Antwerp student protest around Gaza is not happening (for the time being): “General boycott would also stifle critical voices” (Antwerp)

As long as the war in the Gaza Strip continues, Ghent University should stop its collaborations with Israeli universities, according to the activists of Ghent Students For Palestine and End Fossil Gent. They will occupy a university building until Wednesday.

The University of Antwerp also has various collaborations with Israeli educational institutions. This currently involves fourteen partnerships with, among others, Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University. Two of these collaborations are financed by the (Flemish) Fund for Scientific Research (FWO). The other collaborations are part of European research programs, are therefore funded by Europe and are in collaboration with other international universities.

This includes research into a sustainable agro-ecological transition, RNA processing for anti-cancer immunotherapy or research by the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy into ‘Literature without Borders’.

Human rights test

According to the University of Antwerp, severing those international ties is not a good thing. But she does take human rights into account when setting up collaborations, says spokesperson Peter De Meyer.

“To start with, Europe made the decision for us for four countries: European universities are not allowed to collaborate with institutions in Iran, North Korea, Russia and Belarus.” The Human Rights Test was developed in Flanders in 2019 for all other partnerships.

“If we were to assess cooperation at the level of a country, there would be many countries with which we could not do business. For example, look at China and the Uighurs, look at the hundreds of thousands of victims who have already fallen in the terrible conflicts in Ethiopia and Eastern Congo.”

Herman Van Goethem

Headmaster

A committee within the university uses this test when assessing submitted files. It will then be examined, among other things, whether the partner university is involved in violating human rights and whether the joint project could lead to human rights violations. “And if necessary, State Security will be involved.”

“We always look at the university itself, never at the regime in a country,” says De Meyer. “For example, the student exchange with Israel’s Bar Ilan University was recently stopped by our Law Faculty. We look on a case by case basis. Proponents of a general academic boycott quickly forget that in this way you also stifle critical internal voices and cut off democratic collaborations. That could be disastrous.”

“If we were to assess a collaboration at the level of a country, there would be many countries with which we could not do business,” says Rector Herman Van Goethem. “For example, look at China and the Uighurs, look at the hundreds of thousands of victims who have already fallen in the terrible conflicts in Ethiopia and eastern Congo.”

Of course, scientific and economic interests also play a role. “If you are the only university to drop out of an international research project, you run the risk of being judged as ‘unreliable’ by your research partners and Europe, which could have consequences for collaboration in and financing of future projects,” says De Meyer.

“We receive politically tinted applications from students who want to change something in this way. That is a new phenomenon. Students don’t feel heard. There is a lack of open dialogue. We want to change that, but it is difficult”

Laurens Verhaegen

Chairman of the student council of the University of Antwerp

No major student protests for the time being

Although students in Antwerp do not (yet) occupy university buildings as happens in Ghent, the war in Gaza is also causing division here, says Laurens Verhaegen, chairman of the UAntwerp student council. “For example, we receive politically tinted applications from students who want to change something in this way. That is a new phenomenon. Students don’t feel heard. There is a lack of open dialogue. We want to change that, but it is difficult. We mainly hear the activist voices, both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli.”

For example, pro-Palestinian students have been holding weekly sit-ins for quite some time at both the University of Antwerp and KdG University of Applied Sciences. These sit-ins are supported by Comac, the PVDA student movement. “We are asking for an academic boycott and especially want more transparency about collaborations with Israeli universities,” says chairwoman of Comac Antwerp Celine Gumus. “We have been waiting for that transparency for a long time now. If that does not happen, we will look at what actions we can still take.”