A Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Report for Freie Universität Berlin
To uphold academic ethical responsibility, end complicity with the ongoing genocide and violations of International Law
Table of contents
Section 1: Preliminary explanations
The ethical commitment of Freie Universität Berlin and the ongoing genocide
Criminalization of the BDS and persecution on campus
Section 3: Freie Universität Berlin’s ties to Israeli academic institutions
Strategic partnership with Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Annex 1: Precedents of other European Universities
Annex 2: Academic organizations that have approved a BDS Resolution
Executive summary
This report argues for the necessity of a boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign targeting Israeli academic institutions at the Freie Universität Berlin (FU), specifically focusing on the ties it has with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ). It calls for the FU to suspend these collaborations and conduct a thorough investigation into its ties with these institutions and the FU involvement in these violations to international law, including war crimes and genocide against Palestinians.
The report details Israel’s infringements and crimes, which include killing more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7th of 2023, displacing at least once around 90% of its population. The IDF had also already destroyed more than 70% of the physical infrastructure, and nearly 84% of health facility buildings and 57% of water infrastructure by January 2024, a year before this report was prepared. These acts have been considered as a genocide by several humanitarian international institutions. Additionally, Israel has destroyed the educational infrastructure of Gaza, leaving at least 625,000 students with no access to education and killing thousands of academics and students. The UN has considered this an “scholasticide”. Israeli universities played a direct role in supporting these violations and perpetuating apartheid and the illegal occupation of Palestine. Because of this, the report asserts that the ethical commitment of the FU to human rights necessitates reevaluating and potentially severing these ties to avoid complicity in these violations.
It is argued that a BDS campaign is an ethical and legal necessity. Consequently, the report criticizes the criminalization of BDS activities in Germany, as such actions undermine academic freedom and freedom of expression. The use of the IHRA definition of antisemitism conflates legitimate criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism, leading to the suppression of Palestinian solidarity and academic discourse. This resulted in restrictions on university campuses, including at the FU, where events related to Palestine have been curtailed, and student activists have faced political repression and legal prosecution.
The report describes the involvement of the main Israeli educational institutions in supporting Israeli military operations in detail, including weapons development, logistical support to military units and participation in policies that erase Palestinian history and suppress dissent. HUJ’s status as an illegal Israeli settlement is established, as well as its role using social sciences to police Palestinians and culturally erase them. All of this supports Israel’s occupation and apartheid.
The specific connections between the FU and Israeli higher education institutions are outlined, emphasizing joint research projects and exchange programs. The report addresses HUJ’s strategic partnership with the FU, as it secures special funding for joint courses and research with this institution. This is a direct breach of international Law because of its status as an illegal settlement.
Aside from the latter, at the date of this report’s publication the FU maintains active exchange programs with the HUJ and three other Israeli Universities, and 11 ongoing joint projects with Israeli academic institutions. The problematic precedent of FU research programs weaponizing social science is also mentioned. The collaborations with Israeli institutions are ethically problematic, as they credibly facilitate human rights violations. They should be put on hold and investigated.
The report concludes that the continuation of partnerships with HUJ and other Israeli institutions compromises the FU’s ethical obligations and makes it complicit in violations of international law. It urges the FU to adopt a stance similar to other European universities that have severed ties with Israeli institutions over their role in the occupation and genocide in Palestine. By doing so, the FU would uphold its moral and legal responsibilities and contribute to the global effort to end these violations through non-violent means such as boycotts and sanctions.
Introduction
As students and workers of Freie Universität Berlin (FU), we expect the university’s administration to uphold its commitment to respecting international law and human rights, while also being faithful to its institutional ethical principles. These obligations extend to the universities and institutions with which FU partners. In light of the ongoing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and breaches to international Law committed by the State of Israel against the Palestinian population (see 1. The ethical commitment…), we demand that the University take a stance against the institutions that are participating in them.
Following the example set by many universities and student bodies across European Universities and worldwide, we believe in the importance of scrutinizing our academic collaborations to ensure that they align with these principles. No university should contribute to violations of international law. Therefore, these universities have taken decisive steps to reassess their relationships with Israeli partners, guided by their commitment to human rights and international law (see Annex 1). By conducting a meticulous review and halting collaborations where necessary, they have set a precedent for ethical academic conduct. We urge the FU to adopt a similar approach, and to ensure that our institution does not directly or indirectly support activities that violate international law and human rights.
Therefore, we call our fellow students, academics and workers of the FU to:
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neither participate in nor support the concrete collaborations with Israeli universities and other complicit institutions that we detail in this report, or others.
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exert pressure in any form possible to end these collaborations, in accordance with your individual positions and possibilities.
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raise the subject in every academic instance possible, such as lectures, workshops, research reports or papers, academic conferences or talks, and others.
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boycott activities that normalize or advocate for Israel genocide in Gaza and Apartheid in Palestine.
