University, don’t hide behind the ceasefire in Gaza. You have an obligation to cut ties with Israel regardless
467 days into its genocide of the Palestinian people, Israel has finally agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza. The Executive Board must not hide behind this ceasefire and ignore their obligation to suspend ties with Israel immediately, writes Rami Fransawi.

After 15 months of genocide in Gaza, reaching destructively into the rest of Palestine and Lebanon, Israel has finally agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza. The situation in Gaza is horrific, with possibly over 300,000 Palestinians killed as of the end of 2024, and unprecedented destruction across the Gaza Strip. With this news (and with the frail hope that Israel doesn’t sabotage this ceasefire), the morally conscious in this world breathe a sigh of relief expecting that Israel’s genocide will cease, at least for now.
But before we, as safe and comfortable observers, are allowed to even think about breathing our own sighs of relief, we must commit to continue upholding the struggle of the Palestinian people against Israeli genocide, apartheid, and above all, colonization of their homeland. At Tilburg University, and for students, staff, and alumni, this means that it’s time to cut ties with our Israeli “partners”, now more than ever.
Academic Boycott Campaign at Tilburg University
On the 15th of May 2023, the annual commemoration of the Nakba, a few friends and I stood up on the bridge of the Tilburg University Library and lowered a banner that read “cut ties with Israeli colonizers”. This marked the beginning of our campaign for an academic boycott of Israel at Tilburg University.
Over the last year and a half, we have loudened the call for a complete academic boycott of Israel on our campus. In February of last year, we penned an open letter identifying Tilburg University’s ties to three Israeli academic institutions and wrote in detail about their deep ties to the Israeli military and intelligence regime, and their clear complicity in genocide and war crimes in Gaza.
This open letter began a spirited discussion at Tilburg University, with opinion pieces and emails bouncing back and forth as the idea of the academic boycott gained traction. Palestine Solidarity Tilburg continued its work, protesting in favor of an academic boycott by picketing the entrance to the Dante building in April and ultimately setting up our protest encampment in May.
Advisory Committee on Collaborations
In response to our rightful demands, the Board of Tilburg University agreed to set up an advisory committee to investigate the University’s collaborations in view of the moral values that determine its ostensible identity. In December 2024, the advisory committee released its expert advisory opinion after a meticulous process. This opinion makes two very clear recommendations: semi-suspend exchange programs and fully suspend all research collaboration with Israeli partner universities.
The committee states that “there is a high degree of interconnectedness between Tilburg University’s partner universities under investigation and the Israeli defense”, deems this morally problematic, and concludes that, as a moral actor, Tilburg University is required to take action.
We have said essentially the same thing since February in the context of Tilburg University, PACBI has said the same since 2004 in the context of Israeli academia’s participation in colonization, and Palestinians have been calling on the world to boycott Israel for decades. All this fell on deaf ears in Tilburg University’s board meetings discussing this issue. But now that your own advisory committee, made up of your own handpicked academic experts, has concurred that ties with Israeli institutions must be suspended, you can no longer pretend not to hear us.
University, don’t forget your responsibilities
45 days have passed since the advisory committee’s report and recommendations have been released. 45 days for Tilburg University’s board to read a mere 30-some page report, discuss the ramifications, and, at the very least, set the implementation of the recommendations in motion. We know far too well, however, the tendency of Tilburg University’s board to delay, postpone, stall, and take its time.
So why is the Board not taking any action? Perhaps the Board is acting pragmatically, keeping in mind the Dutch government’s increasing support for Israel’s genocide while it holds the threat of budget cuts in higher education over the heads of the Dutch universities. Maybe the Board is facing external pressures to not act from influential pro-Israel groups or individuals, who it may wrongly consider “stakeholders” in this question. It could even be that the Board’s own ideological leaning encourages it to protect Israel.
Finally, and most pertinently now that a ceasefire is upon us, perhaps the Board was hoping its dilemma (to cut ties or not to cut ties) would simply vanish into thin air with news of a ceasefire. The point is, it doesn’t matter. The Board has an obligation to act, and a responsibility to implement the recommendations of its expert committee.
Ceasefire or not, we must cut ties with Israel
The horrors inflicted by Israel against the Palestinian people did not begin on the 7th of October, 2023, nor will they end by virtue of this ceasefire. What we must remember is that we must continue to fight for Palestinian liberation until it is achieved in full, not until the bombs stop dropping in this latest catastrophic round of a decades-long process of colonization and subjugation.
The committee’s report is unequivocal. Our Israeli academic “partners” – and I hate to use the term partners because it implies an equivalency – are deeply connected to the Israeli military, intelligence, police, and prison services. They are a core part of the colonial strategy in Palestine. They are undoubtedly complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It is astonishingly clear that the only morally correct and just action to take is to cut all ties with all Israeli institutions immediately.
Genocide must be our red line. If it’s not Tilburg University’s red line, then Tilburg University has no red line. It becomes our duty as students, staff, and alumni, to draw this red line for our morally confused (or worse, willingly complicit) university administrators. This all remains true even if this ceasefire does come to fruition.
Of course, it is worth noting that Tilburg University and this same Board did not shy away at all from outright condemning Russia’s war on Ukraine in 2022, a mere 4 days after it broke out. Unfortunately, it seems that the Board has either lost its agency or its dictionary. Not a word of condemnation for literal genocide in Palestine, 467 days later. We live in a world of double standards, and we must fight against that too.
The bombs will fall silent, but…
The bombs will indeed fall silent, and the genocidal war will end, at least for now. But in that silence comes the roar of the bulldozers destroying Palestinian homes, the shouting at the checkpoints denying Palestinians free movement in their own land, the whizzing of the Israeli bullets and tear gas canisters aimed at Palestinian children, the buzzing of the ever-present surveillance drones… the agonized scream of the Palestinian mother holding her baby, murdered by the colonial project called Israel.
The death machine rages on. While Israel massively upscaled its genocide on the 7th of October, 2023, for Palestinians, its entire history of existence has been one of ethnic cleansing, dispossession, destruction, apartheid, hunger, thirst, imprisonment, torture, and genocide.
We didn’t call for an academic boycott after the genocide began. We didn’t call for a free Palestine, liberated from colonialism, after the genocide began. These have been our rightful demands all along, and they must remain as such, even if this episode of the slow genocide now comes to an end.
I always think back to this headline from the 6th of October, 2023, which reads “2023 is ‘deadliest year’ for Palestinian children, say human rights groups”. It was already a massive mark of shame on us to have any ties with Israel before October 7th, 2023. In its aftermath? It is genocidal complicity. We must, without any further delay, cut all ties with Israel, now.
Rami Fransawi is a Tilburg University Alumnus (Global Law) and Cofounder of Palestine Solidarity Tilburg.