Tilburg Academics Demand Immediate Termination of Cooperation with Israeli Universities
A group of 263 scholars, staff members, students, and alumni of Tilburg University has issued an open letter calling on the Executive Board (CvB) to immediately end its cooperation with Israeli universities.
The signatories base their demand on the advisory report Israel-Gaza: Cooperation with Academic Partners, written by the Advisory Committee on Collaborations.
The report highlights the close ties between Israeli universities and the military, as well as these institutions’ lack of critical distance regarding human rights violations in the Palestinian territories. It urges Tilburg University to suspend its partnerships with Israeli universities.
Complicity
According to the letter’s authors, the CvB has failed to respond adequately to the report. On January 28, the board announced that it would continue its collaborations while engaging in dialogue with the universities to assess their stance. However, two months later, no update or further action has been provided.
The letter argues that the CvB is evading responsibility and shifting focus. The academics demand that the university immediately implements the Advisory Committee’s recommendations, warning that failure to act makes Tilburg University complicit in ’the genocidal persecution of the Palestinian people.’
The full letter can be read below.
Dear TiU Executive Board and Faculty Deans,
We wish to convey our firm belief that Tilburg University ought to immediately implement the advised actions detailed by the Advisory Committee on Collaborations in their advisory report ‘Israel-Gaza: Collaboration with Academic Partners’. The Committee’s report amounts to a thorough and compelling account of the moral failure in Tilburg University’s continued passivity towards our academic partner universities in Israel in the context of the ongoing genocidal campaign of violence against the inhabitants of Gaza, the unlawful annexation of the Palestinian territories, and the persecution of the Palestinian people.
Disappointingly, the Executive Board announced on 28 January 2025 that it would continue to maintain its collaborations with Israeli universities while dialoguing with their leadership to assess whether they ‘critically and convincingly distance themselves’ from the ‘current Israeli government’s policies’. Two months later, no update or further action has been offered by the Executive Board.
We find the Executive Board’s actions wholly insufficient for two reasons. First, it amounts to a tactic of delaying action and responsibility, a tactic the Executive Board has employed for more than a year in avoidance of meaningful and morally accountable actions. Second, it moves the goal posts away from the concerns raised by the Advisory Committee.
The Committee emphasized the high degree of interconnectedness between our partner universities and the Israeli military, as well as our partner universities’ lack of a critical stance towards the violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the West Bank and Gaza. Now, the Executive Board is focused narrowly on our partners’ stance towards the policies of Netanyahu’s government.
Instead of repeating your commitments to science diplomacy, we ask that you immediately take the necessary actions to bring into effect the actions and policies detailed by the Advisory Committee. Failing to do so will only maintain our university’s morally irresponsible position of complicity in the genocidal persecution of the Palestinian people.
Signatories
The letter can still be signed here. You can also see all the signatories here.
Advertentie.