Along with this, we are calling upon the FU as an institution to:
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suspend all formal collaborations with Israeli universities and other complicit institutions in accordance with the PACBI guidelines.
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establish an academic research commission in order to investigate individual and institutional responsibilities in the involvement of the FU with Israeli institutions that breach international and humanitarian law. This commission should integrate some of the persons involved in this campaign.
Section 1: Preliminary explanations
The ethical commitment of Freie Universität Berlin and the ongoing genocide
The founding ethos of the FU is truth, justice, and liberty. According to the FU’s institutional statement, truth implies “having a clear interest in new findings and insight for the university’s academic activities, protecting those activities from the risk of arbitrariness, and observing the standards of good academic practice”, while justice “means the alignment with a generally accepted set of values in the spirit of personal obligation and social responsibility. Last but not least, the term stands for an academic education that is made accessible to young people from all over the world – beyond questions of social status, gender, nation, faith or ethnic origin” (Freie Universität Berlin, 2010).
As is known, Germany has an historical responsibility regarding the Holocaust. The FU has has played a key role in the academic work related to this, as it founded the first Institute of Jewish Studies in Germany in 1963, in which — as the institutional website indicates — “German-Jewish history, the Nazi regime and ideology, and the persecution of Jews were explored in lectures and seminars earlier at Freie Universität than at other universities”. The existence of these initiatives are consistent with the principles of the FU.
However, the FU links this environment, which allowed for the academic study of Jewish history, to the “50 years of Diplomatic relations between Germany and Israel” (Freie Universität Berlin, 2015). By doing this, the FU conflates the support of Jewish studies and Jewish academics with a relationship with Israel, equating the state with Jewishness. This is not only problematic as an implicit application of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism (see 4. Academic freedom…), but is yet another expression of the complicity of the FU with the war crimes and the crimes against humanity that the State of Israel is committing against the population of Palestine, along with the breaches to international Law. This complicity is done not only through statements, but also materializes in institutional ties.
As stipulated in numerous UN resolutions, Israel has been in breach of international law since the Nakba of 1948 (UN. General Assembly, 1947, 1976, 1980, 2002, 2004, 2017, 2024; UN. Security Council, 1967). The Nakba, derived from al-Nakba, which means “the Catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the ongoing displacement and dispossession of Palestinians from historic Palestine, beginning in 1948 and continuing to the present day as the structural denial of Palestinian self-determination through military occupation, mass incarceration, and the explicit ideology of Jewish supremacy, Zionism (Eghbariah, 2024).
In the latest phase of the Nakba, Israel is systematically destroying all conditions for Palestinian life in Gaza. On 26 January 2024, the International Court of Justice found that there is a plausible case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, mandating provisional measures that were reinforced on 28 March and 24 May (Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), 2024; Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, 2024). In accordance with article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,
genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (…)
This resolution by the International Court of Justice follows the consensus of humanitarian organizations on the matter (Amnesty International, 2022; Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), 2024; B’Tselem & Forensic Architecture, n.d.; Muhareb et al., 2022). According to the December 5th of 2024 report from Amnesty International, Israel has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7th of 2023, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families. The number of dead is likely underestimated — according to other reports, the actual death toll could exceed 186,000 (Khatib et al., 2024). Israel has also caused destruction at a level and speed not seen in any other conflict in the 21st century, leveling entire cities and destroying critical infrastructure, agricultural land and cultural and religious sites. Around 90% of Gaza’s population had been displaced at least once by early July 2024. Already in January of 2024, over 70% of the physical infrastructure in the health, commerce, industry, services, information and communication technology (ICT), and municipal services sectors in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed. Nearly 84% of health facility buildings and 57% of water infrastructure were damaged or destroyed (World Bank, 2024). This damage has only increased in the following months, leaving entire regions of Gaza without buildings. Large swathes of Gaza are uninhabitable. The genocidal intent has been thoroughly proven not only by the statements of Israeli government officials, high-ranking military officers and members of the Knesset, but also by videos, photographs, and audio recordings shared on social media by Israeli soldiers (Amnesty International, 2024a).
In accordance with all this, the International Criminal Court has already issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity (International Criminal Court, 2024), which Germany has a legally binding obligation to act upon.
