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Why do all those US universities have dealings with Israel? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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All those student protests on the US seem to be about stopping their universities from supporting the Israel government. But supporting a foreign government is not a normal thing for a university to do, why do they do it?

Is there some educational or research resource they get?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

For the most part, they're not specifically supporting the Israeli government. They have endowment funds, which they invest in mutual funds and other such financial instruments, like everyone else. Those mutual funds, in turn, invest money in a huge array of different stocks, bonds, etc, generally with the goal of producing a decent return with a minimum amount of risk. Buried somewhere in that pile of investments are things like Israeli government bonds, shares in defense contractors, etc, because political priorities are not usually a factor in how mutual funds decide where to put their money.