Towers of Ivory and Steel: Israeli Universities and the Occupation of Palestine

How Israeli universities collaborate in Israeli state violence against Palestinians

Israeli universities have long enjoyed a reputation as liberal bastions of freedom and democracy. Drawing on extensive research and making Hebrew sources accessible to the international community, Maya Wind shatters this myth and documents how Israeli universities are directly complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights.

As this book shows, Israeli universities serve as pillars of Israel’s system of oppression against
Palestinians. Academic disciplines, degree programs, campus infrastructure, and research laboratories all service Israeli occupation and apartheid, while universities violate the rights of Palestinians to education, stifle critical scholarship, and violently repress student dissent. Towers of Ivory and Steel is a powerful expose of Israeli academia’s ongoing and active complicity in Israel’s settler-colonial project.

Maya Wind is a doctoral Candidate in American Studies at New York University. Wind’s research on the reproduction and global export of Israeli security expertise has been supported by the National Science Foundation and Social Science Research Council. She is co-author of Deadly Exchange: The Dangerous Consequences of American Law Enforcement Training in Israel.