Report by Southampton University into tensions and risks in dealing with Israel and Palestine
August 2026
The latest edition of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade’s News (Issue 277, Summer 2026) contains an article discussing links with universities and arms companies in the context of relations with Israel and Palestine. The report Aligning Policy with Practice: Tensions and Risks in the Context of Israel and Palestine, February 2026 analyses these tensions in relation to Southampton but it is clear the issues apply to many universities in the UK. The full report can be accessed here. It is the product of work carried out by the Palestinian Solidarity Network in the University (pictured) and the lead author is Irene Ruiz Espejo.
Essentially, the report analyses the various principles which the University has concerning transparency, sustainability, ethics and EDI and matches that against what happens, the links they have with arms firms and their support for research, and also the links with Israeli universities. They suggest that sometimes matters of governance, partnerships and approaches to free speech can exert a chilling effect as has been seen at other academic institutions.
Risks
They identify several risks: legal, financial, reputational and wellbeing in the report. Official communications do not reference the historical and legal realities of military occupation in Gaza, settler colonialism on the West Bank, apartheid, or the longstanding siege of Gaza. They also do not engage with international legal developments and findings, including United Nations and international and Israeli civil society organisations, which have raised serious concerns that Israel’s conduct in Gaza may amount to grave breaches of international law, including acts that violate the Genocide Convention.
In addition, University statements do not situate events in Gaza within the wider regional context of Israeli military aggression, including the bombing of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Qatar, and Iran, which have resulted in additional civilian deaths and escalating regional and global instability. Instead, communications tend to frame events primarily as a bilateral conflict and to address Palestinian deaths, displacement, and civilian harm largely through the language of humanitarian crisis.
This framing obscures a central and well-documented reality: the “conflict” is characterised by profound asymmetries in power, control, and vulnerability, including Israel’s effective control over borders, airspace, and key conditions of civilian survival in Gaza, including access to humanitarian aid. In this context, large-scale civilian harm is not only the outcome war, but it is shaped by Israel’s political and military decisions that have driven mass displacement, civilian targeting, severe restrictions on essential supplies, the use of starvation as a method of war , bombardment, and the destruction of critical civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including all twelve universities.
Power of money
They maintain this bias is not accidental but managed, where money and and power repeatedly take precedence over stated values. Students and staff who raise concerns about arms partnerships, or who engage in Palestinian solidarity, face ‘scrutiny, marginalisation or silencing’ – a direct threat to freedom of speech.
Money has become an existential issue for universities and many are struggling. The drop in foreign students has been a severe blow. The suggestion, implicit in the report, that the desire to secure research funding from arms firms has led to threat to their core values. Links to Israeli universities are not inherently wrong but the nature of the research might be.
The CAAT piece ends “our report is an attempt to interrupt that silence resisting erasure – of lives, of knowledge and our ability to name what is happening requires more than critique. It requires cultivating the capacity to see clearly even when language obscures: to think critically even when institutions reward compliance and to remain connected to our sheared humanity, to people, to place and to the consequences of what is doe with our knowledge our research and our labour”.
Some content from the report.
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 
Why the Yeshiva education system stinks.
Made aliya back in ’91. Called myself an atheist – praise HaShem, even while living in Oklahoma. My family about 7 generations of lawyers & judges. I personally despise the Yeshiva whose sh’itta of education made famous by Reshonim g’lut Jewry, employed to instruct Jewish children in Israel today. Just as the mitzva of Shabbat requires making הבדלה which differentiates between מלאכה from עבודה so too and how much more so study and teaching of Torah requires making הבדלה which separates Common law from Statute law. Alas, Yeshivah students which have crossed my path never taught that Shabbat means week, not the 7th Day of the week, as 7th day Adventists falsely teach!
