The hundreds of pages of communication include lots of email correspondence between advocacy organization Universities of the Netherlands (UNL), the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Center for Information and Documentation Israel, and individual universities.

For security reasons, communication with the NCTV wasn’t disclosed, but in the communication with the abovementioned organizations there is talk about what should and shouldn’t be discussed with the NCTV.

For instance, an email from the Ministry of Education to UNL states the following: ‘The NCTV and the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (which also comprises the General Intelligence and Security Service, ed.) would like to inspect a suitable draft version of the protest protocol.’ The requested guideline is then sent to them by UNL. This is one of the things that surprises diplomat Ferko Öry, who requested the documents. “I think that’s strange. Universities are autonomous institutions and this was one of their own protest policies on one of their own campuses. They should be able to deal with this without the ministry or the NCTV.”

UNL represents the fourteen universities in the Netherlands. Many cases of protests and lectures were discussed and the ministry and universities sparred about how to respond. TU/e didn’t come up a lot, only in the context of the policy regarding collaboration with Israel, with stock being taken of the specific viewpoints of all the universities.

At first, the protests at TU/e also caused a bit of unrest and a pro-Palestine lecture was canceled due to safety issues, but later on the atmosphere improved and the activists were able to protest as they saw fit, for example at the opening of the academic year.

Knowledge of diplomats

Öry spent years as an advisor to Jan Pronk at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also led several foreign missions. “At the time, Pronk sent me to Gaza and the Palestinian territories, together with Camilla Stoltenberg. There, we talked to Fathi Arafat, physician and head of the Palestinian Red Cross, but also the brother of the late Yasser Arafat. This was in the context of setting up a ministry of health in the State of Palestine. Those were the days of the Oslo Accords, when we still believed a Palestinian state would be successful. The Netherlands was to support the ministry with knowledge, money, and buildings. That’s when I acquired a lot of contacts with people in Gaza and Palestine.”

The now retired diplomat has seen a lot in his career, which spanned more than twenty years and led him to six war zones in Africa and Asia. “I think that's why I'm so concerned about this situation. I saw what bombings, searching for clean water, and sleeping on the cold floor does to people. I saw the consequences of the Nakba, which a lot of Dutch people have never even heard of.”

Öry: “By the way, my basic opinion is that we should acknowledge the pain on both sides. I also think that I have seen that pain on both sides because Pronk sent me to do a project in Kazakhstan with an Israeli health team. I have the experience of working with both Israeli colleagues and Palestinian ones.”

Data analyzed

While Öry was analyzing all of the acquired data, three things stood out to him. “Firstly, the meddling of the Ministry of Education in the universities. I think that’s strange. Universities are autonomous institutions and this was one of their own protest policies on one of their own campuses. They should be able to deal with this without the ministry.”

He does think a ministry can play a role in “assisting the universities in whatever they can do to help solve the misery there, for example in constructing an independent irrigation system to regain power in that domain”.

The second thing that Öry found strange in the documentation is that fact that the NCTV was basically called in at the very beginning. “They’re simply young people that are speaking out against injustice. What does this have to do with terrorism? Civilians are being bombed there. Children. I’m purely talking about protesting against the violence against innocent people. Why this need to escalate things right away?”

“Thirdly, there’s the fact that people who stand up against Israeli violence are immediately labeled as anti-Semites. There seems to be a knee-jerk response, especially when Jewish students say that they feel unsafe, for example due to some people wearing a keffiyeh. Then, people are no longer critical of whether that’s really an unsafe situation; the memory of the Second World War is immediately brought up, as well as the fact that Jewish people should never be subjected to something like that again. Which is true, of course, but that doesn’t mean you should blindly defend everything that Israel does or that Jewish people say. Criticism of Zionism is allowed. That’s not the same as anti-Semitism, but people hardly seem to know the difference anymore.”

Power through water

People sometimes wonder why there isn’t more protest in the Middle East against Israel's attacks on the people of Palestine or on surrounding countries such as Lebanon. “Israel uses water (and the lack thereof) as a weapon of war in Gaza. The Palestinians have no power over water and are therefore dependent on Israel. Countries around them, such as Lebanon, where Israel is now also carrying out attacks, could suffer the same fate. That is why those countries don’t rebel as much: they are afraid of losing their water.”

Equal treatment

Öry has been involved in activism in the Netherlands for a while now, both at Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Scientist Rebellion (SR) and at pro-Palestine protests. He noticed something: people at XR and SR protests were treated differently from people who participated in pro-Palestine protests. “Even though everyone in the Netherlands must be treated equally in equal circumstances, according to article 1 of our Constitution.”

The protests that Öry compares were all peaceful. “And yet, the treatment by the police differed, as did the political response. I wanted evidence that went beyond my own experience and filed a WOO request.” This was granted, but not all communication about the pro-Palestine protests was disclosed. Öry objected to this. “It’s not true that personal policy views don’t have to be included by definition. The judge has also emphasized this in previous cases where this occurred, especially now that the relevant definition changed under the WOO.”

Hope

Öry remains hopeful that some things may change in the long term. “So far, six countries have joined South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel. I expect that this will have some effect.”

The main photo shows a protest at the University of Amsterdam, one of the universities of which a case was discussed in the disclosed documents.