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Papua Merdeka
Koteka Wenda on Resisting Occupation in Exile
Since the onset of the U.S.-sanctioned Israeli genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023, we have witnessed a global rise in awareness of the pervasive violence of colonialism and how necessary it is for life on this planet to dismantle it. This momentum has also led to the emergence of new forms of organizing in solidarity with oppressed peoples worldwide.
West Papua, unjustly annexed by the Indonesian state beginning in 1961, is the site of one of many Indigenous freedom struggles fighting against settler violence today: an estimated 500,000 West Papuans have been killed by Indonesian occupation forces over the last sixty years.
In this interview, Koteka Wenda—a West Papuan storyteller and cultural performer living in exile with her family in the United Kingdom—speaks with maya finoh about the ongoing occupation of West Papua at the hands of Indonesia; the current state of the Free West Papua/Papua Merdeka Movement, which resists genocide, ecocide, and forced cultural assimilation; solidarity with other liberation fights; and what it means to her to be an artist-activist fighting for the autonomy of the West Papuan people in diaspora.





maya finoh: I’m grateful to you for raising my awareness of the West Papuan struggle. It made me think about the solidarity between Black Atlantic and Black Pacific liberation struggles. I’d love to know what your personal connection to West Papua is.
Koteka Wenda: My birth was political, because I was born in what was basically a refugee camp on the border of Papua New Guinea and West Papua. This is a border that was envisioned by white Western men sitting around a table, cutting our island as if it were a cake. I think of how difficult it was for my mother to have to leave her village, her family home, to cross the border and give birth in a settlement or in a town far away from her ancestral lands. And how Indonesian colonialism rips apart families. It displaces people and takes away the safety of community.
That being said, when I was born, I was surrounded by a lot of strangers, who sooner or later, became family. I can’t go back to my homeland. I’m 23 going on 24 and it’s been more than 20 years since I freely roamed my ancestral lands. West Papua is home to wildlife and imagination. We are a Pacific Island nation. Our people are melanated. We have curly hair. We are ethnically, linguistically, culturally, Melanesian. We are distinct from the population of our colonizers, who are Southeast Asian, Javanese. I’ve always felt proud to be West Papuan despite living in exile overseas. I’ve been raised to love my heritage, and I think it’s this love for my land that is the foundation for my activism. I give credit to my parents, who have had to raise West Papuan children away from their lands.
I say we live in exile because my father, Benny Wenda, was and is a well-respected West Papuan liberation leader in the Free West Papua movement. He was arrested in the early 2000s for mobilizing the people of West Papua to speak up about the injustices. And for that, he was arrested and charged with 25 years. Next year would be his “release date.” My early childhood memories are quite traumatic. I remember some of my family photo albums of me visiting my father behind prison bars. My mother and I would visit every now and then and my mother would smuggle food to my father because there were rumors of him being poisoned.
The West Papuan colonial history is textbook colonialism. West Papua, alongside Papua New Guinea, are the custodians of the world’s third largest rainforest. It’s pure, virgin rainforest, and so naturally it was and is ripe for colonial exploitation. We are still experiencing colonialism and imperialism in the modern century. During the ‘60s, our brothers and sisters in the African continent experienced decolonization and many nations were birthed. West Papua was meant to be amongst the nations that benefitted from the UN Special Committee on Decolonization. We were a nation in waiting, ready to be born. But Indonesia stole that from us. The western half the Island, New Guinea, attracted many European powers. The Germans came along at one point, the Australians took administrative control of the island. Then we had the Japanese invasion. And then the Dutch prior to Indonesia.
Indonesia, who are our current colonizers, have gone through their own independence story and their own struggles. They were colonized and oppressed by the Dutch. But in 1945 they were able to liberate themselves, and they are now the independent nation we know today. But during that period of transition, the Dutch had their own Empire, which extended from Indonesia to the Southeast Asian islands all the way to the western half of the island of West Papua. Once Indonesia declared independence, the Dutch recognized that Indonesia was not going to give them West Papua because they saw them as ethnically, linguistically, and culturally distinct, therefore they were going to keep them separate and aid them in their journey toward independence and sovereignty. I think that’s important to recognize. We fought for Indonesian independence. The Dutch were adamant that we had our own self-governing territory. The first West Papuan Congress was in 1961. This was when our national flag, the Morning Star flag, was created and when our national anthem came to be… and then the carving up of our territory happened.
Papuans recognize the 1st of December as our should-have-been Independence Day. This National Day was attended by Dutch and other European observers, but it was literally a few weeks later that the Indonesian military invaded our land using paratroopers. Indonesia dropped hundreds of paratroopers onto West Papuan soil, and that’s when we essentially got into a short war with the Dutch and the Indonesians. The result of this was various agreements, the most significant agreement being the New York agreement of 1962 which, by the way, no West Papuans were consulted about. This agreement was signed by Indonesia and the Netherlands in a conference in New York. The agreement was that West Papua wouldn’t give away our sovereignty, but we would be under temporary administrative control by Indonesia. In the transitioning from the Dutch to Indonesia, a promise was made that there would be a referendum which would give the people of West Papua the right to self-determination, in other words, one man, one vote.
It was during that same time that multinational companies like Freeport Sulfur, a US company, came along and were given licenses to begin mining operations in West Papua. In 1969, during the so-called Act of Free Choice, the people of West Papua were denied the freedom to truly decide the fate of their land. Indonesia, instead of using the one man, one vote referendum procedure, adopted their own version called the Mushawarat system, which is completely different from what was decided in the New York agreement. Essentially, they hand-picked over 1000 elders and community leaders and forced them at gunpoint to agree to sell their land and integrate with Indonesia. Many of them were threatened and told that they would have their tongues cut out, or that they’d be killed if they voted against integration with Indonesia. I mention this because the sham referendum was witnessed by the United Nations, and by many Western observers, and yet they all turned a blind eye. Indonesia’s claiming of West Papua is completely illegal. It was essentially the theft of our land, of our sovereignty.
I do want to highlight the fact that it was during this whole colonial transfer that the licenses for the mines were given to US and British companies like British Petroleum.
It was never really about the people of West Papua getting their rights of determination. The main reason for our land being given to Indonesia was so that multinational companies could profit by exploiting our beautiful, beautiful land.
maya: This is incredibly heavy. I was really struck emotionally when you said that West Papua was supposed to be among the nations to be decolonized and liberated during the 1960s African liberation movement.
Koteka: Many of the newly born African nations, including Ghana, were very vocal about this. They were the ones who were pushing West Papua to be next. They brought West Papua up at UN meetings. I also want to speak to institutionalized racism and the mindset of Papuans. I think of how West Papuans weren’t even allowed in these big meetings, the New York agreement meetings or the round table conferences in the Netherlands, or any these big meetings that were deciding the fate of our land. Papuans were never consulted or invited into the rooms. It was because of racist ideologies around Black Melanesians, that we couldn’t be trusted to govern our own affairs, we needed Western intervention. I think as a young West Papuan descendant, I found myself having to prove my intellect, to prove my capabilities in in in the world. There is still a narrative that we West Papuans are primitive, living in the Stone Age.
maya: Could you speak to some of the historical and ongoing ways in which Indonesia continues to infringe upon West Papuans freedom and sovereignty. As you said, your father was a political prisoner. But I wonder if you could speak to some of the other tools and strategies they use against Papuans.
