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Aan: CvB (Executive Board) of the VU
VU disclose and divest from ties with Israeli institutions
For the past 15 months, Israel has systematically perpetrated gross human rights violations against the Palestinian people, as documented and condemned by international humanitarian organizations (e.g., United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders)
Despite this, Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam has yet to adopt policies addressing its collaborations with Israeli institutions complicit in these crimes, which play a direct role in the oppression and systematic erasure(s)* of the Palestinian people. It's needless to say that the time for the VU to act has long passed.
We urge Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam to:
- Disclose ties with Israeli institutions: Provide a publicly accessible account of all current collaborations, agreements, and projects between VU and Israeli institutes, in line with principles of transparency.
- Suspend ties with institutions complicit in human rights violations immediately: Suspend all collaborations with Israeli universities, institutions and companies complicit in gross human rights violations, and ensure that no new collaborations take place, until an independent, democratically accountable human rights committee evaluates existing and future ties with Israeli institutions.
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Instagram: @vuforpalestine, linktree: https://linktr.ee/vuforfalestine
Instagram: @vuforpalestine, linktree: https://linktr.ee/vuforfalestine
Waarom is het belangrijk?
Doesn't the VU have a Human Right framework for this, already?
In July, the university started developing a framework for assessing international collaborations. This framework is intended to evaluate international collaborations in relation to the university's values and international human rights standards. However, this progress is still insufficient for several reasons, including:
- The framework does not freeze collaborations while these assessments are being conducted. As a result, institutions such as Israeli universities can continue their activities during this evaluation period, undermining the intent of the framework.
- The framework relies on indicators that are not regularly updated and does not take into account important developments, such as recent rulings by the ICJ.
- The conclusions of the assessment are non-binding, leaving decisions solely at the discretion of the executive board.
Explanation of (the importance of) these demands
- Disclose ties with Israeli institutions:
Transparency about institutional affiliations is essential to upholding ethical standards and the trust of the university community. Such disclosures allow students, faculty, and the public to understand the nature and extent of these ties and ensure alignment with the university’s stated values of integrity, ethics, and human rights.
Aren't all ties already public? Only some. For the VU, projects involving EU funding are publicly listed on the CORDIS website. For more details, see this website which has compiled some of the ties between universities in the Netherlands and Israeli institutions from various sources. - Suspend ties with institutions complicit in human rights violations immediately:
Continuing these relationships firstly undermines the university's ethical standing and its commitment to human rights, as stated in both institutional policies and international legal standards. Secondly, the mere existence of such partnerships implies support for institutions directly or indirectly involved in the genocide.- For instance VU has official collaborations with Bar Ilan University through the NeuroData Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Brain and Data Science programme:
Partnering with Bar Ilan University raises ethical concerns due to its documented links with Israeli policies and practices in occupied territories. These includes running a Master's program for training soldiers, denying the claims of Palestinian villagers of Susiya to their lands (Wind 2024) and , organising "hackathons" in collaboration with Elbit Systems and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). By engaging with this partnership, VU legitimizes the Bar Ilan’s involvement in these activities, all of which violate the ethical standards our university claims to uphold.
- For instance VU has official collaborations with Bar Ilan University through the NeuroData Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Brain and Data Science programme:
But some of these ties/projects seem harmless. Why suspend them?
Ties should be severed on an institutional level, rather than a project-by-project basis. While some individual projects may appear beneficial or harmless, engaging with complicit institutions still provides them with support, even if only through granting legitimacy. An analogy can be drawn with Shell and a project focused on solar panels: while the project itself may be positive, the existence of the tie with Shell ultimately legitimizes the company as a whole, including its other, less ethical activities.
*Credible sources on Israel's domicide, urbicide, scholasticide, medicide, cultural genocide and ecocide. Israel has damaged or destroyed 90% of school buildings, and has left no university standing. 28 Israeli and Palestinian teachers have been arrested and 46 indicted in Israeli institutes for advocating for Palestinian rights and self-determination.