Oxford University profits from companies complicit in Israeli occupation, activists warn

The holdings, worth over £19 million ($25.5 million), are a fraction of the university’s £8 billion endowment, but campaigners argue the implications are far greater, The Middle East Eye (MEE) news and analysis website reported.

The analysis published on Thursday showed that Oxford’s investments, made through a passive equity tracker fund co-developed with BlackRock, an American investment company, in 2020, include major Israeli banks, travel companies like Expedia, Booking.com, and Airbnb, and US technology firms such as Motorola Solutions.

Many of these companies are listed in United Nations and human rights reports for facilitating the Israeli regime’s illegal settlements.

The Oxford BDS Coalition, a campus group of students and staff, slammed the university’s investments, saying, "It is completely unacceptable for the University of Oxford to be involved in illegal activities of any kind. Even more so for the university to profit from an illegal occupation that has been linked to egregious human rights abuses, including genocide, the most abhorrent of all crimes.”

"The university has been made aware of these links on numerous occasions, so we have to assume that they are knowingly and willingly complicit in these crimes against humanity."

The coalition is demanding full transparency of Oxford’s investment holdings and immediate divestment from all companies implicated in human rights violations in Palestine.

Hundreds of university members, including senior academics, have pledged to uphold the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s principles, further intensifying calls for action.

Oxford’s use of an index tracker, a tool designed to spread investments across many firms, was meant to screen out companies involved in fossil fuels and controversial weapons.

Yet it does not exclude firms flagged for violating Palestinian human rights or those on the BDS divestment list, raising questions about the university’s ethical investment policies.

Experts argue that Oxford, as the wealthiest UK university, is uniquely positioned to lead change across higher education.

Saqib Bhatti, executive director of the US-based Action Center on Race and the Economy, said, “If the biggest universities like Oxford were to band together and play a leadership role with other universities in the world with large endowments to say we need to make sure that our investments are mission-aligned and we need to make sure that asset managers are offering mission-aligned options for all universities, they could make that happen.”

The scrutiny comes as the regime faces mounting international condemnation over its atrocities in Gaza, described by UN investigators as part of a genocidal campaign.

Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund and the Netherlands’ ABP pension fund have already divested from several Zionist regime’s companies, including some held in Oxford’s BlackRock fund, citing human rights abuses.

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese called out global asset managers, warning that continued investment in companies sustaining Israeli occupation implicates institutions, pension funds, and ordinary investors in ongoing crimes.

Pro-Palestinian activism on UK campuses has surged in recent years, with universities such as Queen’s University Belfast, King’s College Cambridge, and Swansea taking steps to divest from firms complicit in occupation.

Activists insist Oxford must follow suit.

Bhatti emphasized the moral responsibility of educational institutions, saying, “They’ve destroyed every university in Gaza. They are destroying centuries of scholarship and cultural sites.”

“You don’t exist to make money. You exist for a mission: To provide education.”