Koteka: I can use my name as an example. Koteka was a name that was gifted to me by my father. And when most Papuans hear my name, they’re shocked, because my name means penis gourd; it’s a traditional covering worn by the men from the highlands, which is where I’m from. It’s a covering for the male private parts, mostly worn as an ornamental piece. It’s aggressively anti-European, anti-Western. It’s aggressively indigenous. In looking into the history of my name, and Indonesia’s relationship with this piece of clothing, I came across a campaign that was led by colonial powers in the 1960s called Operation Koteka, or Operasi Koteka.
Indonesian forces would come into the highlands and force the men in our villages to swap their kotekas for Western European clothing. Operasi koteka, which was enforced in the ‘60s, is like a metaphor for what is still ongoing today. We’re now living in a modern Operasi Koteka era, where we can only wear traditional clothes during festivals, which are mostly sponsored by BP and mining groups. They basically only want us to wear our clothes when it suits their agenda. Or it paints a picture of a peaceful, happy West Papua, which is why it’s beautiful as an act of resistance. West Papuan men, when they protest in the capital Jayapura, will wear kotekas. They will go into the streets wearing penis gourds, and traditional headdresses. They paint their bodies and bring their bows and arrows. I’ve seen it, and I think it’s beautiful.
Bear in mind, I did get bullied and teased at school for having this name, but I’ve learned to love and embrace it, and it just shows that West Papuan people are not only facing genocide, ecocide, but also ethnicide. With the sudden influx of Japanese migrants through the Indonesian Asian transmigration program, we’re becoming a minority in our own land. This raises other issues such as cultural appropriation. Our culture being seen as more beautiful when it’s on the bodies of Japanese Indonesian migrants.
maya: Could you speak to the current state of the ongoing Free West Papuan movement.
Koteka: With the new Indonesian President Prabowo, who is guilty of crimes against humanity, there’s a big fear that with his new rule 1000s of hectares of our land is going to be sold to companies to make way for palm oil plantations, to make way for deforestation, to make way for sugar cane plantations. It’s heartbreaking because a lot of our people have a deep ancestral connection to their land. And a lot of our stories, our songs are connected to our land. When you displace and remove indigenous people from the land; you destroy that sacred relationship.
That’s why we have a boycott campaign, and that’s why we have the Green State Vision. My father came up with the Green State Vision to challenge the world to look to indigenous leaders for ideas about climate justice. When we’re fighting for climate justice, we also have to include indigenous liberation struggles, because once you liberate the people, you liberate new ideas and new visions, like the Green State Vision. When West Papua is an independent nation, we hope to become the world’s first green state, which will make ecocide a crime.
Our nation will be built based around Indigenous ideas and knowledge and Melanesian philosophies, which the world hasn’t seen before. When we liberate indigenous people, we liberate new visions of how to make the world a better, more sustainable place.
More than 500,000 men, women and children have been killed by the Indonesian state since the initial invasion. It’s been more than 60 years now, and nothing’s changed. Our people are still dying. Our children are still being murdered and kidnapped. Our women are still being raped and buried alive. The dramatic stories we heard our grandparents tell are still the headlines of papers today in West Papua. Media is still banned, and journalists are still banned from reporting freely. And what’s even worse is that the United Nations Human Rights Office cannot enter freely and do a thorough investigation into the human rights abuses. The stories we hear from inside West Papua are so valuable and so important, but they don’t have mainstream attention, and that’s why I think my platform is really important, because it does. It packages the struggle to wider audiences, modern audiences, in a more digestible, holistic way. I talk about my struggle through storytelling, visuals, music, songs, and dance.
maya: What does it mean to be an artist in the face of your people’s ongoing occupation at the hands of Indonesia?
Koteka: I think growing up, I thought stories were primitive mediums of activism. I thought that I had to use big, fancy words and be able to give a one-hour PowerPoint presentation with graphs and statistics to convince audiences to listen to the Message. Those are obviously useful and important in the struggle. But I felt really worried about young people not feeling empowered. I didn’t want them to feel apathetic and then just leave the freedom fight to the elders. I realized that storytelling could be a good tool… and music, dance and art could be useful tools to encourage my brothers and sisters to not feel intimidated to enter into this space when I sit down and play freedom songs.
My mother is a phenomenal songwriter. I was literally sung freedom songs from a very early age in my mother tongue, thanks to my mum. My father has a belief that music contains the human spirit. That’s why I often share these songs on social media. I do series or clips, and a lot of our old people are surprised. ‘How does she know our old songs? How can she can sing in our language?’ I love it because my accent disappears when I’m singing in my language, and people can’t tell that I’m living in the belly of colonial abuse. My sisters and I are dancers as well. We have performed at cultural festivals, music festivals, our school’s international evening, people’s weddings, and people’s birthday parties. It’s healing for us. It’s the best feeling when you can turn something traumatic into something beautiful. Music is a universal language. Even though some people can’t understand the freedom songs I sing, they can feel it.
maya: Like you said, I think that the cultural aspect of revolution, of our movement, is also how we build an identity outside of what our colonizers, our occupiers have said we are. I’m so mindful of the necessity of uplifting this ongoing freedom movement. During this time, we’re also seeing this genocidal campaign against Gaza and Palestinians. Israel is employing some of these same strategies that Indonesia is employing, like ecocide, cultural genocide, as well as the genociding of life.
Koteka: Gaza is the world’s most well documented genocide. And West Papua is the least well documented genocide. It’s really concerning when we see the world turning a blind eye to the suffering of our Palestinian brothers. It’s concerning… but it’s actually really beautiful to see the world and the West stand up for oppressed and colonized people, despite the leaders turning a blind eye.
maya: I don’t see a world in which we can have solidarity or liberation for just one colonized people. It’s necessary for us to see our liberation, our lives, as intertwined with one another.
Koteka: That’s why I also want to take time to acknowledge other liberation struggles in the Pacific. Besides West Papua, there’s the French, who obviously have their foot in the Pacific. We had our first ever protest outside the French Embassy in solidarity with our Kanaki brothers and sisters. The territory is called New Caledonia, and the indigenous people are fighting for a referendum for their own liberation. We have other territories in the Pacific, like Rapa Nui, which is currently a territory of Chile. And then we also have Bougainville, which is a Papua Guinean province. They are hoping to get their referendum soon. The Pacific has some really cool Black liberation struggles, movements that need more attention. West Papua deserves attention, but then we have these other minority struggles in the region. We do have a cross-solidarity relationship with our other island brothers and sisters. Black liberation struggles matter in the Pacific as much as they do in the in the rest of the world.
