Tilburg cuts ties with two Israeli institutions

In December, Tilburg University’s Executive Board was advised to terminate its ‘institutional ties’ with three Israeli universities. Following this announcement, things remained quiet for months. At least, nothing was heard from the board. In the meantime, pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the university continued.

Now it turns out that the board was working on the issue behind the scenes: Tilburg sought to open a dialogue with three Israeli partner institutions to hear their side of the story. In two cases this proved to be unsuccessful, the board writes in a press release published on Wednesday.

Symbolic

“It was not possible to have a dialogue about the risks involved in collaboration”, the board writes. Its aim was to address the matter of “systematic and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms” in the country.

Tilburg University is therefore cutting its ties with Reichman University, a smaller private institution near Tel Aviv, and with Bar Ilan University, a large public university in the same city.

Israeli students are still welcome in Brabant

The decision is mainly symbolic. As Tilburg University magazine Univers reports, students had already stopped going on exchanges to Israel because the government advised against travelling there. Meanwhile, researchers at the university are still permitted to work with individual researchers in Israel. Israeli students are also still welcome in Brabant.

Hebrew University

In December, the Advisory Committee on Inter-institutional Partnerships found that the Brabant-based university has a “moral responsibility to take action” in response to the Israeli offensive that followed the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians in October 2023. Israeli bombings have caused vast numbers of civilian casualties and the Israeli authorities are barely allowing any aid into Gaza. Since last Wednesday, the Dutch government has also adopted the position that this should have consequences for cooperation with Israel.

Tilburg is not the only Dutch university reconsidering its collaboration with Israeli institutions. The University of Amsterdam cut ties with Jerusalem’s Hebrew University after an internal committee concluded that the institution is too closely linked to the Israeli military.

However, Tilburg’s Executive Board reached a different conclusion, describing Hebrew University as the only one of its three partners with whom dialogue was possible. “This university gave us the impression of being critical and for that reason we are continuing our dialogue for the time being.” Tilburg hopes it can “exert an influence” by keeping the channels of communication open.

HOP, Olmo Linthorst

Translation: Taalcentrum-VU