New Clemson agricultural partnership in Israel raises ethical questions | Opinion
Last month, Clemson University established a partnership with two Israeli universities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Sapir College, with a primary focus on agricultural advancements and research. However, behind this seemingly positive step lies a dark history, centered around the lands upon which the collaborative agricultural efforts are intended to occur.
According to university administrators, the goal is mutual benefit through innovation, technological development and solutions to food security challenges.
Clemson University Provost Bob Jones praised the collaboration, saying “Israel’s advancements in agriculture are nothing short of extraordinary.” The collaboration was notably catalyzed by a visit to the Israeli city of Sderot by former Gov. Nikki Haley, a Clemson trustee who suggested its position as a land-grant university uniquely positioned it for such international collaborations.
Yet the region around Sderot, an Israeli city near the Gaza Strip, has a history of illegal displacement. Before 1948, Sderot was the Palestinian village of Najd, home to thriving Palestinian agricultural communities cultivating bananas, citrus fruits and cereals. On May 31, 1948, the Israeli Negev Brigade forcibly depopulated Najd, compelling its Palestinian inhabitants to abandon their homes and livelihoods. Eighty-two homes were destroyed and 422 people were forced to migrate to what is now the Gaza Strip.
Today, the agricultural productivity of these lands continues under Israeli settlement farms rather than Palestinian control. Israeli farmers access the latest technology and resources, while Palestinians are subjected to desperate conditions to grow their food.
This historical context casts Clemson’s partnership in a troubling light. The partnership’s explicit focus on agricultural innovations near Sderot intersects with the region’s history of land dispossession, raising concerns about complicity with ongoing injustices. Notably, this collaboration has not been explicitly contextualized by Clemson officials concerning the ethical implications of operating on lands with fraught historical and ongoing human rights issues.
Palestinians who once farmed this fertile land are largely confined within the densely populated Gaza Strip, facing chronic food insecurity and poverty exacerbated by severe Israeli-imposed restrictions, not to mention constant fear of death from Israeli forces. While Clemson’s collaboration aims to prioritize food security, unanswered questions remain regarding how the partnership addresses— or perpetuates — the disparities in food security between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in Gaza.
International human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have extensively documented how the Israeli policy of settling civilians in occupied territories violates international law, specifically referencing the Fourth Geneva Convention. These organizations highlight how settlement expansions and agricultural activities exacerbate inequalities and tensions through resource appropriation and restricted Palestinian access to fertile land, perpetuated by Israeli violence.
This becomes especially acute considering Gaza’s current crisis, caused by Israeli aggression and blockades, characterized by extreme food insecurity, poverty and limited access to basic resources. Given that Clemson’s partnership focuses on food security within Israeli settlements, the collaboration could exacerbate inequalities in the region rather than mitigate them.
This raises broader questions about the responsibilities of educational institutions.
Academic institutions, especially land-grant universities like Clemson, bear unique responsibilities to uphold ethical standards given their own history of oppression and dispossession. Historically, land-grant institutions carry ethical obligations towards indigenous populations displaced from lands the universities occupy.
This historical context compels Clemson and similar institutions to exercise heightened sensitivity when engaging internationally, particularly in regions with unresolved conflicts and documented human rights violations.
Considering this, Clemson University’s partnership demands greater transparency and accountability. The university should, at the very least, clearly communicate how it plans to address historical injustices and ensure its partnerships actively promote peace, justice and genuine equity rather than unintentionally supporting practices that deepen existing injustices. Furthermore, it ought to denounce the actions of the Israeli government, including renewed bombing of innocent Palestinians, that contribute to continued food insecurity in Gaza.
In the current climate, the commitment by Clemson to agricultural technology in Israel, while Palestinian people starve and are killed daily in the Gaza Strip because of direct actions taken by the Israeli government, is shameful.
Editor’s note: A Clemson university spokesman declined an invitation for Jones, Haley or anyone associated with Clemson to write a counterpoint to this commentary criticizing its partnership. The spokesman instead emailed a link to a story on the school’s website that said it would “help bring innovation and economic growth to Israel’s western Negev region.”