Keep reading:
Music is Political:
Sounds that Move Movements
Emel Mathlouthi, Collis Browne
Emel Mathlouthi
{
"article":
{
"title" : "Papua Merdeka: Koteka Wenda on Resisting Occupation in Exile",
"author" : "Koteka Wenda, maya finoh",
"category" : "interviews",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/papua-merdeka-koteka-wenda-resisting-occupation-in-exile",
"date" : "2025-06-17 14:26:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/IMG_3867.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Since the onset of the U.S.-sanctioned Israeli genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023, we have witnessed a global rise in awareness of the pervasive violence of colonialism and how necessary it is for life on this planet to dismantle it. This momentum has also led to the emergence of new forms of organizing in solidarity with oppressed peoples worldwide.",
"content" : "Since the onset of the U.S.-sanctioned Israeli genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023, we have witnessed a global rise in awareness of the pervasive violence of colonialism and how necessary it is for life on this planet to dismantle it. This momentum has also led to the emergence of new forms of organizing in solidarity with oppressed peoples worldwide.West Papua, unjustly annexed by the Indonesian state beginning in 1961, is the site of one of many Indigenous freedom struggles fighting against settler violence today: an estimated 500,000 West Papuans have been killed by Indonesian occupation forces over the last sixty years.In this interview, Koteka Wenda—a West Papuan storyteller and cultural performer living in exile with her family in the United Kingdom—speaks with maya finoh about the ongoing occupation of West Papua at the hands of Indonesia; the current state of the Free West Papua/Papua Merdeka Movement, which resists genocide, ecocide, and forced cultural assimilation; solidarity with other liberation fights; and what it means to her to be an artist-activist fighting for the autonomy of the West Papuan people in diaspora.maya finoh: I’m grateful to you for raising my awareness of the West Papuan struggle. It made me think about the solidarity between Black Atlantic and Black Pacific liberation struggles. I’d love to know what your personal connection to West Papua is.Koteka Wenda: My birth was political, because I was born in what was basically a refugee camp on the border of Papua New Guinea and West Papua. This is a border that was envisioned by white Western men sitting around a table, cutting our island as if it were a cake. I think of how difficult it was for my mother to have to leave her village, her family home, to cross the border and give birth in a settlement or in a town far away from her ancestral lands. And how Indonesian colonialism rips apart families. It displaces people and takes away the safety of community.That being said, when I was born, I was surrounded by a lot of strangers, who sooner or later, became family. I can’t go back to my homeland. I’m 23 going on 24 and it’s been more than 20 years since I freely roamed my ancestral lands. West Papua is home to wildlife and imagination. We are a Pacific Island nation. Our people are melanated. We have curly hair. We are ethnically, linguistically, culturally, Melanesian. We are distinct from the population of our colonizers, who are Southeast Asian, Javanese. I’ve always felt proud to be West Papuan despite living in exile overseas. I’ve been raised to love my heritage, and I think it’s this love for my land that is the foundation for my activism. I give credit to my parents, who have had to raise West Papuan children away from their lands.I say we live in exile because my father, Benny Wenda, was and is a well-respected West Papuan liberation leader in the Free West Papua movement. He was arrested in the early 2000s for mobilizing the people of West Papua to speak up about the injustices. And for that, he was arrested and charged with 25 years. Next year would be his “release date.” My early childhood memories are quite traumatic. I remember some of my family photo albums of me visiting my father behind prison bars. My mother and I would visit every now and then and my mother would smuggle food to my father because there were rumors of him being poisoned.The West Papuan colonial history is textbook colonialism. West Papua, alongside Papua New Guinea, are the custodians of the world’s third largest rainforest. It’s pure, virgin rainforest, and so naturally it was and is ripe for colonial exploitation. We are still experiencing colonialism and imperialism in the modern century. During the ‘60s, our brothers and sisters in the African continent experienced decolonization and many nations were birthed. West Papua was meant to be amongst the nations that benefitted from the UN Special Committee on Decolonization. We were a nation in waiting, ready to be born. But Indonesia stole that from us. The western half the Island, New Guinea, attracted many European powers. The Germans came along at one point, the Australians took administrative control of the island. Then we had the Japanese invasion. And then the Dutch prior to Indonesia.Indonesia, who are our current colonizers, have gone through their own independence story and their own struggles. They were colonized and oppressed by the Dutch. But in 1945 they were able to liberate themselves, and they are now the independent nation we know today. But during that period of transition, the Dutch had their own Empire, which extended from Indonesia to the Southeast Asian islands all the way to the western half of the island of West Papua. Once Indonesia declared independence, the Dutch recognized that Indonesia was not going to give them West Papua because they saw them as ethnically, linguistically, and culturally distinct, therefore they were going to keep them separate and aid them in their journey toward independence and sovereignty. I think that’s important to recognize. We fought for Indonesian independence. The Dutch were adamant that we had our own self-governing territory. The first West Papuan Congress was in 1961. This was when our national flag, the Morning Star flag, was created and when our national anthem came to be… and then the carving up of our territory happened.Papuans recognize the 1st of December as our should-have-been Independence Day. This National Day was attended by Dutch and other European observers, but it was literally a few weeks later that the Indonesian military invaded our land using paratroopers. Indonesia dropped hundreds of paratroopers onto West Papuan soil, and that’s when we essentially got into a short war with the Dutch and the Indonesians. The result of this was various agreements, the most significant agreement being the New York agreement of 1962 which, by the way, no West Papuans were consulted about. This agreement was signed by Indonesia and the Netherlands in a conference in New York. The agreement was that West Papua wouldn’t give away our sovereignty, but we would be under temporary administrative control by Indonesia. In the transitioning from the Dutch to Indonesia, a promise was made that there would be a referendum which would give the people of West Papua the right to self-determination, in other words, one man, one vote.It was during that same time that multinational companies like Freeport Sulfur, a US company, came along and were given licenses to begin mining operations in West Papua. In 1969, during the so-called Act of Free Choice, the people of West Papua were denied the freedom to truly decide the fate of their land. Indonesia, instead of using the one man, one vote referendum procedure, adopted their own version called the Mushawarat system, which is completely different from what was decided in the New York agreement. Essentially, they hand-picked over 1000 elders and community leaders and forced them at gunpoint to agree to sell their land and integrate with Indonesia. Many of them were threatened and told that they would have their tongues cut out, or that they’d be killed if they voted against integration with Indonesia. I mention this because the sham referendum was witnessed by the United Nations, and by many Western observers, and yet they all turned a blind eye. Indonesia’s claiming of West Papua is completely illegal. It was essentially the theft of our land, of our sovereignty.I do want to highlight the fact that it was during this whole colonial transfer that the licenses for the mines were given to US and British companies like British Petroleum. It was never really about the people of West Papua getting their rights of determination. The main reason for our land being given to Indonesia was so that multinational companies could profit by exploiting our beautiful, beautiful land.maya: This is incredibly heavy. I was really struck emotionally when you said that West Papua was supposed to be among the nations to be decolonized and liberated during the 1960s African liberation movement.Koteka: Many of the newly born African nations, including Ghana, were very vocal about this. They were the ones who were pushing West Papua to be next. They brought West Papua up at UN meetings. I also want to speak