Furthermore, Israel continues to break international law by denying Palestinian refugees their right of return as stipulated in UN resolution 194 and continuing to illegally occupy the Occupied Palestinian Territories (the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip) and the Golan Heights, imposing Martial Law to its inhabitants since 1967 and breaking UN resolution 242 (Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, 2024; Quigley, 2007). Between 1 November 2022 and 31 October 2023, the number of Israeli settler outposts increased to 162, while the Israeli government approved 24,300 housing units within existing Israeli settlements, including 9,670 housing units in East Jerusalem. 917 Palestinian-owned structures were demolished. 2023 was the year in which settlements expanded at the highest rate since monitoring began in 2017 (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2024). On 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice deemed Israel’s prolonged military occupation of Palestine to be in violation of international law, and thus illegal. This is the first time since 2004 that the ICJ has made such a clear ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation, substantiating that the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Gaza did not begin in response to the attacks committed by Hamas against Israel on 7 October 2023. Instead, Israel has been creating and maintaining the conditions of apartheid and illegal occupation for decades. Furthermore, Israel has waged war and acts of aggression on the populations of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, illegally occupying new areas and preparing annexations of already occupied lands.
The FU as an educational institution has a particular commitment to stand in solidarity with the eradicated higher education institutions in Gaza, and with the many thousands of murdered university students and staff, the victims of what the United Nations has deemed “scholasticide”. By April 2024, more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers, and 95 university professors had been killed in Gaza, and over 7,819 students and 756 teachers had been injured. At least 60% of educational facilities, including 13 public libraries, had been damaged or destroyed and at least 625,000 students have no access to education. The last standing University in Gaza was demolished by the IDF on 17 January 2024 (OHCHR, 2024).
All the numbers mentioned in this report are significantly higher to date, as the genocide in Gaza and the apartheid in Palestine are ongoing. It is the ethical responsibility of individuals and institutions to do everything in their power to stop these actions. This responsibility is part of the collective historical duty stemming from the Holocaust, recognized by the international community in international human rights law. For this reason, Germany should be at the forefront of these efforts, not obstructing them. Never again is for all.
The findings presented in this report imply that FU as a public German University has a social and academic responsibility to reevaluate its institutional ties which are heavily implicated in violations of the generally accepted set of values of international law.
The Call for a Boycott
The fundamental drive of our program is boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS). BDS is a long-established international movement that seeks to challenge the international legitimacy of the Israeli military regime by encouraging institutions, nations, and companies to cut ties with Israel.
The movement follows the strategy used against the South African apartheid. During that period, BDS movements had a profound effect on the legitimacy of the racist regime, forcing it into increasing isolation and weakening the possibility of the regime’s survival. While it was the struggle of Black South Africans for liberation from apartheid that ultimately ended the brutal regime, BDS campaigns drastically diminished the possibility of apartheid authorities finding international support.
In line with the consensus of humanitarian organizations, BDS movements today maintain that Israel is an apartheid state that is currently committing genocide in Gaza. Many global academic organizations integrated by German organizations and academics (Annex 2) have passed resolutions calling to boycott Israeli academic institutions.
The call for boycott also follows the general assembly of FU students from 10.12.2024 that resolved in a binding manner to stop German support for the genocide in Gaza, calling to take immediate action within the possibilities of the FU. As students and workers of the FU, we consider that this resolution prescribes that we need to boycott Israel and its educational institutions.
Criminalization of the BDS and persecution on campus
The third principle of the FU is liberty, which is described as “the basic prerequisite for successful research and teaching”. It is further noted that “only where science determines its own goals and tasks independently of external interventions – by the state, church, economy or society – does it live up to its claim to knowledge in social consciousness” (Freie Universität Berlin, 2010).
In opposition to its own principles, the FU as an institution has collaborated with the German government in undermining academic freedom.
This has been done mainly through non-binding resolutions and definitions that guide the behaviour of governmental institutions, chiefly the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, applied by the Bundestag in Resolution No. 19/10191 to the BDS movement, which was thoroughly used to persecute Palestinian solidarity prior to Oct 7th 2023. This working definition includes 11 examples of antisemitism, of which 7 focus on the State of Israel (IHRA, 2016). For this, it has been criticized for deliberately conflating antisemitism with legitimate criticism of the state of Israel (European Legal Support Center, 2023; Jerusalem Declaration, 2020, Preamble). The effect of this measure on cultural and educational institutions has been devastating, with almost 200 documented cases of censorship or cancelling since October 7th of 2023 (Archive of Silence, n.d.). The criminalization was intensified by Resolution No. 20/13627 of 2024, which extends the IHRA definition to artistic and cultural funding, and calls for the “exclusion from classes or studies and even up to exmatriculation in particularly serious cases”. The resolution has been criticized as an attack to freedom of expression, art, science, and assembly by several German humanitarian institutions (Amnesty International, 2024b).
The FU has participated in this repression by restricting the use of its facilities for events related to Palestine, indicating in answer to requests that for the case of “politically explosive topics” the Head of Central Services must be contacted. The FU has also called riot police to forcibly evict non-violent actions in solidarity with Palestine on at least five occasions during 2024, while also pressing charges on students that took part in the actions.
Academic freedom and the case for boycott
BDS is a call to governments, institutions, and individuals to boycott, financially divest, or sanction Israel, Israeli institutions and other organizations complicit with the genocide and apartheid. This is a form of non-violent pressure on Israel.
