Anti-Israel activists protest IEP's restored ties with Reichman University

Activists demand reversal of IEP’s decision to renew academic exchange with Israel’s Reichman University.

By MICHAEL STARR JANUARY 1, 2025 19:09

INSTALLATION AT Reichman University: ‘Anemones before the Rain.’ (photo credit: GILAD KAVALERCHIK)

Anti-Israel activist students announced a protest on Sunday in response to the renewal of ties between the French Institut d'études politiques de Strasbourg (IEP) and Israeli Reichman University after they had been under controversial circumstances.

Sciences Pro Palestine Strasbourg and Mobilized Students of Sciences Po Strasbourg announced on Instagram that they would hold a protest on January 5 to demand a restoration to restore a boycott of Reichman. The groups claimed that 360 students had signed a petition demanding that the IEP Board of Directors respect a previous decision.

Then-Higher Education Minister Patrick Hetzel had announced the results of the IEP Board's vote to renew ties with its Israeli counterpart on December 19, praising the "salutary decision" as reaffirming "the values of university cooperation in the face of partisan excesses."

L’Union Étudiante, a left-wing national student union, criticized Hetzel as "complicit in the genocide in Gaza and you left your ministry with blood on its hands."

"Trampling on academic democracy and human rights is not healthy, but shameful and irresponsible," the union said on X.

A woman holds a placard reading in French ''Zionism is the cradle of anti-Semitism'' take part in a rally ogarnised by the association France Palestine Solidarite (AFPS) in support of the Palestinian people, in Paris, on October 5, 2024. (credit: STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)

'Refuse to be complicit'

Five IEP professors resigned on December 19 from the Board because of the reinstatement of ties, also attacking a supposed undemocratic decision. The debates before the vote did not allow in-depth discussion. In their open letter, the professors argued that Reichman had deep connections to the IDF, Mossad, and the Israeli government and had enlisted students in propaganda activities. Reichman has partnered with NGOs to open public diplomacy situation rooms for students to defend Israel on social media. The university also offers benefits for students serving in military reserves.

"We refuse to be complicit with a university that supports the massacre of civilians and military operations contrary to international law in Gaza, Lebanon, and now in Syria," said professors Vincent Dubois, Michel Fabreguet, Valerie Lozac'h, Jeremy Sinigaglia, and Nadine Willmann.

The vote occurred despite attempts by student activist groups to prevent the restoration of the academic relationship, which includes a student exchange program. The motion was reportedly tabled on December 3, but the same day the activist groups claimed on Instagram to have prevented an IEP board vote by disrupting the meeting.

The student groups claimed in a December 3 statement that the original June 25 vote was part of a democratic process that was not being overturned only after public backlash and media attention. The student activists bemoaned that there was more attention placed on the relationship between the two universities than the destruction of Gazan academic institutions during Israel's ongoing war against Hamas.

Yet opponents of the boycott argue that the first vote was held without many of the IEP present, and according to Hetzel under pressure by a minority of students.

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In November, Herzel warned on X that "We must not confuse freedom of expression, which must be total, with the political exploitation that is made of it on certain campuses."

Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) condemned the boycott as discriminatory in an October 31 statement, and indicated that it was exploring legal options to reverse the move. UEJF argued that the breaking of ties acted in contradiction to the free exchange of research and knowledge and the idea of universal cooperation. UEJF also noted that the boycott came at a time when antisemitism was surging in the republic.  

"An academic boycott specifically targeting Israeli institutions sends a signal that risks fueling an already tense climate," UEJF president Yossef Murciano said in the statement. "Isolating Israeli institutions and their students because of their nationality or affiliation amounts to legitimizing discrimination that can only exacerbate these tensions and threaten the safety of Jewish students.