Independent journalism about VU Amsterdam | Since 1953
15 November 2025

Campus
& Culture

Stop collaborations with Israel, demand employees of Social Sciences and Humanities

Two hundred employees of Social Sciences and Humanities are calling on the faculty board to suspend all collaborations with Israeli institutions until a sustainable peace agreement is in place and the genocide in Gaza has stopped.

‘Enough is enough’, states the petition, which was initiated by Dimitris Pavlopoulos, Elif Keskiner, and Ismintha Waldring. They believe that VU has kept a ‘deafening silence’ in the face of the genocide in Gaza. The long-awaited and delayed ‘Assessment Framework for International Collaborations’ also fails to impress the signatories. According to them, the assessment framework prohibits virtually no collaboration with Israeli institutions.   

Call to action

The petitioners consider that the VU’s executive board ‘has been considerably more cautious than other Dutch universities’. For this reason, the signatories are calling on the faculty board and the department heads of Social Sciences and Humanities to take action themselves. The petition has been signed by lecturers, PhD students, professors, and support staff from the faculty.    

According to spokespeople Pavlopoulos and Keskiner, the petition has been handed over to the faculty board. The full list of signatories, known to Ad Valvas, has not been made public.   

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