One of these actions was a noisy protest outside the Blauwe Zaal at the end of the afternoon. In this room in the Auditorium, a debate was going on in the context of the European elections on June 6. Around twenty protesters tried to enter, but didn’t manage because the doors were locked. They then resorted to making their dissatisfaction about TU/e’s ties to Israel heard by making a lot of noise outside the room. This was clearly audible to the visitors inside.

One of our editors present at the debate said the following on the subject: “At first it was disruptive, but it didn’t take long for everyone to be used to it and for the debate to continue normally.”

Protest in Blauwe Zaal ended

TU/e Security and the police that had been called in weren’t available to comment to the press. The protesters obeyed an order to end the protest and subsequently left the building on their own. Eindhoven Students 4 Palestine spokesperson Robin Kwakkernaat is certain this wasn’t the last of the protests: “As we see that TU/e isn’t revising its statement, we’ll regroup and be back for sure.”

Design Academy

Whereas TU/e doesn’t want to cut or freeze ties, action has been taken by Design Academy Eindhoven. Yesterday the news broke that it responded to the open letter and the protests by suspending its ties with Israelian schools, as reported (in Dutch) by the Eindhovens Dagblad.

Talk with TU/e board

Early in the afternoon, there was a talk between some of the protesters camping on the TU/e premises and the university board. According to the protesters, this didn’t really lead to any information that’s not in the statement the board issued on Monday.

Kwakkernaat: “They did indicate that the collaborations with Israeli parties cover a very wide range of knowledge and information, and that there’s an ethics committee in place to monitor where that knowledge ends up. What they’re basically saying is that they won’t cut any ties for this reason. We think this is a shame, but it’s pretty much what we expected after reading their online statement. It feels like double standards because the ties with Russian parties did get cut.”

The board was also asked to comment on how it experienced the talk. Board spokesperson Ivo Jongsma said that “it concerned an exchange of views in an atmosphere of mutual respect.”