to institutionalized racism and the mindset of Papuans. I think of how West Papuans weren’t even allowed in these big meetings, the New York agreement meetings or the round table conferences in the Netherlands, or any these big meetings that were deciding the fate of our land. Papuans were never consulted or invited into the rooms. It was because of racist ideologies around Black Melanesians, that we couldn’t be trusted to govern our own affairs, we needed Western intervention. I think as a young West Papuan descendant, I found myself having to prove my intellect, to prove my capabilities in in in the world. There is still a narrative that we West Papuans are primitive, living in the Stone Age.maya: Could you speak to some of the historical and ongoing ways in which Indonesia continues to infringe upon West Papuans freedom and sovereignty. As you said, your father was a political prisoner. But I wonder if you could speak to some of the other tools and strategies they use against Papuans.Koteka: I can use my name as an example. Koteka was a name that was gifted to me by my father. And when most Papuans hear my name, they’re shocked, because my name means penis gourd; it’s a traditional covering worn by the men from the highlands, which is where I’m from. It’s a covering for the male private parts, mostly worn as an ornamental piece. It’s aggressively anti-European, anti-Western. It’s aggressively indigenous. In looking into the history of my name, and Indonesia’s relationship with this piece of clothing, I came across a campaign that was led by colonial powers in the 1960s called Operation Koteka, or Operasi Koteka.Indonesian forces would come into the highlands and force the men in our villages to swap their kotekas for Western European clothing. Operasi koteka, which was enforced in the ‘60s, is like a metaphor for what is still ongoing today. We’re now living in a modern Operasi Koteka era, where we can only wear traditional clothes during festivals, which are mostly sponsored by BP and mining groups. They basically only want us to wear our clothes when it suits their agenda. Or it paints a picture of a peaceful, happy West Papua, which is why it’s beautiful as an act of resistance. West Papuan men, when they protest in the capital Jayapura, will wear kotekas. They will go into the streets wearing penis gourds, and traditional headdresses. They paint their bodies and bring their bows and arrows. I’ve seen it, and I think it’s beautiful.Bear in mind, I did get bullied and teased at school for having this name, but I’ve learned to love and embrace it, and it just shows that West Papuan people are not only facing genocide, ecocide, but also ethnicide. With the sudden influx of Japanese migrants through the Indonesian Asian transmigration program, we’re becoming a minority in our own land. This raises other issues such as cultural appropriation. Our culture being seen as more beautiful when it’s on the bodies of Japanese Indonesian migrants.maya: Could you speak to the current state of the ongoing Free West Papuan movement.Koteka: With the new Indonesian President Prabowo, who is guilty of crimes against humanity, there’s a big fear that with his new rule 1000s of hectares of our land is going to be sold to companies to make way for palm oil plantations, to make way for deforestation, to make way for sugar cane plantations. It’s heartbreaking because a lot of our people have a deep ancestral connection to their land. And a lot of our stories, our songs are connected to our land. When you displace and remove indigenous people from the land; you destroy that sacred relationship.That’s why we have a boycott campaign, and that’s why we have the Green State Vision. My father came up with the Green State Vision to challenge the world to look to indigenous leaders for ideas about climate justice. When we’re fighting for climate justice, we also have to include indigenous liberation struggles, because once you liberate the people, you liberate new ideas and new visions, like the Green State Vision. When West Papua is an independent nation, we hope to become the world’s first green state, which will make ecocide a crime. Our nation will be built based around Indigenous ideas and knowledge and Melanesian philosophies, which the world hasn’t seen before. When we liberate indigenous people, we liberate new visions of how to make the world a better, more sustainable place.More than 500,000 men, women and children have been killed by the Indonesian state since the initial invasion. It’s been more than 60 years now, and nothing’s changed. Our people are still dying. Our children are still being murdered and kidnapped. Our women are still being raped and buried alive. The dramatic stories we heard our grandparents tell are still the headlines of papers today in West Papua. Media is still banned, and journalists are still banned from reporting freely. And what’s even worse is that the United Nations Human Rights Office cannot enter freely and do a thorough investigation into the human rights abuses. The stories we hear from inside West Papua are so valuable and so important, but they don’t have mainstream attention, and that’s why I think my platform is really important, because it does. It packages the struggle to wider audiences, modern audiences, in a more digestible, holistic way. I talk about my struggle through storytelling, visuals, music, songs, and dance.maya: What does it mean to be an artist in the face of your people’s ongoing occupation at the hands of Indonesia?Koteka: I think growing up, I thought stories were primitive mediums of activism. I thought that I had to use big, fancy words and be able to give a one-hour PowerPoint presentation with graphs and statistics to convince audiences to listen to the Message. Those are obviously useful and important in the struggle. But I felt really worried about young people not feeling empowered. I didn’t want them to feel apathetic and then just leave the freedom fight to the elders. I realized that storytelling could be a good tool… and music, dance and art could be useful tools to encourage my brothers and sisters to not feel intimidated to enter into this space when I sit down and play freedom songs.My mother is a phenomenal songwriter. I was literally sung freedom songs from a very early age in my mother tongue, thanks to my mum. My father has a belief that music contains the human spirit. That’s why I often share these songs on social media. I do series or clips, and a lot of our old people are surprised. ‘How does she know our old songs? How can she can sing in our language?’ I love it because my accent disappears when I’m singing in my language, and people can’t tell that I’m living in the belly of colonial abuse. My sisters and I are dancers as well. We have performed at cultural festivals, music festivals, our school’s international evening, people’s weddings, and people’s birthday parties. It’s healing for us. It’s the best feeling when you can turn something traumatic into something beautiful. Music is a universal language. Even though some people can’t understand the freedom songs I sing, they can feel it.maya: Like you said, I think that the cultural aspect of revolution, of our movement, is also how we build an identity outside of what our colonizers, our occupiers have said we are. I’m so mindful of the necessity of uplifting this ongoing freedom movement. During this time, we’re also seeing this genocidal campaign against Gaza and Palestinians. Israel is employing some of these same strategies that Indonesia is employing, like ecocide, cultural genocide, as well as the genociding of life.Koteka: Gaza is the world’s most well documented genocide. And West Papua is the least well documented genocide. It’s really concerning when we see the world turning a blind eye to the suffering of our Palestinian brothers. It’s concerning… but it’s actually really beautiful to see the world and the West stand up for oppressed and colonized people, despite the leaders turning a blind eye.maya: I don’t see a world in which we can have solidarity or liberation for just one colonized people. It’s necessary for us to see our liberation, our lives, as intertwined with one another.Koteka: That’s why I also want to take time to acknowledge other liberation struggles in the Pacific. Besides West Papua, there’s the French, who obviously have their foot in the Pacific. We had our first ever protest outside the French Embassy in solidarity with our Kanaki brothers and sisters. The territory is called New Caledonia, and the indigenous people are fighting for a referendum for their own liberation. We have other territories in the Pacific, like Rapa Nui, which is currently a territory of Chile. And then we also have Bougainville, which is a Papua Guinean province. They are hoping to get their referendum soon. The Pacific has some really cool Black liberation struggles, movements that need more attention. West Papua deserves attention, but then we have these other minority struggles in the region. We do have a cross-solidarity relationship with our other island brothers and sisters. Black liberation struggles matter in the Pacific as much as they do in the in the rest of the world."
