The guidelines all aim to prevent the University of Amsterdam from “contributing to violations of human rights, misuse of knowledge for undesirable military purposes or serious damage to the environment through educational or research collaborations,” said the administration.

By Shira Li Bartov, JTA

The University of Amsterdam has suspended a student exchange with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, saying the institution has failed to distance itself from human rights violations in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.

The Dutch university announced last week that it was cutting the program following advice from an internal committee on projects with its partners in Israel, China and Hungary.

The school’s executive board requested the inquiry after pro-Palestinian demonstrations roiled the campus last year.

The university also decided not to enter collaborations with more than 20 Hungarian institutions that have been sanctioned by the European Union because they are seen as too tightly controlled by the Hungarian government.

It determined that Chinese doctoral students who go to the Netherlands through the China Scholarship Council will be allowed to continue, but the university said it would enact new measures to protect their academic freedom from China’s government.

The guidelines all aim to prevent the University of Amsterdam from “contributing to violations of human rights, misuse of knowledge for undesirable military purposes or serious damage to the environment through educational or research collaborations,” said the administration.

The University of Amsterdam joins a wave of European schools that have severed ties to Israeli institutions and Israel-linked companies, often as concessions to student activists.

The trend marks a sharp divergence from the United States, where schools have virtually universally rebuffed students’ demands to sever ties with Israeli institutions, citing principles of academic freedom.

The demands came during a wave of student activism last year for which the new Trump administration is now punishing both students and their schools.

The exchange program — which had been in place since 1986 — usually sees about 10 students at the Hebrew University and 10 at the University of Amsterdam, the Dutch university told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Hebrew University did not reply to a request for comment.

However Dutch students have not participated since Oct. 7, 2023, pursuant to a travel advisory from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Israeli students were allowed to complete their semester in Amsterdam last fall, but no new exchange students were accepted, according to the advisory report.

The committee pointed to international bodies that have investigated Israel for war crimes against Palestinians since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, including the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. They decided that the Hebrew University has not sufficiently distanced itself from these allegations.

They also rebuked the Jerusalem university for research and training programs that support the Israeli defense industry and the Israeli army, such as the Talpiot program for training security-technological leadership, the Havatzalot program for training intelligence officers and Tzameret, a military medicine track.

Another qualm for the committee was the status of academic freedom at Hebrew University.

One professor, Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, was suspended and urged to resign after she signed a letter accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, and said it was time to “abolish Zionism.”

Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a Palestinian legal scholar, was also detained and investigated by Israeli police for incitement to terrorism, in a move that the university condemned. She reportedly resigned last year.

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Of the 125 rioters that were detained, only 4 were kept locked up on charges of public violence and insulting an officer.

By The Algemeiner and Reuters

Dutch riot police ended an anti-Israel demonstration at an Amsterdam university early on Tuesday, bulldozing barricades and detaining some 125 people in sometimes violent clashes, authorities said.

In messages posted overnight on the social media platform X/Twitter, police said they had to act to stop the event and dismantle tents that been set up by protesters, who threw stones and fireworks.

Requests from the University of Amsterdam and the mayor for the protesters to leave the campus were ignored, the police said.

All but four demonstrators were later released. The four were being kept longer on charges of public violence and insulting an officer.

One officer suffered hearing damage, a police spokeswoman said, adding that it was still unclear how many other people may have been injured.

The University of Amsterdam declined to comment, but protesters had said they were demanding that the school break ties with Israel.

“The police‘s input was necessary to restore order. We see the footage on social media. We understand that those images may appear as intense,” police said.

Outgoing Education Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf said universities are a place for dialogue and debate and he was sad to see that police had to intervene.

Student protests over the war and academic ties with Israel have begun to spread across Europe but have remained much smaller in scale than those seen in the United States.

Last Friday, police in Paris entered France’s prestigious Sciences Po university and removed student activists who had occupied its buildings.

More than 100 students occupy the Ghent university, in Belgium, in both a climate and a Gaza protest that they want to prolong until Wednesday.

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As police officers looked on pro-Hamas rioters assaulted two Jewish men with sticks hitting them in the face and back.

The post WATCH: Hamas supporters at University of Amsterdam beat Jewish students with wooden sticks appeared first on World Israel News.