Known as the “Pentagon on the Charles,” the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a poster child for the military-industrial-academic complex that was a well-known hub for student anti-war activism in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Campus protests against the Vietnam War at that time got MIT to disassociate itself from the Draper Laboratory, which manufactured guidance technology used in the Poseidon missile system.
Today, a new generation of student activists has lambasted MIT for its complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
In December, the MIT Coalition for Palestine published a report, “MIT Science For Genocide,” detailing how MIT labs had conducted $3.7 million worth of weapon and surveillance research that was directly sponsored by Israel’s Defense Ministry.
The latter’s wartime head, Yoav Gallant, famously called Palestinians “human animals” and is under indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The MIT research projects include development of algorithms that help drone swarms to better pursue escape targets, improve underwater surveillance technology, and help military aircraft to more effectively evade missiles.
According to the report, two of the sponsorships were renewed after October 7, 2023.
Israel is the only foreign country to enter direct partnership with MIT, doing so under the oversight of the Pentagon, which accounts for 14.7% of all MIT research grants.
The authors of the report specified that MIT’s ties to the genocide of the Palestinians was “immoral, illegal and unpopular among the MIT community” and “broke MIT’s own rules on foreign engagements.”
In the past, MIT has cut ties to laboratories and companies that were involved with Russia’s war in Ukraine and Chinese surveillance of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang province because of concerns about the potential link to human rights abuses.
In a referendum conducted last year, 63.7% of MIT’s undergraduates and 70% of its graduate students voted to cut ties between MIT and the Israeli military. (more...)
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