Earlier, the Committee published a preliminary opinion to freeze ties with Israeli and Palestinian institutions and criteria to analyse those ties. On that basis, the Committee now reviewed the risks of working with partners in Israel or Palestine. “These include human rights violations, the right to self-determination, and how to factor in inequality between Israel and Palestine.”
The new context assessment (read here) discusses those trade-offs and, according to Ruard Ganzevoort, chairman of the Committee, contains two key elements: asymmetry and balance. “By asymmetry, we mean that you have to look at both sides critically, but in different ways. You explicitly ask Israeli partner institutions how they relate to the state system, and whether they keep sufficient distance from that system. Israel, as an occupying power, is partly responsible for the human rights situations in the occupied territories, and we take that into consideration. We need to investigate whether the partner benefits from, contributes to or condones human rights violations.”
That consideration is different when it comes to Palestinian partners, Ganzevoort explains. “With them, the first consideration should be whether the collaboration will make a positive contribution to society, provided there is no indication that the partner is involved in terrorist activities.”
'Not always culpable'
So does that mean that Palestinian partners will be judged less harshly for cooperating with Hamas’ civil branch, for example, than Israeli universities with the Israeli government? ” Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation for a reason. At the same time, Hamas in Gaza is also the local government, so the fact that universities collaborate is sometimes beyond their control. But if they actually condone terrorism, that changes the situation. On the Israeli side, things are more complicated. Cooperation with universities involved in activities in the West Bank or Gaza carries risks. That takes us close to the army.”
The second main component of the assessment is balance. “On the one hand, we should not expect more from partners in Israel or Palestine than from partners in, say, China or Saudi Arabia. But on the other hand, you cannot say ‘they are not doing anything wrong’ and then just go along with everything. Neutrality in such a politicised context is also a political choice. More concretely, in a situation where your own army is being criticised for human rights violations, an Israeli institution cannot just say ‘we remain neutral’ if they do cooperate with that army.”
Cooperation is essentially the starting point, says Ganzevoort. “We only block something when our own core values are actually at stake. But the question is: Exactly how far does responsible science extend? And how do you make the most objective reasoning for that? Especially in the case of Israel, this is particularly sensitive – and rightly so.”
A year and a half after 7 October
It took a while for the Committee to come to this overall analysis, about a year and a half after the war started. The Committee itself has been up and running for about a year. Why is it taking so long? Ganzevoort admits that he underestimated how complex it is to examine ties with Israel and Palestine. “We obviously can’t investigate on location. At the same time, we cannot avoid having opinions on this issue. Merely looking at ‘academic freedom’ is not enough.”
There is a lot of information available. “But there are few good arguments about how to translate the situation in Gaza or the West Bank into implications for Dutch universities. We had to come up with an argument that is tenable in other contexts as well.”
In retrospect, Ganzevoort should have arranged additional support as early as September. “Initially, we thought staff from support services could do this in addition to their regular work, but that turned out not to be feasible. No one has done this kind of work in this way before.” Work is now up and running, he promises. “Since 1 January, we have had a couple of student assistants who are doing a lot of research.”
Individual partnerships
From now on, the Committee will continue to assess individual partnerships. Ganzevoort expects the first ‘package’ in May. “We are now looking at three universities with whom we are collaborating: Haifa, Bar-Ilan and Hebrew University.” There will be a public walk-in session of the Committee in the Van der Goot Building on Thursday afternoon, at 14.00 in room M1-09, where the assessment will be further explained.