}
,
"relatedposts": [
{
"title" : "To Do the Greatest Harm: Cornell University’s Complicity in International Violence & Destruction",
"author" : "Eliza Salamon & MB",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/cornell-complicity",
"date" : "2025-08-20 12:01:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/greg-daines-A37V-7GyDDg-unsplash.jpg",
"excerpt" : " This independent research shown in this report, show that the US and Israeli military, the largest military and weapons corporations, and technology companies have invested over $180 million in Cornell researchers and departments, mostly from 2023-2024.",
"content" : " This independent research shown in this report, show that the US and Israeli military, the largest military and weapons corporations, and technology companies have invested over $180 million in Cornell researchers and departments, mostly from 2023-2024.Discussion of the military-industrial complex often leaves out its third arm: academia. For many decades, the American defense industry, weapons manufacturers, and universities have collaborated in a profitable pattern that turn students and academics into cogs of the American war machine. 1 2 The Department of Defense (D.o.D.) is the branch of government that distributes taxpayer funds, generally through direct and indirect contracts, to research universities.This report unmasks Cornell University’s participation in this system and its complicity in global violence, destruction, and human rights violations while it enjoys a $10.7b endowment. In particular, our analysis, largely based on Office of Sponsored Research files from 2001-2024, finds that Cornell has been complicit in the U.S.-backed Saudi genocide of Yemen and the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide of Gaza. This complicity has been established through two forms of collaboration: Direct collaboration, through tens of millions of dollars in funding, with weapons manufacturers and fossil fuel companies. These include companies from which the student undergraduate and graduate bodies have adopted divestment resolutions (BAE Systems, Boeing, Elbit Systems, General Dynamics, L3Harris Technologies, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Technion Institute, and ThyssenKrupp). 3 4 Direct collaboration with Saudi ARAMCO and the Israeli Ministry of Defense (I.M.o.D.), including millions of dollars in funding. In addition, Cornell’s partnership with the Israeli university Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) through the New York City Cornell Tech Campus is uniquely egregious and a direct form of collaboration. 5 Much of the data supporting this has been aggregated into an excel file attached here 6 with the original files. 7 Hundreds of these sponsored research projects are listed in the linked table in addition to D.o.D. work that is included in our larger report. 8 The projects vary in subject from vaccines to cyber to hardware to policy. The table should be treated as a largely representative but incomplete list of Cornell’s involvement with the most prominent weapons manufacturing-related entities.Israeli Funding and Cornell’s Role in Apartheid and GenocideIn 2007, Harold Craighead, Professor in Applied and Engineering Physics, secured $300k from the I.M.o.D. The funded project focused on the development and fabrication of nanodevices. Though we were unable to obtain papers specifically citing this funding other than the official reporting, we present here the most plausible outcome of the proposed research. In 2006, Craighead received a visit from former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres.9 In a discussion with Peres, Craighead mentioned his collaboration with Tel Aviv University (T.A.U). Indeed, in the same year Craighead published a paper in collaboration with employees of T.A.U. focusing on the same topic of nanodevices.10 Military applications of the research include nano-meter scale robotics and biotechnologies along with optics/imaging. In a similar vein, the unaffiliated partnership between Lockheed Martin and Rice University documents other broad military applications of nano-tech.11In 2020, Robert F. Shepherd, an Associate Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, solicited $100k from the I.M.o.D. for elastic metamaterials research. Like Craighead, this funding is not reported in any of Shepherd’s publications, though one can extrapolate on the basis of the research topic as to which papers of his were I.M.o.D. funded. In particular, a paper from 2020 focuses precisely on the use of fluid flow to modulate material shape.12 This field is largely concerned with the manufacturing of materials which can change properties like texture or rigidity as a modulated response. Such applications are useful for the development of robotic components which can manipulate or navigate the environment. In addition, Shepherd’s collaborator at Israeli university Technion, Amir Gat, lists a 2019-2020 $100k funding grant from Maffat (a joint administrative body of the I.M.o.D and the I.D.F.) under the same topic.13 Conference proceedings also fit under the same topic and Shepherd went to Technion to present his work at a conference in 2020.14 15Frank Wise, Professor of Engineering in Applied and Engineering Physics, also solicited $100k from the I.M.o.D. to research high-power lasers. Such terawatt fiber lasers have a variety of applications but are of particular military interest for destroying aircraft or infrastructure without the use of conventional kinetic weapons like missiles. Lockheed Martin, a weapons manufacturer, reports its own interests in high-power lasers and such weapons are already being applied aboard military ships.16 17 18 This funding resulted in a paper on lasers that can be modulated to use various modes of emission.19 Pavel Sidorenko, a post-doc within Wise’s group, is now holding a position at the Technion continuing research on the high-power fiber lasers “which are becoming increasingly important in a variety of fields ranging from military applications to healthcare”.20Qing Zhao, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, also solicited $420k from the I.M.o.D. between 2021 and 2024. Zhao used this funding to research artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms and cites the I.M.o.D. funding in two papers dealing with computer vision and decision-making algorithms.21 22 Focusing on the former, Zhao’s work on computer vision enables cameras to more effectively identify objects, persons and notice patterns.23 Indeed, such computer vision algorithms have been implemented by the Israeli military to identify Palestinians from Gaza at checkpoints targeting forcibly displaced refugees.24Zhao’s work also has applications in the development of efficient autonomous drone swarms, by producing algorithms that lead to effective decision-making.25 Suppose a swarm of drones is navigating an area, each with its own sensors or cameras learning about its environment, then the data has to be processed leading to a decision. Zhao’s work creates an algorithm that processes this information in a centralized way and then makes a decision. This research can be applied to make decisions such as whether or not to kill an individual or bomb a building. Per a Booz Allen Hamilton report, Israel has been to date the first to use machine learning, including drone swarms successfully in military campaigns:“Israel’s victory over Hamas in 2021 was the first war to be won via the asymmetric advantage provided by AI, and the conflict in Gaza that started in 2023 continues to be characterized by AI as well as information warfare in the cognitive domain… Israel became the first country to use true drone swarms, deploying them in its 2021 conflict with Gaza, and is arguably the global leader in this technology because of their implementation of Elbit Systems’ Legion-X, a modular, heterogeneous, multi-domain C2 swarm system”.26 See also.27The use of these machine learning algorithms in Gaza has been documented in +972 magazine with the implementation of algorithms known as The Gospel, Lavender, and Where’s Daddy?28On the policy side, Sarah Kreps, Professor in Government, conducts public policy and supply chain studies for the D.o.D. and the Israeli government. In 2024, she published a study on the best surveillance practices for governments to engage in.29 The study was in part funded by the Israel National Cyber Directorate.Given Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians, Cornell’s collaboration with Technion University in Israel is another blatant example of its active complicity. With the establishment of the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island in NYC in 2012, Cornell has doubled down on its commitment to its Israeli collaborations, despite the efforts of its activist student body and the protest of NYC communities.30 31 At the announcement of the partnership, the Israeli consul expressed the “strategic importance” of the project to change the state’s association with conflict and violence, and instead associate it with innovation.32 Cornell consistently touts its collaboration with Technion in published articles: “The impact of the Technion on Israel’s economy, society and defense is unmatched”.33Further, the word “defense” is often used by weapons manufacturers and governments as a euphemism for offensive capabilities. The Technion has also been instrumental