The Torah opens with מעשה בראשית – Yeshiva educated Jews never ask WHY? Its simply not an issue of translating words from Hebrew\Aramaic to English. The Rambam, his Yad-code basically translated the complex Hebrew Aramaic Talmud unto Hebrew – based upon the language of the Mishna. The Steinsaltz talmud and Art Scroll translations follow the path set by that Reshon. The impact upon the Torah world of the Rambam “translations” of Halacha into a simplified Hebrew most probably saved the language of Hebrew from going the way of Catholic Latin – a dead language. But his statute law code turned post Bar Kachba Mishnaic courtroom common law ideal for the future time when Jews conquer the Homeland and restore the pursuit of justice as our Sinai faith unto a static set of halachic religious laws – a belief system – in this sense: no different from Xtian and Islamic theologies.
The times for the Reshonim, cursed g’lut Jewry – exceptionally harsh. The Romans scattered Jewry following the Bar Kochba revolt to the 4 winds of the empire. Goyim barbarians in all cursed g’lut lands both Xtiandom and Islamic – like Spain, made forced conversions, forced population transfers akin to the ’48 Jews thrown out of all Arab countries! The Reshonim scholars confronted harsh realities on the ground; Jewish settlements tiny & scattered and people during the period, where the Roman road system had collapsed, the Dark Ages, rarely traveled. Spanish Jews – Rambam and Ibn Ezra, the latter fled for his life – from Spain, his son converted to Islam. While the former too fled from the anarchy and chaos of the collapsing Islamic civilization unto Egypt; his brother drowned at sea!
Why did the Torah open with בראשית? That Sefer has few Torah commandments: fruitful and multiply, brit melah, gid hanasheh, the טיפש פשט big 3! But most commentators fail to grasp, (akin to the apostle Paul) that the Torah instructs prophetic mussar through repeated themes. As most reform or conservative rabbis utterly numb. The Hebrew Siddur – an unrecognized Primary Source for Talmudic and Midrashic scholarship! This sefer builds upon סמוכים, which requires a discerning eye. The Siddur stands upon Sefer בראשית; it opens with תמיד מעשה בראשית – twice repeated in the first blessing for the שחרית קריא שמע. That critical phrase answers the opening question of this paragraph. The creation aggadah introduces the theme of Torah “wisdom” known as זמן גרמא מצוות. Shabbat as week distinguishes between לא תעשה מלאכה from תעשה מלאכה through k’vanna.
The bi-polar Rambam ספר המצוות in its טיפש פשט literalism, divides Torah commandments to positive and negative camps. The B’hag by stark contrast, his introduction discerns between Av from toldot commandments; like both mesechta Shabbat and Baba Kama ask the question התולדות הולכים אחרי אבות? Just as quality scholarship separates between Primary from Secondary sources – a Ph”D from a bachelor degree. The Sages distinguished between Torah from NaCH from Writings … Mishna from Gemara, so too and how much more so down stream generations of Yiddishkeit likewise required to respect this masoret of scholarship. The B’HaG recognized T’NaCH\Talmudic common law. The Rambam’s statute law effectively blew out the lights of Hanukka; wherein the P’rushim defeated the assimilated ערב רב Tzeddukim. Perhaps based upon the בנין אב of blowing the shofar; this mitzva of blowing the Shofar – a חכמה – the Rif made the chiddush that a person could blow the Shofar on shabbat before his Court!
The term מלאכה refers to Av Torah commandments – time-oriented commandments – which require k’vanna. Toldot commandments and halachot learned separately – as does the statute law code of the Rambam and the Shulkan Aruch – do not require k’vanna. For example: What constitutes as תפילה דאורייתא vs. תפילה דרבנן also ודוי דאורייתא vs ודוי דרבנן? The Rambam harshly criticized in his Introduction שרש ראשון the B’HaG who ruled תפילה דאורייתא! Yet in Rambam’s 5th positive commandment, he too ruled tefillah a mitzva from the Torah! B’HaG learned Hanukkah, a mitzva from the Torah which the Rambam likewise considered absurd. How did the last of the Gaonim scholars “confuse” rabbinic commandments? The Talmud refers to Hannuka מחובר and the Baali Tosafot refers to קריאת שמע likewise as מחובר. The Av Torah זמן גרמא מצוות – מחובר.
