Last night, red paint was thrown over the Maxwell Centre on the University of Cambridge’s West site with an accompanying message reading “We charge you with Genocide” to protest the Centre’s ongoing links to companies arming Israel’s genocide in Palestine.
The Maxwell Centre houses the Laboratory for Scientific Computing. This research group, among others at the University of Cambridge, has ties to several companies supplying the Israeli military, including Boeing and BAE Systems. The action calls for the wider university, which has accepted millions in research grants from arms companies in recent years, to end its complicity in genocide and colonial occupation.
This action is one of hundreds across the country aiming to hold to account academic institutions for facilitating Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and its genocidal violence against Palestinian people.
The Maxwell Centre also has direct and indirect connections to the fossil fuel industry. It works with multiple oil companies including the world’s biggest fossil fuel services company SLB (Schlumberger), and its involvement in researching and creating the machinery of war facilitates the massive greenhouse gas emissions that always accompany war.
There are also oil reserves on Palestinian land that are in the process of being stolen by Israel and will likely be sold off to various western oil companies. Weaponry designed by arms companies partnered with the Maxwell Centre helps that happen.