We won’t break our ties with Israel, Dutch universities say

The rectors of the Netherlands’ 15 universities have written an open letter to Dutch daily Trouw explaining why they do not plan to break their links with Israeli institutions, despite the student protests, reports Dutch News.

Students at universities and HBO (higher vocational education) colleges around the country have held dozens of demonstrations, sometimes violent, in an effort to break links between their institutions and Israel, because of the war in Gaza.

But that, the rectors say, would be going too far. “We will never break our links with an entire country unless ordered to do so by the government as was the case with Russia,” they wrote. Academic freedom, the rectors write, is “the freedom to research, to think and to debate, even if that conflicts with our and others’ deepest convictions”.
Full report on the Dutch News site