The boycott of Israeli academic institutions subscribes to the definition of academic freedom adopted by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in resolution E/C.12/1999/10 (Scholars at Risk, 2024), in which it is also recognized that any kind of restriction that the State may impose following article 4 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights “is primarily intended to be protective of the rights of individuals rather than permissive of the imposition of limitations by the State” (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1999).
In any case, the academic boycott of Israeli universities and institutions does not seek to boycott individual researchers, but rather to hold Israeli academic institutions that actively support the ongoing oppression and occupation of Palestinians accountable. In accordance with the guidelines for the academic boycott of Israel set up by the international Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) initiated in 2004, the boycott does not target individual researchers who are affiliated with Israeli academic institutions but is rather directed towards Israeli academic institutions themselves (2014).
Individuals may only be boycotted in two specific cases: i) in response to their complicity in, responsibility for, or advocacy of violations of international law or other human rights violations, or ii) representatives of complicit Israeli institutions (such as a university president or spokesperson).
An academic boycott is not an infringement of academic freedom, but rather a manifestation of it. Thus, the BDS call is an expression of freedom of speech protected under Article 5 Abs. 1 Satz 1 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, which states:
Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.
Abs. 3 of the same article adds under the same principle that “Arts and sciences, research and teaching shall be free”, while Abs. 2 indicates that this right can only be restricted through “general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons and in the right to personal honour”. Neither the IHRA, nor any of the quoted resolutions of the Bundestag have the character of a general law as specified there.
Furthermore, the protection of the call for a boycott has been recognized by Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court in the so-called “Lüth-ruling” as an expression of freedom of speech (Beschluss des Ersten Senats vom 15. Januar 1958, 1958). This even applies in the case of public employees (as the person that called for a boycott in that case was) and — as we will see — of public institutions.
The precedent of Russia
On 25 February 2022, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) announced the decision to restrict German-Russian exchange relations. The institution stopped the applications for Russia scholarships, cancelled scholarships to Russia, and even froze financial support for German students who had already been selected for funding for a planned stay in Russia. Justifying the decision, its President Joybrato Mukherjee commented that “in view of the war, we believe it is imperative to critically review the promotion of exchange relations with Russia" (DAAD, 2022). The announcement also said that the institution expected to suspend all DAAD-funded project activities with partner institutions in Russia and Belarus.
On the same date, the FU announced that it would put its partnerships and other cooperative activities with research institutions in Russia on hold. This meant suspending the student exchange programs, its strategic partnership with St. Petersburg University, and closing the FU’s Liaison Office in Moscow (Freie Universität Berlin, 2022a). This same announcement clarified that individual students, researchers, and scholars would be able to apply for degree programs or employment, clearly distinguishing between individual and institutional boycott, in very similar lines to the PACBI guidelines (Freie Universität Berlin, 2022b).
The Russian case sets a precedent for the FU severing ties with educational institutions. This proves that the FU has recent prior experience in the bureaucratic and administrative aspects of participating in a boycott.
In the following section, we detail the ways in which Israeli universities and institutions have participated in various forms in legitimizing and upholding the illegal occupation of Palestine and the genocide of Palestinians. We also explore how Israeli universities have participated in silencing critical voices among students and staff, thus endangering academic freedom.
Section 2: Israeli educational institutions’ ties to the Military and their complicity with apartheid and the ongoing genocide
The war crimes, crimes against humanity — including genocide — and infringements of international Law that are committed by the State of Israel are directly supported by Israeli universities, which develop the technology and machinery for war, and contribute to juridical, operational, and technological support for the continued occupation of Palestine. In this report, the infringements of the largest Israeli Universities will be detailed, concentrating on the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ) because it is the main institution with which the FU holds academic relations.
Tel Aviv University, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, University of Haifa, Bar-Ilan University, Israel Institute of Technology, Weizmann Institute of Science
Tel Aviv University has exceptionally close ties to the Israeli government and the military industry (Rapoport, 2023). It hosts the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), which aims to shape the “national security policies” of the regime. One such policy was formulated during the 2021 attack on Gaza and advocated denying the entry of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population as a military strategy, something we now see after 7 October 2023. Tel Aviv University also developed the Dahiya Doctrine in partnership with the Israeli military in 2008 (IMEU, 2024; Rogers, 2023), which calls for targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure with “disproportionate force” to inflict devastating destruction. This is a war crime. Nevertheless, this doctrine has been used in all subsequent military attacks on Gaza, including the current genocide.
