OPINION - Do not only cut institution-wide partnerships with Israeli institutions, end the participation of Radboud University in multilateral research collaborations involving Israeli institutions, such as Horizon Europe consortia, as well. That’s what scholars from the Radboud Staff for Palestine group argue the Executive Board and Deans to do. ‘After so many months of genocide, the Radboud academic community urgently needs to act and show moral leadership.’

The world keeps watching the latest Israeli genocidal crimes unfold. Hundreds of starving Palestinians are shot to dead or wounded daily as they desperately try to access meagre amounts of aid. Two million Gazans have been concentrated in 30 percent of the Strip’s territory. European humanitarian activists trying to reach the Strip, including a Dutch citizen, have been taken hostage by Israel in international waters and deported. While there are small pockets of protest and resistance, significant majorities in Israel support the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Meanwhile, support for Israel among European publics is cratering.

Dutch university administrators, however, keep stalling on taking their moral responsibility and cutting ties with Israeli partner institutions that actively contribute to this genocide. As Radboud Staff for Palestine, we have spent the past twenty months researching, documenting and communicating precisely how our university is complicit in the by now innumerable crimes of the state of Israel and its institutions, including genocide, apartheid and forced starvation.

On May 21st, the Executive Board (CvB), following the advice of the Partnerships Advisory Committee, decided to suspend the institution-wide partnerships (MoUs) with Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University with immediate effect. This is because the two Israeli institutions, according to the CvB and Committee, contribute to grave and systemic human rights violations against Palestinians because of their entanglement with the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and intelligence services, weapons manufacturers, and the Ministry of Defence. This was a very important step towards the recognition of the ongoing genocide and of the implicit complicity of Radboud University when collaborating with these Israeli institutions.

Thirteen ongoing projects

However, against the advice of the University Joint Assembly, the CvB decided not to suspend ongoing or rule out future multilateral research partnerships – such as Horizon Europe consortia – with Israeli institutions contributing to genocide. Even though the material weight of the Radboud University’s cooperation with Israel lies foremostly in these consortia (with, at present, at least thirteen ongoing projects accounting for tens of millions of euros), the CvB frames them as mostly ‘individual’ forms of cooperation that need to be decided upon by individual researchers and Deans on a case-by-case basis.

The CvB’s arguments for their decision are flawed, however. First, their distinction between institutional ties (MoUs) and other ties such as multilateral partnerships is not correct. Collaborations such as Horizon and most European Union (EU) projects rely on a consortium agreement that is a private law contract between institutions. Legally, the financial benefits, responsibilities and liability lie squarely with institutions such as Radboud and Israeli partners. Consortia need approval from the faculty (or the CvB after a certain monetary threshold), and individuals are mere contact points in such projects. When individual researchers withdraw (for example because they move elsewhere), the partnership between institutions persists, even when individuals wrote most of the grant.

The consequences are clear: if there is the signature of a legal representative of Radboud on a legal act with an Israeli institution, then this is an institutional tie. However, the legal niceties are less important than the material and moral consequences of the CvB’s refusal to rule out future multilateral partnerships with Israeli institutions. What counts is that consortiums such as Horizon send vast amounts of money and significant prestige to Israeli institutions as a function of our involvement, thus giving them material and reputational benefits by associating with Radboud University. This cannot be distinguished from other institutional ties.

Moreover, according to the Horizon Model Grant agreement, significant parts of the contributions (the so-called “indirect costs”) are free to spend by institutions as they see fit, including expenses for their general functioning. Given the entanglement of all Israeli academic institutions with the IDF, weapons industry and Defence ministry, this is obviously morally problematic. For similar reasons, in February 2022, all financial and data transactions, as well as collaborative events, with Russian universities were suspended.

Upholding our values

The second problematic frame used by the CvB to justify not ruling out future multilateral collaborations with Israeli institutions is that, for instance, Radboud would also have to withdraw from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is an entirely different matter, however, as countries are members of the IPCC and individual researchers contribute, which does not constitute an institutional tie between universities from different member countries. Even though collaborations have been suspended with Russia, it is still part of the IPCC.

Moreover, when it comes to other collaborations considered as valuable, it is also important to ask ourselves: what is most important now in the midst of an ongoing genocide? We need to uphold our values and not set up false dichotomies. For MoU’s, the CvB already made the correct decision to suspend them because of the contributions of Israeli partners to grave and systematic human rights violations. It merely stands to reason to apply these values to the full spectrum of institutional collaborations, including future multilateral partnerships.

‘How many more alarm bells must ring for Radboud University to act?’

Others have made this decision already. Internationally, several petitions have traction which urge the EU to revoke Israel’s status as a Horizon Europe associated country and stop all institutional collaborations. The presidents of all 10 Belgian universities have urged the European Commission to suspend the EU Association Agreement with Israel, so that its institutions can no longer take part in Horizon programs. The University of Barcelona calls on the EU to block the participation of Israeli institutions in all projects financed with European funds. More than 1700 Swedish researchers have signed a declaration of conscientious objection, refusing to collaborate with Israeli institutions on the grounds that they are complicit in apartheid and genocide. Two weeks ago, in Israel, more than 1200 academics wrote an open letter stating that “as academics, we recognize our own role in these crimes”.

Things in the Netherlands are slowly changing as well. In addition to the recent (insufficient) decisions by the universities of Amsterdam, Tilburg, Nijmegen and Rotterdam to cut some institutional ties with Israeli partners, Delft University has put a moratorium on all new institutional collaborations with Israeli institutions, including – crucially – Horizon projects. The rector of the University of Amsterdam, Peter-Paul Verbeek, will ask other Dutch rectors to join him in asking the European Commission to suspend the EU Association Agreement with Israel, so that it can be excluded from Horizon. A group of more than sixty professors at Utrecht University have asked the university to take additional steps to the limited decision it took to tighten policy on cooperation with Israeli institutions. And more than 400 employees of Wageningen University have decided to refuse to collaborate any longer with Israeli universities tout court.

Call for action

Hence, we call on the Deans and the CvB to rule out any future multilateral collaborations with Israeli institutions – including Horizon projects – and to urge the European Commission to suspend the EU Association Pact with Israel. How many more alarm bells must ring for Radboud University to act? Israel deliberately starves, massacres, burns alive, and mass displaces Gazans every day. The Israeli government confirmed last week their plan to create 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank that are illegal under international law. Netanyahu has openly expressed his government’s intent to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip. The genocidal intentions and actions of the Israeli government have by now been documented by countless international authorities and experts including the Dutch Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD).

Yet, Israeli universities continue to cooperate with the IDF, weapons manufacturers and the Ministry of Defence, while boasting of having received 1,1 billion euros in Horizon grants since 2021, of which 238 million euros since October 7 of 2023 alone. This includes projects that may directly be put to use in the genocide in Gaza. We, as Radboud researchers, cannot in good conscience continue to transfer vast financial and reputational resources to Israeli partners that — as demonstrated by the Radboud Partnerships Committee and CvB — directly contribute to grave and systemic human rights violations.

We therefore ask the Deans and CvB to refuse to support any new research collaborations involving Radboud researchers in a multilateral consortium that includes an Israeli institution. We also urge them to call on the European Commission to suspend the EU Association Agreement with Israel, so that its institutions can no longer take part in Horizon programs.

After so many months of genocide (and decades of apartheid and colonial erasure of Palestinians), the Radboud academic community urgently needs to act and show moral leadership. History will not look back kindly on those who chose to stay silent or acted indecisively to try to stop the world’s first live-streamed genocide.