Erasmus and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, there has been unrest at Erasmus University. Students and staff have been protesting, there have been teach-ins, open letters, and an encampment was set up on Erasmus Plaza.

Read all about what has happened at EUR regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in this special.

A week after the attack by Hamas on Israel, 18 of the 20 Erasmus University students on exchange in Israel were safely repatriated back to the Netherlands.

With growing division emerging from the conflict, a first year student decided to start a student association for Jewish EUR students.

In an open letter, the EUR4Palestine Coalition called on Erasmus University to condemn Israel’s violence against Palestinians and sever all ties with Israel and Israeli institutions. The Executive Board did not directly address the coalition’s demands

A teach-in showing support for Palestine took place in the Sanders Building, where various speakers discussed the situation at the time in Palestine. The event was organised by the EUR4Palestine Coalition.

After Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack, over 1,100 members of the UvA community signed an open letter demanding that the University take a clear stand and speak out against Israeli violence. The UvA Executive Board chose to remain neutral, however. Letter writers argued that this neutral stance “showcased complicity in the extermination of Palestinians.”

As the conflict escalated, students and staff met in the Living Room to talk about the events taking place in Israel and Palestine at the time. The gathering was organised to provide support to those emotionally and personally affected by the situation.

For the second time in the span of a month, unknown individuals sprayed slogans on Starbucks Woudestein as a reaction to the coffee chain’s alleged role in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

In the wake of Israel being possibly formally accused of genocide, The University Council asked the Executive Board to “scrutinise” its ties with Israeli universities.

About fifty staff and students commemorated their Palestinian colleagues who died as a result of Israeli military violence in Gaza in the months prior.

Towards the end of April, Gaza protests expanded from Universities in the United States to Higher Education Institutions in the Netherlands.

After the university closed down all building on request of the mayor, the protest was moved to Central Station. Part of the protesters joined a protest in The Hague.

The Executive Board sent a statement to students and staff on Monday announcing three plans concerning Gaza: organising dialogue tables, reviewing partnerships and assisting in the reconstruction of universities in Gaza.

In response to the Executive board offering dialogue tables, three EUR students believe that ‘ the Executive Board effectively demonises those who do not want to participate in such a dialogue’.

A week after the initial pro-Palestine protest outside Centraal station, several dozen students gathered in the plaza in front of the food court with tents, a first aid station and food and drinks. The demands to the Executive Board (CvB) are still the same: to make transparent all contacts and collaborations with Israeli institutions and to break those ties.

The protesting students and staff who set up their tents at the plaza were allowed to stay overnight, as long as they were ‘peaceful’. The university found ‘no reason to intervene’.

Around twenty protesters stayed on campus overnight in tents outside the Food plaza. The encampment night went ‘fairly relaxed’, and the protesting students did not intend on leaving until their demands were met by the Executive Board.

The third day of the campus encampment seemed calm. However, a man carrying an Israeli flag came to the demonstration and was then chased off campus by protesters the evening before. The university strongly condemned the chase: “There is no room for anti-Semitic or Islamophobic expressions on the Woudestein campus”.

Various universities are setting up committees to investigate the ties to Israel.

“No matter what happens, we will never cut ties with an entire country”, write the rectors of the Dutch universities in daily paper Trouw. In an opinion piece, they further state why they don’t want to cut their ties with Israeli universities just like that.

The camera poles appeared on 16 May, when a pro-Palestinian protest was scheduled to take place and all campus buildings were locked for that reason. This is because the existing campus surveillance is flawed:  The cameras did not capture, for example, who sprayed graffiti on the Starbucks exterior wall, according to Ed Brinksma.

A motion of no confidence against a Council member, two members angrily leaving the meeting and some expletives being hurled. The Council meeting of Tuesday 21 May blew up at the final agenda item. The trigger was an accidentally published letter about the pro-Palestine protests the week before. EM spoke to the Council members involved.

The university estimates that removing the spray-painted slogans on campus will cost over 100,000 euros. The broken LED screen on Erasmus Plaza adds another cost of at least 25,000 euros. The Executive Board is pressing charges.