The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev hosts the Homeland Security Institute which partners with Elbit System and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, as well as the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), and the Ministry of Defense. Ben-Gurion University provides financial support for students that join the IDF, including grant and a postponement of their rental fees if they were living in university dormitories (Fiske, 2023). The University’s company BGN Technologies conducts “research for companies wishing to take advantage of [Ben-Gurion University]’s expertise and facilities” (Ben-Gurion University, n.d.). In this context, the University directly partnered with the IDF’s elite intelligence division, Unit 8200, in order to develop Lavender, the AI-based recognition program used by the IDF (Bolliger et al., 2024; Iraqi, 2024) to mark individuals as bombing targets, and Gospel, an AI-enabled system to determine targets (Gedeon, 2024).
The Bar-Ilan University’s Engineering Faculty has held “hackathons” in collaboration with the Israeli military and with the Israeli arms producer Elbit (Faculty of Engineering Bar-Ilan University, 2023). Importantly, they established a college—now the independent Ariel University—on illegally occupied Palestinian land. Such settlements constitute war crimes under international law.
The University of Haifa has been responsible for training officers of the Israeli military since 2018, offering a master’s program in national security for members of the Israeli military and Israeli intelligence services such as Mossad and Shin Bet (Heights: University of Haifa Magazine, 2018). It hosts an “Ambassadors online” course that aims to provide students with “Hasbara” training in collaboration with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, furthering the spread of pro-Israel propaganda. It also stated on its website that it stands with “IDF officers, soldiers and the entire state of Israel” in the current war on Gaza.
The University of Haifa hosts three Israeli military colleges comprising the Israeli Military Academic Complex, which “form the backbone of the IDF’s elite training programs” (Heights: University of Haifa Magazine, 2018). The University of Haifa holds courses at the Israeli military base of Glilot. It has provided equipment to soldiers carrying out the genocide in Gaza and established an emergency fund to provide stipends to student soldiers.
The Israel Institute of Technology, Technion, also has deep ties to the Israeli military. It helped develop the D9 remote-controlled bulldozer, which has been used throughout Palestine to destroy and demolish Palestinian homes. In 2008 Technion opened a centre for the development of electro-optics with Elbit Systems, one of the largest Israeli weapons companies. It also developed “The Scream”, a vehicle-mounted sonic blaster that shoots repeated pulses of sound unbearable to humans, leaving them dizzy and nauseous at distances of up to 100 metres. The weapon has been widely used to suppress Palestinian protests (Rawnsley, 2011).
Finally, the Weizmann Institute of Science regularly collaborates with Israel’s weapons manufacturers such as Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries. It was even the origin of one of the most important Israeli defense companies, as academics from this institute and the Technion founded Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. The institute has a special MA program for personnel serving in the IDF (Weizmann School of Science, 2016), and also has a pre-military academy that prepares high school seniors for “meaningful military service” (Weizmann Institute of Science, 2020).
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ) supports “Operation Iron Sword” (the IDF’s code name for their current operation in Gaza) by “providing military units with logistics equipment” (HUJ, 2023). HUJ expertise in social science has been instrumental for sustaining and expanding the occupation. Their archaeology department has been systematically involved in the erasure of Islamic history in Jerusalem and structural damage to Palestinian homes and buildings, the most recent case being the excavations of the “Path of the Pilgrims” for its inauguration in 2019 (Wind, 2024, pp. 33–24). The Institute of Criminology of the HUJ provides academic formation for the Israeli police apparatus, developing so-called “counterterror policing” expertise. It has been reported that the faculty has even brought delegates to observe checkpoints and the surveillance systems of occupied East Jerusalem (Wind, 2024, pp. 42–43). Meanwhile, the Middle East studies department housed the elite degree Havatzalot program for soldiers of the Intelligence Corps of the IDF as part of their military training (Lappin, 2013)l.
The HUJ also suspended Palestinian professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, under the justification that the suspension would “preserve a safe climate on campus” (BRISMES, 2023; Odeh, 2024). HUJ has been pressuring Shalhoub-Kevorkian to resign since late October 2023, after she signed a call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The institution did not protect her when she was arrested, threatened in the press, and tortured while detained (Graham-Harrison & Kierszenbaum, 2024). Professor Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s research has provided invaluable insights into the psychological and social ramifications of living under prolonged conflict and oppression. While HUJ has since lifted her suspension, the threat of suspension nonetheless sends a clear message to scholars at the HUJ and worldwide, especially scholars critical of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and who call for a ceasefire (BRISMES, 2023; Sfard, 2023)1. In contrast, HUJ took no action against a criminology academic who was arrested in November 2024 on suspicion of kidnapping and violently assaulting a Palestinian alongside eight Israeli police officers and soldiers (Masarwa & Rickett, 2024).
