Geneva university loosens ties with Israeli counterparts

University of Geneva Students protested at the situation in Gaza. Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi

The University of Geneva is reducing cooperation with counterparts in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The move comes after student sit-ins to protest at the Middle East situation, but it has also generated some criticism.

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The Swiss university is ending its strategic partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This partnership included, for example, a jointly funded project on disease research and drug development, as well as a project investigating Hebrew and Arabic place names.

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The University of Geneva also does not intend to extend a student exchange program with the Hebrew University of Tel Aviv, which expires in 2026. However, individual collaborations between researchers from Geneva and Israel will still be possible, the university announced on Tuesday.

“It was a matter of strategic, not political consideration,” university rector Audrey Leuba told Swiss public broadcaster RTS. The University of Geneva had carefully examined all comparable partnerships – including with other universities in other countries – and had terminated some of them.

‘Humanitarian outrage’

A scientific committee recommended this step, Leuba said. The rector did not comment on who was on this committee or on what basis it made its decision.

On the same day, the University of Geneva published a communiqué expressing its “outrage at the humanitarian situation in Gaza” and calling on all parties, especially the Israeli government, “to respect human rights and international humanitarian law.”

Criticism comes from both camps. This is an “exclusively political act,” writes the Association for the Support and Promotion of Jewish University Members in Switzerland in a statement on Wednesday: “The boycott of Israeli institutions is a long-standing concern of all those who have been working against any political solution in the region for decades by denying Israel’s right to exist, thereby causing great harm, not least to the Palestinian people.”

The Geneva Student Coordination Palestine, on the other hand, criticises the fact that the university continues to support individual collaborations with Israeli researchers: “So the result is the same: the University of Geneva will finance research projects in collaboration with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem or the University of Tel Aviv,” a student spokesperson told RTS.

No action at other universities

The University of Geneva stands alone in Switzerland with its stance. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) stated that it condemns violations of human rights and international law, but that an academic boycott is out of the question.

At the University of Basel, too, the discontinuation of research collaborations and student exchanges is not currently an issue. And the University of Bern describes the step of ending cooperation with Israeli research institutions as a massive restriction of academic freedom, which would contradict all values. Such a step “will not be tolerated.”

Adapted from German by DeepL/mga

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