{"id":168280,"date":"2024-05-23T14:57:05","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T12:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=168280"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:21","slug":"cut-ties-with-israel-the-education-minister-warns-against-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2024\/05\/23\/cut-ties-with-israel-the-education-minister-warns-against-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Cut ties with Israel? The education minister warns against it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Should Dutch universities cut their ties with Israel? Student demonstrators have been making this demand for weeks. However, Education Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf argues that institutions are better off maintaining ties with their counterparts in Israel.<\/p>\n

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Pro-Palestinian protests are being held at campuses across the country. The demand of the protesters, occupiers and hunger strikers remains the same: our institution should cut its ties with Israeli universities.<\/p>\n

Israeli anthropologist Maya Wind strongly advocates this course of action. Last week, she toured the Netherlands promoting her book, which details the involvement of Israeli universities in the oppression of Palestinians.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is still a perception in the West that Israeli universities are bastions of liberalism and democracy\u201d, Wind told<\/a> national daily NRC<\/em> in a recent interview. \u201cI show the gap between that myth and reality. Academic institutions are very much involved in the repression.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an argument that is having an effect in some quarters. The arts academies in The Hague and Rotterdam have severed<\/a> their ties with Jerusalem\u2019s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. Other art schools are either reviewing their collaborative activities or putting them on hold.<\/p>\n

Good reasons<\/h2>

However, outgoing education minister Robbert Dijkgraaf believes there are \u2018good reasons\u2019 to maintain contact with universities in Israel. \u201cThose universities are home to the biggest critics of the Israeli government\u201d, he said<\/a> last Sunday on TV current affairs show Buitenhof<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He called on higher education institutions to be \u2018cautious\u2019 about suspending or cutting ties with Israel, arguing that any such decision should be taken only \u201cwith the approval of the university community\u201d and after consulting the relevant ethics committees.<\/p>\n

Dijkgraaf is not alone in his position. Four hundred employees and students at the University of Amsterdam signed<\/a> a petition \u2018distancing themselves from those using occupations and blockades to force the university to end its ties with Israeli academics and institutions outright\u2019.<\/p>\n

Holocaust researcher Amanda Kluveld expressed<\/a> her opposition to severing ties with Israel in weekly magazine EW<\/em>. \u201cIsraeli academics, including many who are committed to peace and dialogue, would become isolated as a result.\u201d She cannot comprehend why Dutch universities are not defending themselves more vigorously against the accusation that they are complicit in genocide.<\/p>\n

Academic freedom<\/h2>

\u201cThe university does not exist to manufacture consensus\u201d, Dijkgraaf said on Sunday. \u201cThe administrator\u2019s job is actually to say: which view do you want to hear and I can put you in touch with the researcher who has that perspective.\u201d His comment comes in support of university administrators who have no desire to take sides in the polarised debate.<\/p>\n

The protesters, on the other hand, are doing everything they can to intensify the pressure on the decision-makers at the institutions. Tilburg\u2019s university newspaper Univers reports<\/a> that students there are currently getting ready to pitch their tents on campus. In Nijmegen, students have expanded their tent camp to a spot below the window of the university administration. In Maastricht, all eyes are focused<\/a> on the ongoing hunger strike.<\/p>\n

Of the six students who stopped eating last Wednesday, four are continuing the protest. At the weekend, a student had to pull out for health reasons. The remaining four insist that they will refuse food until Maastricht University cuts its ties with Israeli universities.<\/p>\n\n\t

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