Hebrew University is partly built in East Jerusalem, which is illegally occupied according to international law. While the original buildings of HUJ are located in the area that was designated in 1948 as the “Demilitarized Zone”, in 1967, when Israel first occupied East Jerusalem, it annexed three quarters of the lands of the Palestinian village Issawiyeh to expand the HUJ. In practice however it is considered a settlement by the OCHA, as Israel effectively controls the movement in the area and implements its law there (see map in 2. Exchange programs…). However, even if the Mount Scopus campus is considered a DMZ, the surrounding facilities of the HUJ are illegal settlements. This includes a part of the Maiersdorf Dormitories, all of the Alan Bronfman Dormitories, the Students Village, the Lerner Family Indoor Sports Complex and the Gilbert Tennis Courts. Today, Israel has expropriated over 90 percent of Issawiyeh’s lands (Wind, 2024, p. 68). The HUJ is effectively an Israeli settlement on Palestinian land, which benefits from settlement infrastructure (transport lines and access roads) and stimulates settler activities in East Jerusalem, especially in the adjacent neighborhoods of the French Hill, Ramat Eshkol, and Sheikh Jarrah.
The General Problem of Israeli Educational Institutions
Israeli universities point to their Arab (Palestinian) students as proof of their plurality and diversity. However, Palestinian students have long been criminalized and targeted by their universities (Adalah, 2024; Green & Gordon, 2024; Middle East Monitor, 2014; The New Arab Staff, 2023). This has only increased since the 7th of October 2023.
At the University of Haifa, over 90 percent of the students summoned to disciplinary committees between 2002 and 2010 were Palestinian. Between 2010 and 2015, Palestinian students were three times as likely as Jewish students to be summoned before their committees (Adalah UN Report, 2024; Green & Gordon, 2024).
What we have described here is only a very brief overview. As Israeli scholar Maya Wind meticulously documented, all major public Israeli universities “operate in direct service of the state and serve critical functions in sustaining its policies, and thereby constitute central pillars of Israeli settler colonialism” (Wind, 2024).
Section 3: Freie Universität Berlin’s ties to Israeli academic institutions
Strategic partnership with Hebrew University of Jerusalem
As the FU website explains, the strategic partnership is part of the internationalization strategy of the University, whose aim is to “allow for comprehensive networking and collaboration on all university levels”. For selecting strategic partners, the FU “takes into account the diversity and intensity of existing contacts as well as the potential for future cooperation” (Freie Universität Berlin, 2013).
Since 2011 the FU has been linked with the HUJ via strategic partnerships, and since 2015 this has also materialized in an agreement for awarding Joint PhDs between the FU and the HUJ. The partnership also enables a special exchange program called “the Berlin-Jerusalem Fellowship Program”, which allows doctoral students from the Hebrew University to spend up to twelve months at Freie Universität. Along these same lines, both institutions hold Joint Seed Funding that has to date funded over 30 joint research initiatives between the universities. In spite of the current humanitarian issues, this program is still ongoing. The FU opened a Call for Proposals for the Joint Seed Funding Research with the HUJ that closed in December 2024, while the funding for joint courses closes in February 2025 (Freie Universität Berlin, 2024a). According to the FU website, “more than 100 scientists” are currently active in joint activities between both universities. As an example, the program enabled both Universities to conduct joint courses such as the seminar “Political Ecology. Perspectives, Themes, Applications” of the Master Program of Geographies of Global Inequalities, which was given in the winter semester 2024/25 (Freie Universität Berlin, 2024b; HUJ, 2024). There is also a study cooperation program between the FU’s Institute for Media and Communication Studies and the Noah Mozes Department of Communication and Journalism at the HUJ which is funded by the DAAD.
Finally, since 2019 the DAAD has funded the development of the German-Israeli Virtual Campus (GIVCA). This is a platform that would enable “the strategic implementation of joint digital teaching initiatives and joint research projects” (German-Israeli Virtual Campus, 2024), bringing both universities further together.
Exchange programs with HUJ and other Israeli Institutions
The partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ) facilitates exchange semesters for FU students. Most of the classes in this program are held in the Mount Skopus campus which, as previously indicated, is in a demilitarized zone. However, the UN considers it to be a de-facto settlement, while the facilities built around it lie in Palestinian occupied land. This is shown in the following map from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
Source: (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), n.d.).
Light grey: West Jerusalem; Orange: Palestinian communities in East
Jerusalem;
Purple: Israeli Settlements; Black: military base.
The HUJ offers accommodation to incoming international students in the Student Village, which is also situated in illegally occupied Palestinian territories, as can be seen on Google Maps:
Source: Google Maps
This is at least reported by three Experience Reports from FU students who participated in the exchange program in Jerusalem that are available in the FU webpage. In contrast with other institutions which have much shorter timespans, for the HUJ there are reports from 2011 until 2023 (Freie Universität Berlin, 2014). The last report from 2023 reflects some consciousness on the political reality as the student chose to stay in a private accommodation in west Jerusalem as the result of individual research, while indicating that most students stay in the facilities of the HUJ (Anonymous student, 2023). However, the majority of these reports contain nothing on this, likewise the information on the webpage. In this way, the FU does not inform the students of the implication of participating in these exchanges, and does not inform them that they would be staying in accomodation built on illegally occupied land.
