Weekly sit-in on campus against cooperation with Israeli universities

With a weekly sit-in on campus, a group of lecturers aims to urge the Executive Board to suspend collaborations between the university and ‘complicit Israeli universities.’ The protest takes place every Thursday under the bridge to the university library.

According to legal scholar Michiel Bot, the initiator of the protest, nearly eighty lecturers are organizing the sit-in. The idea emerged during an activist meeting and was inspired by the sit-ins at the University of Amsterdam and the weekly civil servant protests in The Hague.

The format of the protest may vary, says Bot: ‘The first edition (on Thursday, February 6, ed.) was actually more of a silent stand-in, because we – except for one person with mobility issues – all remained standing.’ The activist group Palestine Solidarity Tilburg (PST) supports the sit-ins and demands on social media that ‘Wim van de Donk takes responsibility.’

Advice

At the end of last year, the Advisory Committee on Partnerships recommended that the university suspend collaborations with Israeli institutions. Tilburg University has not immediately adopted this advice and first wants to engage in discussions with its Israeli partners.

This decision has previously led to protests. On January 30, members of PST occupied the hallway leading to the Cobbenhagen building. By midnight, the demonstrators were removed by the police.

The weekly sit-in under the bridge to the library takes place on Thursdays from 12:35 to 13:00.