Role of Foreign Affairs Ministries

Israeli Embassy in Denmark

As can be gathered from the LinkedIn post the Israeli embassy functions as a facilitator, setting up meetings between Danish and Israeli institutions. The aforementioned meeting included the highest representatives of both Danish and Israeli universities, the Israeli ambassador to Denmark, and representatives of the "charity" known as the Rothschild Foundation. For context, the Rothschild Foundation was founded 140 years ago by one of the wealthiest families in Europe who had bought into the Zionist project and set up the foundation in order to promote the creation of a Jewish majority state in historic Palestine. From the organizations website: "[Since] the end of the 19th century till today, the Rothschild family has been one of the pillars on which the Zionist vision and the State of Israel are based" [3]. The Rothschild family bought vast tracts of land, many of which are still owned and administered through their foundations, and placed those properties in the service of the Israeli state [4,5]. Today the organization says that it funds various initiatives in the fields of "higher education, academic excellence, arts, impact entrepreneurship, and leadership" for the benefit of Israel. Whether DTU has met previously with the Rothschild Foundation is unclear, although a 2026 publication does show that the foundation supported the work of an Israeli researcher who published with DTU counterparts [6]. Additionally, the foundation does provide scholarship and educational programs to students at Ariel University [7-9]. Ariel University is the only one of Israel's accredited universities located entirely within an illegal settlement. In 2012 Anders Bjarklev, still then the rector at DTU, personally ended a collaboration between DTU and Ariel University, stating: "If you fund analyses in laboratories at Ariel university, it can be seen as supporting a settlement, something we will not" [10]. However it appears that the rector does not have any issues working together with agencies which fund programs in settlements nor with a government that removes Palestinians from their lands in the West Bank, encourages and finances the construction of settlements, and provides all of the services necessary to maintain them. 

The details of the discussion between the Rothschild Foundation and the rector of DTU were not made public so we can only speculate on what the Israeli embassy's interest was in organizing a meeting between the two. Even if it included only the proposal to fund research at DTU, such an offer serves to make Danish academia more dependent on funds from Israel and thus increase the amount of friction required to achieve an academic boycott as it would go against the university's own self interest. 

Outside of its services as a mediator, the Israeli embassy also organizes a yearly startup competition called Guldæg in collaboration with DTU Skylab and Innovation Center Denmark [11-13]. This competition dates back to at least 2015 [14] and serves to connect Danish startups to potential Israeli investors and business partners [15]. This mirrors the efforts of the embassy in providing support to mature businesses, whether they be Israeli companies trying to export into Denmark as well as Danish counterparts looking to invest within Israel [16].