in advancing technological capabilities of the Israeli Ministry of Defense.34 35 36 It also had several programs and scholarships sponsored by weapons manufacturers Rafael and Elbit Systems.37 In addition, Technion has been directly complicit through providing support to the Israeli military.38 As the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (B.D.S.) movement has documented: “Technion has developed a course on marketing the Israeli weapons industry to the international market for export. Technion also has numerous joint academic programs with the Israeli military and developed the remote control capabilities for the Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer used by the Israeli military to demolish Palestinian homes—considered collective punishment under international law.”39 40 41 42 Cornell Tech’s council includes Michael Bloomberg who once stated: “I’ll never condition aid to Israel.”43 This may reflect, in part, why Cornell’s leadership has refused to even consider divestment.Saudi Funding and Cornell’s Role in Climate Change and Human Rights AbusesCornell’s complicity with genocidal governments extends further through its substantial relationships with the Saudi government and its institutions. University programs and individual faculty benefit from Saudi funds despite the many violations of human rights carried out by Mohammed Bin Salman, the Saudi totalitarian Crown Prince and Prime Minister. These include but are not limited to the following: the U.S.-backed genocide in Yemen, the assassination and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the country’s limitless production of fossil fuels, and its persistent crackdowns on its own activists, including feminists. The Yemeni genocide claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians from 2015 to 2022.44 [^45] American-made weapons were used and made the U.S. complicit.45 46 47 48 At no point did Cornell, as an institution, take action to break ties with the Saudi dictatorship. Cornell’s former president Frank H. T. Rhodes served as a trustee at the King Abdullah University of Science Technology along with former M.I.T. president Charles M. Vest.49Over the past few years, faculty have also been subsidized through research funding from Saudi ARAMCO, the majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company responsible for almost 4.5% of all global CO2 and methane emissions between 1965 and 2017.50 The company has a long history of obstructing action against climate change through aggressive lobbying and funding of Western research, especially at American universities.51 The work financed by Saudi ARAMCO at Cornell is focused on oil refinement and energy generation broadly, a problematic venture, especially considering academia’s knowledge of the human role in perpetuating climate change.Amongst the employees who received funds from ARAMCO are Lawrence Cathles, Lynden Archer and Emmanuel Giannelis, professors in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Materials Science, respectively, who received $1.3m from 2009 to 2011 through the KAUST-Cornell Center for Energy and Sustainability. Despite its name, this center, a collaboration between Cornell and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (K.A.U.S.T.) in Saudi Arabia from 2008-2015, was committed to research on oil and gas production.52 53 Further K.A.U.S.T. funding followed: Giannelis also received $531k between 2012 and 2014. Archer, current Dean of the School of Engineering, received $84k in 2017. In 2023, $250k went to Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Yong Joo and $400k to a professor in Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Geoffrey Coates. Yong Joo also solicited $200k in funding along with Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering Greeshma Gadikota’s $300k in 2024.Collaboration With Weapons ManufacturersIn addition to collaborating with violent regimes, Cornell has received millions of dollars in research funding that have come directly from weapons manufacturers. Publicly available documents dating from 2001 show this funding includes the “primes”54: Lockheed Martin [~$3m], Raytheon [~$6.5m], Boeing [~$1.4m], Northrop Grumman [~$2.3m] and General Dynamics [~$240k]. B.A.E. Systems [~$2.3m], L3Harris [~$1.4m], Shell [$500k], Exxon [~$1.2m], Intel Corporation [~$16.4m], I.B.M. [~$7.2m], M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory [~$250k], Teledyne [~$700k] and others have also given considerable research funding to the Cornell employees.The group of studies are far too extensive to discuss in one document but demonstrate the ultimate functioning of so-called “academic” research. The funding has been for machine learning and artificial intelligence development, software and computer language platforms, silicon chip and battery development, miniature satellites, robotics, data visualization, 3-D rendering and much more. All of these are components that are often declared as being “dual use” but are used by militaries and states well beyond any stated consumer use. As one example, Raytheon has published articles on its web page touting its collaboration with Cornell on gallium-nitride materials and refinement radio-frequency technologies.55These collaborations extend to student life. Cornell has overtly partnered with Lockheed Martin to create a Masters of Engineering program in Systems Engineering.56 On the front page of the program is stated: “Lockheed Martin Employees - Welcome!”. Standards are lowered for Lockheed Martin employees by waiving GRE scores and requiring only one recommendation letter. Similarly, Cornell has an identical partnership with Boeing for a Masters program along with a 5% tuition discount and waiving of application fee.57The university also holds a key laboratory for the Northeast Regional Defense Technology Hub (N.O.R.D.T.E.C.H.) along with a plethora of other universities and weapons manufacturers.58 Though its aims include a wide array of technologies, they are highly focused on the development of computer chips. The basis of the organization is to create a collaborative space between weapons manufacturers, the D.o.D., and academia.The Cornell Tech campus in N.Y.C. also does its own collaborations, including with DefenseArk.59 Through its startup award it has helped sustain autonomous robotics companies like Aatonomy which are looking to do business with the D.o.D.60OutlookIn the midst of foreign catastrophes including the Yemeni genocide, the ongoing Palestinian genocide and the assassination of hundreds of reporters in Gaza, Cornell has never ceased nor paused its collaboration with regimes or the weapons manufacturers supplying them. Not only does this demonstrate its institutional and individual collaboration with actors that consistently violate international law, but also reveals that its professed human values are ultimately hollow calls. In our non-comprehensive analysis of Cornell research funding from 2001-2024, we found that researchers and institutes received hundreds of millions of dollars from the D.o.D, weapons manufacturers, and international governments committing vast human rights violations. Further investigation would also reveal indirect transfers of technology and weaponry from Cornell to U.A.E.’s fueling of the Sudanese genocide by means of weapons manufacturing sales.61Cornell feigns its research to be merely theoretical, non-applied, or done for the sake of “knowledge production.” David Gray Widder, post-doctoral researcher at Cornell Tech has recently written about the impossibility of making a distinction between basic and applied research when such research is funded by entities whose explicit purpose is to enact harm: “this mutual enlistment is crucial to the perpetuation of the military-industrial-commercial-academic complex, and to the technopolitical imaginaries of security through military domination that keep public funds flowing to projects in more efficient killing and destruction”.62Political scientist Neve Gordon and medical anthropologist Guy Shalev published a recent article titled “The Shame of Israeli Medicine”, which concludes that Israeli academics are not doing their part in preventing the genocide and therefore require external pressure and sanctioned from outside Israel. Despite these findings, Cornell Tech’s president Michael Kotlikoff recently stated proudly in a speech that “at Cornell Tech, we have the most intensive and meaningful collaboration with an Israeli university of any institution in this country”.63As Cornell reportedly prepares to reach a $100 million settlement with the Trump administration over allegations of anti-semitism, it draws ever closer to the belly of the beast.64 The Trump administration’s blatant weaponization of anti-semitism is one of its many tactics designed to manufacture consent for its crackdown on higher education and prompt capitulation. With this settlement, Cornell’s alliances with repressive regimes are only continuing to expand. An institution that continues to tie itself to the destruction of international communities can only degrade and devolve into a symbol of oppression.This report finds that Cornell’s purported goals in sustaining human-centred values are not only lacking, but are egregiously contrary to them. On an institutional and individual level, Cornell is intimately complicit in the act of genocide. And though Cornell has its own unique forms