The FU also holds similar exchange programs with the Tel Aviv University (Freie Universität Berlin, 2019a), Ben Gurion University of the Negev (Freie Universität Berlin, 2022c) and the University of Haifa (Freie Universität Berlin, 2019b).
Joint research projects
According to the research project database of the FU, as of 31.12.2014 the FU has at least eleven ongoing research projects in collaboration with institutions in Israel:
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“Von Dallas zu Berlin on Demand oder die transnationale Verhandlung von Medieninhalten. Eine mehrdimensionale Replikationsstudie in Deutschland und Israel”, with the HUJ.
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“Idealtypen und Varianten öffentlicher Auftragsvergabe: Wie beschaffen Staaten strategisch und mit welchen Effekten?”, with the HUJ. This also includes a Weiterleitungsvertrag.
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“Einstein Zentrum Chronoi (EC-C) - Einstein Zentrum für Antike”, with the HUJ.
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“Die Rolle des Stress Mindsets für Wohlbefinden, Aufmerksamkeit und Motivation bei der Arbeit: Untersuchung kurz- und längerfristiger Effekte sowie organisationaler Rahmenbedingungen”, with the University of Haifa.
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“Verifiable Information Design in Competitive Environments”, with the University of Haifa.
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“EU-Horizon 2020: H2020-MSCA-ITN-2019 (ELIT): Empirical study of Literature Training Network, with the University of Haifa
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“FOR 2724 Thermische Maschinen in der Quantenwelt”, with the Weizmann Institute. This currently includes:
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TP Z: Koordinationsfonds
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TP P1: Kontrolle von Quanten-Thermalisierung (Kontrolle von Quanten-Thermalisierung)
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“FOR 2724/2 TP4: Foundations of quantum thermodynamics”, with the Weizmann Institute.
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“ERC-2022-SYG-CASTLE: Chirality and spin selectivity in electron transfer processes: from quantum detection to quantum enabled technologies”, with the Weizmann Institute.
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“CRC 183 Entangled States of Matter, A02 - Gapless Topological phases”, with the Weizmann Institute.
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“RegEx Querying for Biological Sequences”, with Humboldt University and the Technion.
The FU partnership webpage also displays the institutional importance of the HUJ, indicating that between 2014 and 2019, the FU conducted an International Research Training Group at Freie Universität Berlin in collaboration with the HUJ that investigated challenges faced in the realization of human rights, named “Human Rights under Pressure – Ethics, Law and Politics”. Its objective was to expose the students from both universities to a variety of human rights issues “in the field”.
The fact that some of these projects are in social science does not exclude the possibility that they can contribute to human right infringements. The FU has a problematic history connecting this kind of research with military efforts with questionable human rights records, particularly linked to the German military. The research project SFB 700 ‘Governance in Räumen begrenzter Staatlichkeit - Neue Formen des Regierens?’, which ran between 2006 and 2017, brought together sociologists, historians, political scientists, economists and other disciplines in order to evaluate the effectiveness of institution-building in the context of armed interventions and other forms of precarious statehood. The project was criticized by students of the Otto Suhr Institute at the time (Hommerich, 2013), and also by the Bund demokratischer Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler for research that was paid for directly by the German Defense Ministry to conduct research in Afghanistan while the country was militarily occupied by German troops (Hutter, 2009).
Conclusion
The aim of this report is to outline legal, ethical, and critical elements to advocate for a boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign in the FU targeting Israel, based on the violations to international law, including war crimes, and genocide against Palestinians. The desired objective is that the FU cut ties with Israeli educational institutions, and to institute a commission to determine the institutional responsibilities in the involvement of the FU with these infringements.
The overwhelming consensus of humanitarian international institutions establishes that the State of Israel is currently committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The ICJ has ruled the plausibility of a genocide, and the ICC has already issued warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant. Along with this, the ICJ has recognized that Israel has been creating and maintaining the conditions of apartheid and carrying out an illegal occupation in Palestinian territories.
As has been shown, the Israeli academic institutions actively contribute to these infractions of international law. The strategic partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem may be a direct breach of international law, in particular. The ongoing research projects and exchange programs with these and other Israeli institutions contribute to normalizing apartheid and the illegal occupation of Palestine. However, through the joint research projects with Israeli academic institutions, the FU also risks direct involvement and complicity with the criminal actions of the Israeli State. That is why it is necessary and urgent to set up an academic research commission to investigate individual and institutional responsibilities.
