Critics says violent anti-Israel protests led U of Amsterdam to cut ties with Hebrew U

AMSTERDAM — The University of Amsterdam has come under heavy criticism for its decision Thursday to end bilateral relations with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Following the university’s announcement, Dutch politicians have accused the board of the UvA of giving in to the demands of the violent anti-Israel protesters who brought the campus to a standstill in May 2024.

On Thursday, the board of UvA put out a statement in which it announced it would follow the recommendations of an advisory commission on collaboration with foreign universities. Three projects with partners in Israel, China and Hungary will not be continued or renewed in their current form, the university said.

UvA will end its current relationship with the Hebrew University, and future renewed cooperation will only take place after a positive recommendation from the same advisory commission. In the case of China, however, UvA “has no objections to continuing cooperation, but advises risk-mitigating measures.”

Critics of the UvA decision were quick to point out that China, with its abysmal human rights record, is treated with more leniency than Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. According to human rights organizations, the Chinese government has incarcerated up to a million members of its Muslim minority — known as Uyghurs — in labor and reeducation camps.

“The University of Amsterdam collaborates with no fewer than six Chinese universities, apparently unbothered by China’s concentration camps for the Uyghur population,” Annabel Nanninga, a senator in the First Chamber of the Dutch parliament for the pro-Israel, right-wing JA21-party, told The Times of Israel on Friday.

Nanninga has joined a chorus of politicians to accuse the University of Amsterdam of giving into the demands of violent protesters who, in May 2024, occupied and vandalized campus buildings on Roeterseiland and at the Binnengasthuisterrein in the center of the Dutch capital.

During the riots, a mob of masked protesters blocked entrances and emergency exits and caused serious damage to one building. Protesters, atop makeshift barriers of desks, bricks and wooden pallets, used fire extinguishers to push back the police, as viewed by The Times of Israel.

Since the Hamas massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel and the 251 hostages taken to Gaza on October 7, 2023, pro-Palestinian protesters have fought pitched battles with riot police on campus and were responsible for over 4 million euros ($4.4 million) in damage. One of the rioters’ demands was the breaking off of cooperation with Israeli universities.

At the height of the violent campus protests, UvA President Peter-Paul Verbeek came under fire from pro-Israel political parties and his staff and students for exposing his university’s relationship with Israeli universities. During the protests, Verbeek negotiated in English with masked activists whose identity remains unknown and of whom it is not known if they are actual UvA students.

Verbeek also immediately halted cooperation with the Hebrew University, which had existed since the 1980s, while awaiting recommendations from the advisory commission.

‘Chilling echoes’

Senator Nanninga called Verbeek’s decision to halt cooperation “a chilling echo of a dark past” and “a dangerous precedent.”

“What if the rioters demand the burning of books by Israeli or Jewish authors in the schoolyard? Will UvA follow those orders too?” she asked.

Pointing out that UvA is a publicly funded university, Nanninga stated her intention to ask Education Minister Eppo Bruins about financial consequences for “educational institutions that cannot or will not guarantee the safety and dignity of Jews and Israelis” during the upcoming budget debate.

So far, the center-right government in The Hague has refused to take significant steps to curb growing antisemitism on Dutch campuses, despite many reports of rising fear among Jewish students and their pro-Israel allies since October 7, 2023.

Last week, Syrian-born pro-Israeli activist Rawan Osman had to be protected by private security personnel from physical attack by masked pro-Palestinian demonstrators as she gave lectures at the universities of Nijmegen and Maastricht. Osman announced that she would press charges against Harry Pettit, a University of Nijmegen faculty member whom she accused of leading a violent protest against her.

Alexandra van Duffelen, president of the board at Nijmegen University and former politician for the anti-Israel center-left party D66, has been under fire for not removing Pettit, who has defended violence in support of the Palestinian cause both in Israel and on Dutch university campuses.

The Jewish student organization IJAR called on the board of the University of Maastricht to come up with extra security measures ahead of the annual “Israel Apartheid Week,” which starts on March 21.

IJAR has stated that, as in the case of the violent protest against Osman, failure to act against protesters “has undermined academic freedom and open debate, and has affected the basic rights of our community, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly,” IJAR wrote in a statement.

“Education in the Netherlands stands at a distance from politics, which is often a good thing,” said Claire Martens, a member of the Dutch Second Chamber or lower house of parliament for the center-right VVD-party. “But in cases like these, when there is structural insecurity and selective treatment of Jewish and or Israeli students and staff, it’s enormously frustrating.”

Martens agreed with Nanninga that it now appears that “violence and intimidation pay off.”

“Stories about the lack of safety and double standards toward a group of Jewish and Israeli students are heartbreaking. Pushing off responsibility by university management or the Minister of Education is no longer an option.” Martens said, adding that she will ask questions in parliament this week.

On Friday, Jewish former foreign minister Uri Rosenthal announced that he was symbolically sending back his cum laude diploma to the university.

“The cowardly board members can give it to one of their Samidoun [Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network] students for services rendered,” Rosenthal, who currently chairs the Free Iran Committee, wrote on social media platform X.

Ronny Naftaniel, the founder of the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) and another alumnus of the University of Amsterdam, said he would follow Rosenthal’s example by sending back his cum laude diploma in economics. Dozens of University of Amsterdam alumni vowed on X to join Rosenthal and Naftaniel.

The Dutch Friends of Hebrew University (NVHU), led by human rights activist and former politician Boris Dittrich, said it was “flabbergasted” by the decision of the University of Amsterdam to end student exchanges with Hebrew University. “HU more than anyone makes great efforts toward diversity, inclusion and cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian students,” NVHU wrote in a statement.

“To achieve this, Hebrew University has set up many programs, led by Palestinian Professor Mona Khoury, vice president of Strategy and Diversity at Hebrew University. More than 16% of a student population of 24,000 is Palestinian, of which half stems from East Jerusalem. Every year 500 youths from East Jerusalem get the opportunity to study free of charge,” wrote NVHU.

“It would speak in favor of the University of Amsterdam if it chooses the path of dialogue, something HU has called for on many occasions. That might have lifted the academic level of an entirely polarized discussion to a higher level. That is after all what universities are here for.”

It is currently unclear what will happen with UvA’s cooperation with two other Israeli universities, Tel Aviv University and Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba. Its exchange program with Israel seems to be dormant at the moment because of a negative travel advisory from the Dutch foreign ministry since the beginning of the war in Gaza in October 2023.