Cleaners were busy removing the graffiti from the tent camp on campus Woudestein. Protesters will no longer be allowed to add any new slogans to walls or streets. The university will immediately report any protesters that ignore this new rule to the police. The university may also decide to report two previous incidents.

The university has asked the demonstrators of the pro-Palestine protest on campus to move their tents to park Noord since the Heartbeat Festival is planned on the Erasmus Plaza where the encampment is currently located.

Over 150 students and staff were present in the Pavilion auditorium for the Executive Board’s meeting on the war in Gaza. The audience voiced their displeasure with the Board’s response to the war. The Board stuck to its position: it will await the results from the Advisory Committee Sensitive Collaborations before taking further steps.

Ruard Ganzevoort is the chairman of the newly-established Advisory Committee Sensitive Collaborations. As the first item on the agenda, the committee will review the university’s ties with Israeli and Palestinian institutions and advise the Executive Board accordingly. But how does this committee actually work and how will the committee assess such ties?

About fifty people gather at a vigil organised by Rotterdam Student Encampment to remember the journalists killed in Gaza and Lebanon.

In three different places, staff and students come together to commemorate colleagues who were killed in Gaza and Lebanon.

At the start of the new academic year, the Executive Board announced that any new partnerships with Israeli or Palestinian institutions must first be reviewed by a newly established Advisory Committee. Existing partnerships may continue, but must also be assessed as soon as possible against the core values of Erasmus University.

In a new recommendation, the Advisory Committee on Sensitive Collaborations (ACSC) advises that no new partnerships with Israeli and Palestinian universities should be initiated for the time being, and that both existing and future collaborations should be subjected to a careful review based on ethical guidelines still to be developed. According to a group of staff closely following Israel’s assault on Gaza, freezing ties with Palestinian institutions is unjustified.

Discussions between protesters and administrators, like those at Utrecht University, often break down because activists feel unheard, while administrators cling to their rules. Although dialogue can help reduce polarisation, protests are likely to continue until both sides find the costs of further escalation greater than those of having a conversation.

The Hebrew University has criticised the Dutch research institute NIAS for its decision to cease collaboration with Israel. “Discrimination”, says the rector of the Hebrew University.

OccupyEUR protesters gathered at the Erasmus Plaza for a series of protests against the war in Gaza, fossil ties, and student debt.

On the second day that protesters were camping on the Erasmus Plaza, there were no serious disturbances during the night. Some banners had to be removed.

The Advisory Committee for Sensitive Collaborations has issued its advice regarding three Israeli universities. It recommends that Erasmus University should not enter into any new partnerships or exchange programmes and should ‘minimise’ existing cooperation.

The Executive Board largely accepts the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Sensitive Collaborations (ACSC). As a result, collaborations with some Israeli universities are immediately put on hold.

In dozens of posts on platform X a professor from the Erasmus School of Law expressed ‘racist and pro-Zionist views’ about Gaza and Palestinians, according to Muslim Rights Watch Netherlands. The advocacy group has set up an ‘Erasmus University hotline’ and threatens to protest on campus.

An increasing number of researchers are calling Israel’s violence in Gaza ‘genocidal’, according to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The country should therefore no longer be allowed to participate in the European research programme Horizon.

Not long ago, the university had its own pro-Palestinian encampment. It made an impact. The EUR froze its collaboration with three Israeli universities because the risk of becoming complicit in human rights violations was deemed too great.

In October, the protests continue with around sixty staff members and students pausing their work and study midday to draw attention to the situation in Gaza.

A conflict concerning public statements by two professors about the war in Gaza has led to the termination of a PhD candidate’s contract at the Erasmus School of Law.

After losing his PhD position at ESL, the PhD candidate demands an interim injunction to obtain a new supervisor and regain his position at the law faculty.

The interim injunction requested by PhD candidate Ahmed Maged is rejected, because according to the Rotterdam court there is ‘insufficient urgent interest’ to make a decision at this stage.