The website academiccomplicity.nl aims to map out the ‘complicity’ of universities in the war against the Palestinians. The activists say there’s an ongoing genocide and are calling for a boycott.

On the map of the Netherlands, you can click on the different universities. A list will then appear of Israeli (or Israel-affiliated) companies, universities and institutions. 

One of the owners of the website is the pro-Palestinian human rights organisation The Rights Forum, which takes universities to court to gain access to the contacts with Israeli and ‘pro-Israeli’ organisations. The action group Stop Wapenhandel (Stop Arms Trade) and the pro-Palestinian European Legal Support Center are also participating.

European

The lists contain a lot of European-funded research, which can sometimes have military applications. Delft University of Technology, for instance, has joined thirty other parties in a consortium that develops better wings for short-distance flights. It is led by Airbus Defence and Space and an Israeli aerospace company also participates.

There’s also research that has nothing to do with war. VU Amsterdam, for instance, conducts research into non-invasive cancer treatments, together with 28 other universities, companies and institutions. Multinational corporation Philips is coordinating the research project and its Israeli branch is also involved. 

It all adds up to complicity in genocide, the creators of the website assert. They understand that this may raise a few eyebrows and state the following: “Some companies listed are not obviously complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights, but all of them are part of an economy based in Palestinian dispossession.”

NIAS

Meanwhile, the call for a boycott has been answered in some places. The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS), part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), has decided that employees may no longer travel to Israel for work. NIAS also boycotts events sponsored by the state of Israel. 

But NIAS isn’t leaving international networks in which the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies (IIAS) participates. On the IIAS website, there’s a clock counting the days, hours and minutes since the attacks by Hamas on 7 October, plus a call to free the hostages: “Bring them home now.” The website doesn’t pay any attention to the Palestinian casualties.

The NIAS policy will be upheld until the situation changes, with one caveat: the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences may decide on a different course that NIAS will have to follow. The government may also get involved. 

Damage

The protests in higher education aren’t over yet, even though tent camps and occupations are generally cleared out again. In the night of Wednesday to Thursday, the police ended a protest in Nijmegen. Occupiers had ravaged one of the buildings. 

Protests like these cost a lot of money. The damage at Erasmus University Rotterdam amounts to 125 thousand euros, Erasmus Magazine reports. It concerns painted slogans and a partially broken LED screen. The university has pressed charges and is looking into recovering the costs of the damage from the protesters.