It is part of the ethical and legal responsibility of the FU to not collaborate with institutions that enable genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Considering this, this report defends the boycott as a legitimate form of non-violent resistance. However, as is public knowledge, the BDS movement in Germany is heavily criminalized and the actions of the German State and its state-funded institutions endanger the exercise of academic freedom as a result of this persecution. To advocate for boycott, the report shows that the call for BDS is protected by law. Second, it also argues that German higher education institutions have actual experience in cutting ties with educational institutions following similar ethical guidelines established by BDS, distinguishing clearly between a boycott against institutions and a boycott against individuals.
We reiterate our call to our fellow students, academics, and workers of FU to neither participate in nor support the concrete collaborations with Israeli universities and other complicit institutions, and to exert pressure to end these collaborations, to raise the subject in every academic instance possible, and to boycott activities that normalize or advocate for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and apartheid in Palestine. As for the FU as an institution, it must suspend all formal collaborations with complicit institutions in accordance with PACBI guidelines, and establish an academic research commission in order to investigate individual and institutional responsibilities, which should integrate persons involved in the BDS campaign.
No university or educational institution is isolated. Israeli institutions are globally connected, and rely on that transnational support in order to carry out the genocidal and colonial project of the Israeli State. These institutions are a part of the Israeli war machine. The agency of the students and workers of the FU and of other universities in the world determines whether Israel is able to carry on with its acts or not.
Annex 1: Precedents of other European Universities
Several European universities have taken steps to sever ties with Israeli institutions involved in military research or located in illegal settlements, in order to comply with international humanitarian Law. The FU would not be an exceptional case in Europe for taking such measures, but it could be a positive example for doing so in Germany. Amongst the Universities that have taken these steps:
| University | Actions taken |
|---|---|
| University of Ghent (Belgium) | Rector resolved to discontinue all ongoing institutional collaborations with Israeli universities and research institutions, following advice on involvement in human rights violations (Ghent University, 2024) |
| Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) | Suspended ties with both Israeli and Palestinian universities until “their respective university authorities make a clear commitment to the demands made by the International Court of Justice [...] and the unconditional release of the Israeli hostages" (Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2024) |
Oslo Metropolitan University (Norway) |
Put on hold the exchange agreement with the University of Haifa, pledged not to enter into any new agreements with complicit Israeli universities, and committed to work to end procurement contracts with suppliers linked to Israel’s military or illegal settlements (Oslo Metropolitan University, 2024) |
| University of Southeastern Norway | Cut ties with Haifa University, pledged not to enter into any new agreements with complicit Israeli universities, and will work to end procurement contracts with suppliers linked to Israel’s military or illegal settlements (Universitetet i Sørøst-Norge, 2024) |
| University of Bergen (Norway) | Ended its cooperation agreements with Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design after it created a workshop on campus to design and sew uniforms and gear for the Israeli military (Flom, 2024) |
| The Bergen School of Architecture (Norway) | Ended its cooperation agreements with Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design over its work with the Israeli military (Flom, 2024) |
| University of Stavanger (Norway) | Cut all institutional collaboration agreements with Israeli institutions, due to the war in Gaza, which is contrary to international law. UiS will not enter into any new agreements as long as hostilities are ongoing (University of Stavanger, 2024) |
| University of Turin (Italy) | Suspended a collaboration agreement with Israeli universities and research institutes (Bartov, 2024) |
| University of Barcelona (Spain) | Approved a motion calling for "the severance of institutional and academic relations" with Israeli institutions in solidarity with Palestine (Ramajo, 2024) |
| Conference of University Rectors in Spain (CRUE) | Announced that it would cut ties with Israeli universities and research centers “that have not expressed a firm commitment to peace and compliance with international humanitarian law” (Conference of University Rectors in Spain (CRUE), 2024) |
| Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) | Agreed to divest from Israeli firms and establish a task force to review ties with Israeli academic institutions after student protests (Carroll & correspondent, 2024) |
Annex 2: Academic organizations that have approved a BDS Resolution
The following is a list of academic international organizations that have approved one or several BDS resolutions. This account is non-exhaustive, and only those associated with fields of study represented within the FU have been prioritized, in the understanding that either individual academics or German academic organizations form part of these organizations and are under the obligation to act in accordance with them.
| Organization | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|
| African Literature Association | 2014 | Link |
| American Anthropological Association (AAA) | 03.2023 | Link |
| American Studies Association (ASA) | 04.12.2013 | Link |
| Association for Humanist Sociology | 10.01.2013 | Link |
| Critical Ethnic Studies Association | 07.2014 | Link |
| Middle East Studies Association | 23.03.2022 | Link |
| National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) | 2015 -2024 | Link |
| Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) | 13.12.2013 | Link |
| Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA) | 05.11.2014 | Link |
| Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) | 10.06.2022 | Link |
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An independent lecture series of students from FU and HU organized a lecture with professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian which was going to be held online on 26.03.2024. However, the lecture had to be cancelled because of the institutional pressure over her, and she was later arrested by the Israeli government. The FU nor any of its authorities has stated anything related to this. ↩︎