Nearly 5,000 Belgian academics and students urge universities to cut Israel ties

Nearly 5,000 staff, students and honorary degree recipients from Belgian universities have called on the country’s higher education institutions to end all collaborations with Israeli institutions and companies implicated in violations of international law.

The open letter, titled “No honour in complicity: an open letter to our universities,” was published by Belgian Universities for Palestine and addressed to university rectors. It calls for Belgian universities to terminate existing partnerships, impose a moratorium on new collaborations, press Belgian and European authorities to comply with international law and provide structural support for Palestinian higher education.

According to the signatories’ page, the campaign had gathered more than 4,700 signatures by 2 June, including more than 1,100 professors, 1,800 researchers, 1,500 students and 450 administrative staff. The list also includes UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, Palestinian-American legal scholar Noura Erakat, Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard, climate activist Greta Thunberg, writer John M Coetzee and actor Stephen Fry.

The letter follows the decision by the University of Antwerp, Ghent University and Vrije Universiteit Brussel to jointly award an honorary doctorate to Albanese on 2 April. On the same day, the University of Antwerp also awarded an honorary doctorate to Erakat.

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The authors argue that honouring both figures should have institutional consequences. “Their work does not invite recognition alone. It exposes obligations that can no longer be deferred – obligations that take concrete institutional form,” the letter says.

The letter cites Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the wider region, saying: “Nearly three years into a genocide unfolding in plain sight, the situation has only intensified.” It also refers to the “de facto annexation of the West Bank,” settler violence, torture in Israeli prisons and attacks on civilians, aid workers and journalists.

The signatories say Belgian universities have argued that withdrawing from Israeli collaborations, particularly under Horizon Europe projects, is “complex”. However, they point to recent steps by Ghent University as evidence that disengagement is possible. The letter states: “This is not a technical issue. It is a legal one.”

The first demand is for universities “to end all existing collaborations with Israeli institutions and with any company” directly or indirectly implicated in violations of international law, including occupation, apartheid and genocidal violence. 

The second demand calls for “an immediate moratorium on new collaborations under current conditions,” including future European research programmes. The third calls on university rectors to press the Belgian government and the European Union to meet their obligations under international law, including in light of International Court of Justice findings.

The fourth demand urges Belgian universities to provide structural support for Palestinian higher education. The letter calls for “fellowships and scholarships for Palestinian students and academics; PhD and master’s supervision; collaborative curriculum and module development; joint research and documentation projects” and investment in digital and physical infrastructure.

The signatories say their demands are not new, noting that more than 7,000 academics across Belgium had already called on universities in January 2025 to meet their legal obligations. “Those obligations have not changed. The urgency has only grown,” the letter says.

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