in securing the removal demonstrated that it was not a neutral observer but an active promoter of the university’s chosen institutional posture.
Universities are not exempt zones insulated from the legal obligations of the states that fund and authorise them, nor can disciplinary power be used to suppress legally grounded dissent without scrutiny. The longer UCD and the State allow these partnerships to continue without review, the harder it becomes to claim compliance with duties of prevention and non-assistance. The camp was removed. The question now is not whether the encampment was lawful, but whether continued inaction by the State and its institutions will be.
