Erasmus University far from meeting Gaza protest demands, ‘freezes’ future cooperation with Israel

Erasmus University will not be ending ongoing collaborations with Israeli universities for the time being. The Rotterdam university announced this on Thursday after the ‘preliminary’ advice of an ethics committee. In doing so, the university appears not to be meeting the demands of protesters who have been advocating for the immediate severance of ties with Israeli institutions since the war in Gaza. In response to these protests, numerous universities have set up ethics committees. The Erasmus University committee is the first to issue an advisory report.

What the university says it will do is ‘freeze’ future collaborations with universities and other institutions in both Israel and Palestine. Academics who want to start such a collaboration must first submit it to the university’s Advisory Committee on Sensitive Collaborations. If the advisory committee is positive and also approves it from the Executive Board or the dean of the faculty in question, the collaboration can still go ahead.

The current partnerships, “about ten”, will be assessed individually in the “coming months”. This is what Ruard Ganzevoort, dean of the Institute for Social Studies and chairman of the advisory committee, said in a response to NRC. “Current collaborations sometimes involve legal obligations.” Abroad, several universities have severed ties with Israeli universities, such as Ghent University in June after an investigation by its human rights committee.

‘No arguments for a total ban’

The committee is clear about the travel of Rotterdam students and employees to and from Israel and Palestine: “these are not responsible in terms of safety”. The committee does not pass judgment on the travel movements of Israeli academics and students. “We currently have no good arguments for a total ban.”

The preliminary advice that the committee gave to Erasmus University explicitly concerns both Israel and Palestine. “We are very aware that the human rights situation in those two is not the same,” says Ganzevoort. “But in both cases the question is whether they are involved in violence. We must not be naive.”

All universities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed after months of war. Academics and activists accuse Israel of “scholasticicide,” the deliberate destruction of Palestinian knowledge.

Balance

In an interview with NRC in June, Ganzevoort asked himself: “Where is the balance between academic freedom and social responsibility?” His answer to that question is now: “In general, you can say that the risk of human rights violations has increased.” But according to Ganzevoort, that does not mean that every Israeli university or institution is involved in the violence. “That is not on their website.”

And so, “carefulness” is required. “Of course it is good that there are people who show their anger,” Ganzevoort refers to the university protests that were partly the reason for the establishment of his ethics committee. “Something like that is part of the scientific debate. We must not close our eyes, but we must not follow our gut feeling either.”

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