of complicity, the academic-military-industrial complex permeates the entire American system of higher education. If these institutions, as they have demonstrated thus far, do not have the moral capacity to make ethical and just decisions, it is the responsibility of students, faculty, staff, and the broader international academic community to put pressure, sanctions, and boycotts on them. Ultimately, the contradictions revealed within academia, both over decades of violent complicity and the ongoing starvation and annihilation of Gaza, make clear the necessity of breaking apart and reshaping an academia divorced from the military, and truly committed to a greater, ethical, and just future. https://universities.icanw.org/ ↩ https://www.thenation.com/article/world/the-pentagons-quest-for-academic-intelligence-ai/ ↩ https://assembly.cornell.edu/shared-governance/get-involved/input-issues/spring-2024-undergraduate-referendum/submitted?utm_source%3Drss%26utm_medium%3Drss ↩ https://www.instagram.com/p/DI_mRUeOtKr/?img_index%3D3 ↩ https://www.instagram.com/p/DI_mRUeOtKr/?img_index%3D3 ↩ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SbjxsSRFFNKQTe0typvAR3KjKo0IZmdmBTpkMht6Ets/edit?usp%3Dsharing ↩ https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6NHD1w-828udkjH6mfYe0whBGoD0YZg/view?usp%3Ddrive_link ↩ https://antiwar.io/cornell ↩ https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2006/11/shimon-peres-calls-science-and-technology-key-peace ↩ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp%3D%26arnumber%3D4159973 ↩ https://investors.lockheedmartin.com/news-releases/news-release-details/lockheed-martin-and-rice-partner-nanotech-research ↩ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7071869/%23fn-group1 ↩ https://gat.net.technion.ac.il/files/2019/07/AmirGatResume-1.pdf ↩ https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019APS..DFDG23001P/abstract ↩ https://yizhar.net.technion.ac.il/files/2021/09/MSRC2020_booklet.pdf ↩ https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2023-07-28-Lockheed-Martin-to-Scale-Its-Highest-Powered-Laser-to-500-Kilowatts-Power-Level ↩ https://newatlas.com/military/us-navy-uses-ai-train-laser-weapons-against-drones/ ↩ https://newatlas.com/military/us-navy-delivery-tactical-lockheed-martin-laser-weapon/ ↩ https://arxiv.org/pdf/2110.03571 ↩ https://zuckermanstem.org/scholars/dr-pavel-sidorenko/ ↩ https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.08869 ↩ https://proceedings.mlr.press/v202/salgia23b/salgia23b.pdf ↩ https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.08869 ↩ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/technology/israel-facial-recognition-gaza.html ↩ https://proceedings.mlr.press/v202/salgia23b/salgia23b.pdf ↩ https://www.boozallen.com/content/dam/home/docs/natsec/top-ten-emerging-technologies.pdf ↩ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2282656-israel-used-worlds-first-ai-guided-combat-drone-swarm-in-gaza-attacks/ ↩ https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ ↩ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00223433241233960 ↩ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/cornell-nyc-techs-alarming-ties-israeli-occupation/ ↩ https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/in-opposition-to-cornell-universitys/ ↩ https://www.jta.org/2011/12/20/ny/israeli-schools-strategic-move ↩ https://tech.cornell.edu/news/israel-cidon-joins-cornell-tech-as-director-of-the-joan-irwin-jacobs-technion-cornell-institute/ ↩ https://ats.org/our-impact/the-technion-protecting-israel-for-100-years/ ↩ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/07/02/israeli-military-institute-technion-is-at-the-heart-of-the-military-industrial-academic-complex/ ↩ https://ats.org/our-impact/technion-students-paying-it-forward/ ↩ https://bdsmovement.net/news/israeli-universities-attacking-campus-uprisings-uphold-israels-crimes-against-palestinians ↩ https://www.technion.ac.il/en/blog/article/defense-ministers-shield-to-be-awarded-to-the-technion/ ↩ https://www.mitgaisim.idf.il/%25D7%259B%25D7%25AA%25D7%2591%25D7%2595%25D7%25AA/%25D7%25A8%25D7%2590%25D7%25A9%25D7%2599/%25D7%25A2%25D7%25AA%25D7%2595%25D7%2593%25D7%2594/%25D7%25AA%25D7%259B%25D7%25A0%25D7%2599%25D7%25AA-%25D7%25A1%25D7%2599%25D7%259C%25D7%2595%25D7%259F/ ↩ https://materials.technion.ac.il/en/studies/undergraduate-programs/gvishim-program-for-outstanding-academic-idf-reservists ↩ https://www.mitgaisim.idf.il/%25D7%259B%25D7%25AA%25D7%2591%25D7%2595%25D7%25AA/%25D7%25A8%25D7%2590%25D7%25A9%25D7%2599/%25D7%25A2%25D7%25AA%25D7%2595%25D7%2593%25D7%2594/%25D7%25AA%25D7%259B%25D7%25A0%25D7%2599%25D7%25AA-%25D7%25A1%25D7%2599%25D7%259C%25D7%2595%25D7%259F/ ↩ https://www.972mag.com/top-israeli-university-marketing-countys-arms-industry-to-the-world ↩ https://www.timesofisrael.com/bloomberg-to-aipac-ill-never-condition-aid-to-israel-no-matter-whos-pm/ ↩ https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/yemen-genocide-emergency ↩ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/arms-deals-yemen.html ↩ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/arms-deals-raytheon-yemen.html ↩ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/politics/us-war-crimes-yemen-saudi-arabia.html ↩ https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2018/09/world/yemen-airstrikes-intl/ ↩ https://www.kaust.edu.sa/en/about/administration/board-trustees ↩ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed-20-firms-third-carbon-emissions ↩ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/climate/saudi-arabia-aramco-oil-solar-climate.html ↩ https://ecommons.cornell.edu/communities/9de3b5de-53b7-4098-a8e9-e611323f790a ↩ https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2008/04/25-million-cu-saudi-link-will-boost-nanoscale-research ↩ https://ventureoutsource.com/contract-manufacturing/top-military-electronic-defense-primes-diversify-de-risk-win-dod-pentagon-procurement-budget ↩ https://www.rtx.com/news/news-center/2023/11/16/rtx-and-darpa-to-revolutionize-gallium-nitride-technology-for-improved-radio-freq ↩ ttps://www.engineering.cornell.edu/sys/distance-learning-meng-systems-engineering/corporate-partners/lockheed-martin-employees/ ↩ https://www.engineering.cornell.edu/sys/distance-learning-meng-systems-engineering/corporate-partners/boeing-employees/ ↩ https://www.nordtechub.org/members ↩ https://tech.cornell.edu/news/bridging-academia-and-industry-innovation-meet-cornell-techs-first-venture-fellow/ ↩ https://tech.cornell.edu/news/how-to-easily-make-any-robot-autonomous/ ↩ https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/07/arms-sales-uae-00217874 ↩ https://arxiv.org/pdf/2411.17840 ↩ https://president.cornell.edu/speeches-writings/2025-state-of-the-university-address/ ↩ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-01/cornell-close-to-white-house-settlement-of-up-to-100-million ↩ "
}
,
{
"title" : "Legalized Occupation: Dissecting Israel’s Plan to Seize Gaza",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/legalized-occupation-dissecting-israels-plan-to-seize-gaza",
"date" : "2025-08-09 10:13:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/EIP_Cover-Legalized_Occupation.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Israel’s newly approved plan to “take control” of Gaza City and other key areas of the enclave is being presented to the world as a security imperative. In reality, it is an extension of a long-standing settler-colonial project—another chapter in the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people.",
"content" : "Israel’s newly approved plan to “take control” of Gaza City and other key areas of the enclave is being presented to the world as a security imperative. In reality, it is an extension of a long-standing settler-colonial project—another chapter in the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people.The language of “control,” “buffer zones,” and “security perimeters” is not neutral. It is a calculated rhetorical strategy designed to obscure the material realities of occupation, annexation, and ethnic cleansing. This is not a temporary maneuver aimed at stability. It is the consolidation of power through the seizure of land, the dismantling of Palestinian civil society, and the deepening of Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe—all in violation of international law.The Political Calculus Behind the OperationTo understand the decision, we must first acknowledge its political function for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Facing mounting domestic discontent, the collapse of public trust, and arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for war crimes, Netanyahu is cornered. His far-right coalition partners demand an uncompromising expansionist agenda, and his own political survival depends on delivering it.Occupation has always been a cornerstone of this political project. By launching a military campaign to seize Gaza’s largest urban center, Netanyahu signals strength to his base while sidestepping accountability for the escalating humanitarian disaster. That disaster is not collateral damage—it is a form of collective punishment meant to force submission. It is also a bargaining chip: an occupied, starved, and displaced population is easier to control and harder to resist.A Continuation of the NakbaThis plan is not an anomaly; it is the latest manifestation of a decades-long pattern. Since the Nakba of 1948, the forced displacement of Palestinians and the destruction of their communities have been central tools of state policy. In Gaza today, we see the same logic: empty the land of its people, destroy the infrastructure of life, and claim it under the guise of security.International law is explicit: annexation through military force is illegal. