Message from the Rector

The board of a university is expected to maintain a reserved stance in order to allow the utmost space for debate, criticism and differing opinions. However, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to maintain this restraint when I see that people are dying in Gaza every day, that emergency services are being obstructed in doing their work, and that the Israeli government is violating human rights.

Besides the outrage I feel personally, in my role as Rector I wish to continue adopting that reserved stance as much as possible. Not because I believe that a university should remain on the sidelines, but because a university board must provide as much space as possible for staff and students to engage in academic debate, and ensure that all viewpoints, criticism and new perspectives can and may be heard. That is what universities stand for. With regard to Gaza, scientific insights have become fairly unequivocal: genocidal violence is taking place in Gaza, as the director of the NIOD (the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies) recently stated. This is a significant conclusion about which there is little remaining scientific debate. The violence in Gaza is unacceptable and must end.

As an academic community, we can make a meaningful contribution by sharing these scientific insights with society. Various members of our UvA community are already doing this, in the media or in discussions with politicians. Just this week, several colleagues shared these insights with the Dutch House of Representatives’ standing committee on Foreign Affairs. In this way, we may hopefully, directly or indirectly, influence the decisions of the Israeli government, as well as the stance of the Dutch government. In my view, this is precisely the role universities can play in times of conflict: to offer perspectives based on our scientific knowledge and insights that can contribute to peace and hope. Because academic bonds are stronger than political conflicts.

Peter-Paul Verbeek
Rector