The Baali Tosafot refers to the mitzva of ק”ש as מחובר; meaning time-oriented commandments. The B’HaG refers to the lighting the lights of Hanukkah as a מצוה דאורייתא; meaning זמן גרמא מצוות. The statute codes by contrast err and interpret through a טיפש פשט “time” understood in the literal sense. חכמה defined as זמן גרמא מצוות – חמובר. Whereas תולדות מצוות לא צריך כוונה… זמן גרמא מצוות מחובר לחכמה מן התורה. Just as Shabbat means “week” and not a day in a week, so too and how much more so בראשית introduces the theme of זמן גרמא מצוות as Av tohor commandments and not the World created in 6 days טיפש פשט.
The זמן גרמא only a משל which requires making the logical דיוק נמשל. Not literally “time as in watch”, but Torah wisdom as the נמשל of the משל of זמן גרמא מצוות. Hence to both the B’HaG and the Baali Tosafot: where the Baali Tosafot refers to the mitzva of ק”ש as מחובר; meaning time-oriented commandments. The B’HaG refers to the lighting the lights of Hanukkah as a מצוה דאורייתא; meaning זמן גרמא מצוות. The statute codes by contrast err and interpret through a טיפש פשט “time”, understood in the sophomoric – literal sense. חכמה defined as זמן גרמא מצוות – חמובר. Whereas תולדות מצוות לא צריך כוונה… זמן גרמא מצוות מחובר לחכמה מן התורה. The Av בנין אב for all זמן גרמא מצוות … תמיד מעשה בראשית. Sefer בראשית opens with the Central Torah theme of Av tohor time-oriented commandments. Whereas the Books of שמות ויקרא ובמדבר instruct בניני אבות תולדות מצוות. As these secondary commandments – when attached by means of inductive פרדס inductive reason logic to other similar Case/Din rulings (both in the literature of the T’NaCH prophetic mussar and Talmud ritual halacha) this חכמה compares to the two sights of a rifle which permits the prophets to “shoot” their mussar to all generations of the Chosen Cohen People. Herein defines the warp/weft halachic-aggadic relationship which permits the generations of Israel to make aliya from g’lut toldot commandments to Av tohor זמן גרמא מצוות בארץ ישראל.
The זמן גרמא only a משל which requires making the logical דיוק נמשל. Not literally “time as in watch”, but Torah wisdom as the נמשל of the משל of all זמן גרמא מצוות. Hence the B’HaG and Baali Tosafot, specifically the Rabbeinu Tam most likely, מחובר…חכמה “joined/attached” to that חכמה מן התורה which requires k’vanna. Translating the term עדיף\מחובר misses the point all together. This term refers to the distinction between Av Torah commandments – which require k’vanna from toldot commandments which do not require k’vanna. Hence תפילה דאורייתא that’s ק”ש. The Siddur through סמוכים affixes ק”ש to Shemone Esrei דרבנן.
Brought this example as a proof that T’NaCH and Talmud BOTH command common law legalism which learn through judicial precedents. Translating simply misses the boat and qualifies as a לא לשמה Torah curse, based upon the בנין אב of the 1st Sinai commandment. G’lut Jews cannot keep the Yovel – impossible; no different from the slaves beaten by order of Par’o vertical courtrooms (Star Courts which justified impressment of American sailors seized by British warships on the High Seas). G’lut Yidden got religion through the statute halachic codifications.
Only in Israel can Jews sanctify צדק צדק תרדוף; prior to the Oct 7th 2023 Abomination War, Israelis confronted a judicial crisis! Can Israel achieve self-determination and affix the 12 Tribes to the re-conquered lands of Canaan and therein re-establish our Constitutional Republic wherein the Torah mandates only Federal Sanhedrin courts which possess the mandate to rules the Tribal “legislatures” and Knesset Central Government statute laws through משנה תורה-Legislative Review?
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