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment and the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into occupied territory. Yet, as with the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel has consistently acted with impunity—shielded by the political, financial, and military backing of powerful allies.The Humanitarian FrontGaza has already been described by UN officials as a “graveyard for children.” The enclave’s population has endured a near-total blockade for 18 years, compounded by repeated bombardments that have destroyed hospitals, schools, and basic infrastructure. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced since the start of this latest escalation. Food insecurity is at catastrophic levels; medical supplies are almost nonexistent.Israel’s seizure of Gaza City—home to hundreds of thousands—will further collapse what remains of civilian life. Humanitarian organizations warn that the move will trigger mass displacement, deepen famine, and cut off the few remaining supply routes. These are not accidental outcomes. They are part of a strategy that weaponizes deprivation as a means of political control.Narrative as a BattlefieldThe battle over Gaza is not only military—it is discursive. The words chosen by political leaders and media outlets shape how the world understands, or misunderstands, what is unfolding. In Netanyahu’s framing, Israel is not occupying Gaza; it is “liberating” it from Hamas. In this telling, Palestinian civilians become invisible, reduced to collateral casualties in a counterterrorism campaign.This is why reframing is crucial. We must reject the sanitized vocabulary of “security zones” and “temporary control” and speak plainly: this is occupation, annexation, and the forcible seizure of Palestinian land. It is not liberation, it is domination. And it is not about peace, it is about power.Global ConnectionsIsrael’s actions in Gaza are not isolated from broader global struggles. From the forced removal of Indigenous peoples in North America to the apartheid regime in South Africa, the tactics of dispossession, militarization, and narrative control follow a familiar pattern. This is why solidarity movements around the world—led by Indigenous, Black, and other colonized peoples—see their own struggles reflected in Palestine’s.The link is not merely symbolic. Israel’s military technology, surveillance systems, and counterinsurgency tactics are exported globally, often marketed as “field-tested” in Gaza and the West Bank. These technologies underpin policing, border control, and repression from Ferguson to Kashmir. In this way, Gaza is both a site of profound local suffering and a laboratory for global authoritarianism.Discrediting the PlanIf the goal is to discredit this plan in the eyes of the international public, the strategy must be twofold: expose contradictions and center Palestinian agency.Expose contradictionsNetanyahu insists Israel does not seek to govern Gaza permanently, yet the seizure of land, establishment of military perimeters, and destruction of civilian infrastructure point toward long-term control.Israel claims to act in self-defense, yet the scale and method of its campaign far exceed any proportional response under international law.Center Palestinian agencyElevate Palestinian voices—journalists, doctors, teachers—who are documenting life under siege.Highlight grassroots forms of resilience and resistance that defy the portrayal of Palestinians as passive victims or inevitable threats.Name the enablersIdentify the governments, corporations, and financial institutions providing material or diplomatic cover for the occupation.Show how this complicity undermines their stated commitments to human rights and international law.Connect to global strugglesFrame Gaza as part of a worldwide resistance to settler colonialism, authoritarianism, and militarized capitalism.Build coalitions across movements to break the isolation that occupation depends upon.Everything Is PoliticalFrom a political-analyst perspective, the key insight is that this is not simply a geopolitical crisis—it is a crisis of narrative. If we accept the occupying power’s framing, we have already conceded the first battle. That is why the work of reframing—naming what is happening, connecting it to historical patterns, and centering the perspectives of the colonized—is not ancillary to the struggle; it is the struggle.In the end, Israel’s plan to seize Gaza is not about security—it is about sovereignty. Not Palestinian sovereignty, but the sovereignty of a state built on the denial of another people’s right to exist on their land. That is the truth the world must see clearly, and that is the truth we must continue to tell, relentlessly, until occupation becomes not a political fact but a historical memory."
}
,
{
"title" : "Ziad Rahbani and the Art of Creative Rebellion",
"author" : "Céline Semaan",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/ziad-rahbani-creative-rebellion",
"date" : "2025-07-28 07:01:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/2025_7_for-EIP-ziad-rahbani.jpg",
"excerpt" : "When I turned fourteen in Beirut, I came across Ziad Rahbani’s groundbreaking work. I immediately felt connected to him, his words, his perspective and his unflinching commitment to liberation for our people and for Palestine. My first love introduced me to his revolutionary plays, his unique contributions to Arab music and very soon I had listened to all of his plays and expanded my understanding of our own culture and history.",
"content" : "When I turned fourteen in Beirut, I came across Ziad Rahbani’s groundbreaking work. I immediately felt connected to him, his words, his perspective and his unflinching commitment to liberation for our people and for Palestine. My first love introduced me to his revolutionary plays, his unique contributions to Arab music and very soon I had listened to all of his plays and expanded my understanding of our own culture and history.Ziad Rahbani’s passing marks more than the end of a brilliant life—it marks the closing of a chapter in the cultural history of our region. His funeral wasn’t just a ceremony, it was a collective reckoning; crowds following his exit from the hospital to the cemetery. The streets knew what many governments tried to forget: that he gave voice to the people’s truths, to our frustrations, our absurdities, our grief, and our undying hope for justice. Yet he died as an unsung hero.Born into a family that shaped the musical soul of Lebanon, Ziad could have taken the easy path of replication. Instead, he shattered the mold. From his early plays like Sahriyye and Nazl el-Surour, he upended the elitism of classical Arabic theatre by placing the working class, the absurdity of war, and the contradictions of society at the center of his work. He spoke like the people spoke. He made art in the language of the taxi driver, the student, the mother waiting for news of her son.In his film work Film Ameriki Tawil, Ziad used satire not only as critique, but as rebellion. He exposed the rot of sectarian politics in Lebanon with surgical precision, never sparing anyone, including the leftist circles he moved in. He saw clearly: that political purity was a myth, and liberation required uncomfortable truths. His work, deeply rooted in class consciousness, refused to glorify any side of a war that tore his country apart.And yet, Ziad Rahbani never lost his clarity on Palestine. While others wavered, diluted their positions, or folded into diplomacy, Ziad remained steadfast. His support for the Palestinian struggle was not an aesthetic position—it was a political and ethical commitment. And he did so not as an outsider or savior, but as someone who understood that our futures are intertwined. That the liberation of Palestine is integral to the liberation of Lebanon. That anti-sectarianism and anti-Zionism are not contradictions, but extensions of each other.He brought jazz into Arabic music not as a novelty, but as a defiant act of cultural fusion—proof that our identities are not fixed, but fluid, diasporic, ever-evolving. He blurred the lines between Western musical forms and Arabic lyricism with intention, not mimicry. His collaborations with his mother, the legendary Fairuz, carried the weight of generational dialogue, but his own voice always broke through—wry, melancholic, grounded in the everyday.Ziad taught us that being a revolutionary doesn’t require a uniform or a slogan. It requires listening. It requires holding complexity, laughing in the face of despair, and making room for joy even when the world is on fire. He reminded us that culture is the deepest infrastructure of any resistance movement. He refused to be sanitized, censored, or simplified.As we mourn him, we also inherit his clarity. For artists, for organizers, for thinkers: Ziad Rahbani gave us a blueprint. Create without permission. Tell the truth. Fight for Palestine without compromising your own roots. And never forget that the people will always hear what is real.He was, and will always be, a compass for creative rebellion."
}
]
}