The University of Otago announced its partnership with international cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks (PANW) in May of last year to aid in the development of a new Masters in Digital Technology at the budding Queenstown campus. However, the partnership has recently come under scrutiny by Otago Staff for Palestine (OSP). According to an opinion piece published in the Otago Daily Times by OSP, this is due to PANW having “deep links to the Israeli government, which has been accused in international courts of committing genocidal acts.”
Critic Te Ārohi understands that PANW recently was named as a technology partner for a contract awarded to Accel Solutions Group by an unnamed major Israeli customer. Accel imports and integrates telecom equipment for the telecom market in Israel. Some analysts speculate that the major customer is the Israeli government, due to the contract being described as supplying cyber and information security services for “critical network infrastructure” in Israel and valued between $250-500 million. PANW also recently acquired CyberArk, which serves governments globally, with tools designed for high-security environments (including defence systems). With this move, the Jerusalem Post reported that PANW would become the most valuable company listed on the Israeli market.
PANW operates its largest research facility outside of the US in Tel Aviv and was founded by now retired American-Israeli Nir Zuk, a veteran of the Israeli Defence Unit 8200. Unit 8200 is responsible for signal intelligence and cybersecurity. Unit 8200 has been heavily scrutinised for mass surveillance of Palestinians, and utilising AI-driven targeting systems like “Lavender” to identify bomb strikes in Gaza.
Establishment Director of the University of Otago Queenstown and Lakes District Project, Professor Richard Barker, confirmed to Critic Te Ārohi that the partnership was fully finalised. The partnership is “focused solely on educational collaboration” and “supporting the development and delivery of postgraduate programmes in cybersecurity in Queenstown.” While the University will retain “full academic control over programme design, assessment and teaching,” Richard told Critic that Palo Alto Networks will provide “industry perspectives to help ensure the programme remains relevant to cybersecurity practice.”
“For those of us in the Staff for Palestine group, it is particularly disappointing that the university seems to be openly rejecting the guidelines set out by the Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement,” OPS wrote in the ODT article. The BDS movement is an international campaign aimed at pressuring Israel to uphold the basic human rights of the Palestinian people under its control.
Richard emphasised that the University takes ethical considerations seriously, and undertook “due diligence” on PANW prior to the partnership agreement being finalised. According to Richard, this process established that PANW is a US-based company, and while it had an Israeli founder and a research facility in Tel Aviv, the due diligence work did not “indicate any company links to the Israeli military, nor was PANW “identified at the time on the [BDS] movement list of tech targets.” The due diligence assessment was undertaken to ensure the partnership “aligned with the University’s values and posed no conflict with our academic mission [...]”.
Richard claims that the University spoke to “several technology companies”, landing on PANW due to its global scale, established presence in the cybersecurity industry, and being an “innovative” industry leader. Accordingly, PANW was “a perfect partner in terms of the University providing academic programmes which are tied closely to world-leading industry partners.”
According to a factsheet provided to Critic by OPS, cyber defence and tech products are a key export for Israel, making up around 56% of all export earnings.“This makes it very hard for our governments to disentangle themselves from Israeli capital, spies and interests. Tech is a key part of Israel’s expansionist project,” the factsheet reads.
Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist, film-maker and author of the global best-selling book, The Palestine Laboratory. When approached by Critic, he warned against the University of Otago “getting into bed” with PANW, due to its “extensive connections to the Israeli military and elite intelligence Unit 8200.”
"This company has a long record of operating deep inside the Israeli army and intelligence at a time when Israel itself has been credibly accused of committing genocide in Gaza", he said. "I've spent more than a decade investigating the close relations between Israel, its defence sector and the global arms industry and I have grave concerns that the University is either wilfully blind or happily colluding with a corporation with a shady background in surveillance."
With the original partnership being announced May 19th 2025, it followed less than two weeks after the Working Group on Institutional Neutrality was accepted on May 8th, which recommended that the University work to develop ethical investment and procurement policies. The ethical procurement policy was recently released, but according to Richard, it “deals with people who supply goods and services to the University”, which “is not quite the same” as the PANW and University partnership. However, the ethical investment policy is “still under development”, but that “deals with financial investments made by the University, not partnerships.”
With no clear policy guidance for partnerships (although “there is work underway on this”), Barker noted that “[p]rotecting academic freedom and balancing that against the overall reputational issues for the University is one of the things that has to be kept in mind as partnerships are developed.”
Overall, the University has made it clear to Critic that the PANW partnership is purely to provide industry insights for an academic programme, and the ethics of the agreement have been vetted through their due diligence process. However, members of the University community, including OSP, have continued to express their discomfort over the alleged direct military links, especially in light of the ongoing Israel-Palestine war. Critic Te Ārohi will stay in the loop for any future developments on the Queenstown campus and Palo Alto partnership.
