Walk-outs, protests and sit-ins: how Gaza conflict is stirring tensions in Irish universities

Tensions across colleges campuses in the US ratcheted up this week as police in riot gear moved in to break up pro-Palestinian encampments. Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested and scores of students have been suspended or threatened with disciplinary actions. Most of the tents are gone, but they left their mark.

On the face of it, it was a very different scene in Irish universities this week. In the throes of exam season, bleary-eyed students at Trinity College Dublin pored over notes before heading in for end-of-year assessments. But once the exams were finished on Friday evening, dozens of students had occupied the front lawn of the college demanding that the college cut ties with Israel. The move prompted university authorities to restrict access to the campus and close off entry to the Book of Kells.

Talking to many students milling around the exam halls of Trinity College Dublin mid-week, their outrage was clear: they felt galvanised by the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and wanted their universities to sever ties with Israeli interests. Most felt their university leaders were woefully out of step with student and public opinion.

“I feel passionately about it – I support the protests,” said James Mahon (22), a final-year history and politics student at Trinity, after completing his last exam. “I definitely think the college should take a pro-Palestine stance, considering they did that for Ukraine and there is a genocide going on. It seems contradictory that they’re not doing anything.”

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His classmate, Finn (21), who did not want to give his surname, said the difference between the university’s condemnation of Russia after its invasion of Ukraine and its silence over Israel’s actions was jarring.

“Why the difference?” he asked. “The college has investments there [in Israel], so there are conflicts of interest. Ukraine is seen as more black-and-white and [the] Palestine-Israel issue is very contentious ... but it’s just a lack of backbone, at the end of the day. That’s the key thing. Make a stance.”

Mia Ortloff (20), a second-year economics and philosophy student from the US, said the topic was dominating students’ discussion and debate like never before.

“It has definitely impacted on all of us, we talk about it a lot,” she said. “There’s been a lot going on this semester ... I think a lot of US students are frustrated about their government’s lack of action. Here, we’re frustrated too [at the university], but at least Ireland is one of the more vocal countries.”

Across most university campuses in Ireland, students’ unions have been full-throated in their opposition to Israeli actions in Gaza and called on universities to “break their silence” and cut ties with Israeli companies or universities.

Pro-Palestine events, once considered fringe events staged by far-left groupings, now attract much larger numbers of supporters. College branches of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement say they have recorded a surge in membership. For older members of staff, there are echoes of student activism of the late 1960s in the wake of the Vietnam War.

[ A pro-Palestinian protest that began at Columbia University has taken hold in hundreds of US campuses ]

Walkouts, protests and campus sit-ins are just some of the ways students have been seeking to put pressure on university leaders in recent times.

At Trinity last week, for example, student protesters disrupted a staff consultation meeting led by the vice-provost by holding Palestinian flags and chanting “Trinity College Dublin, you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide”. This week, college authorities warned TCD students’ union that it faced fines over disruptive protests which blocked access to the Book of Kells; by Friday nights, up to 60 students had set up an encampment on Friday evening.

There were angry scenes at UCD last week as students and protesters railed against the visit of Nancy Pelosi, former speaker of the US House of Representatives, where guests were met with chants of “shame on you”, “Palestine will be free” and “while you’re dining, kids are dying”. UCD students’ union president Martha Ní Riada was dragged out of the honorary degree conferring by security staff as she called Pelosi “a Zionist and war criminal”.

At UCC, hundreds of students recently staged a walkout of lectures in protest over the university’s “silence” in the face of “genocide”, while there was controversy when Palestinian student Leen Maarouf was prevented by security staff from bringing her country’s flag in to her conferring ceremony. “I was just trying to represent my identity, it’s all I was trying to do,” she said afterwards.

It is not just students who are unhappy with their colleges. Growing numbers of academics, too, have expressed their dismay at the continued reluctance of their employers to condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza and have called for existing institutional partnerships or affiliations with Israeli institutions to be severed.

The Academics for Palestine grouping says about 1,000 scholars have now signed a letter calling on universities to take such actions. To date, it says University of Galway is the only higher education institution which has committed to review its relationship with Israeli institutions.

“They are hiding behind contrived positions of ‘neutrality’, or deflecting and avoiding the substance of our request entirely. To be clear, it is not legally or morally defensible to be ‘neutral’ on the matter of genocide and violation of international humanitarian law,” Dr John Reynolds of Maynooth University said in a recent statement.

“It is abhorrent that universities like Trinity College continue to maintain documented ties with Israeli institutions despite Israeli actions in Gaza,” added Dr David Landy, assistant professor lecturer in TCD’s department of sociology, who is Jewish and a member of Academics for Palestine. “These relationships help maintain the legitimacy of the Israeli state’s actions and make our college community complicit in their crimes.”

The grouping said there is continuing complicity in genocide through links with Israeli academic institutions and companies.

“Palestine is a defining moral issue of our time,” said Zoë Lawlor from University of Limerick. “Universities have ethical and intellectual duties to pursue truth and knowledge and to stand, speak and act for justice and freedom. At the absolute minimum, this means ensuring that our universities are in no way complicit or associated with apartheid and genocide.”

Not all staff agree. Some say a boycott of universities in Israel would be counterproductive at a time when more dialogue is needed, not less. One academic, who asked not to be identified, said if an Israeli boycott does goes ahead, the next question will be “what country is next?”

Another pointed out that some Israeli universities and staff have voiced opposition to policies of the Israeli coalition government. “We should be standing with them in their opposition, not weakening them,” the lecturer said.

At issue, in particular, are Irish colleges’ ties to Israeli universities and organisations, which are worth millions of euro in some cases. There are estimated to be hundreds of links alone in EU-funded research involving Irish and Israeli institutions; some of research has involved links with areas that include military and security applications.

Trinity, for example, has ties with about a dozen Israeli organisations via research collaborations; it also holds investments, via its endowment funds, in a small number of Israeli companies, some of which are blacklisted by the UN. They include Bank Leumi, Shapir Engineering and Energix, Israeli companies which have been linked to the supply of equipment, services or materials for use in Gaza or the West Bank.

This week, Trinity provost Dr Linda Doyle issued a statement in which she pledged that the university would update its endowment fund investments with reference to the UN blacklist. On the question of links with Israeli universities, she said academic freedom was the “cornerstone of our identity as a university” and this was a matter for individual staff.

“Some in our community argue that Trinity should ensure all ties with Israeli institutions are cut,” she said. “Such decisions rest with each individual academic. Some colleagues will see value in maintaining a free exchange of ideas; others will feel deeply uncomfortable having any relationship at all. Fundamentally, it is the right of the individual academic to make this decision, and no assumption about an academic’s political views should be inferred from those decisions.”

She also described the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as “obscene” and said she has not met anyone in Trinity who does not want the conflict to come to a permanent end.

“I say ‘permanent end’ because even the word ‘ceasefire’ sounds too temporary to me. A real and lasting solution that respects the human rights of everyone needs to be found,” she said.

UCC, when asked to comment on its ties with Israeli organisations, said in a statement that it “acknowledges the deeply distressing situation in Gaza. The events of October 7th in Israel and the ongoing crisis in Gaza are utterly heartbreaking and abhorrent. Our hope is for a peaceful resolution to the current conflict. UCC recently welcomed the Palestinian ambassador to campus to discuss areas of mutual co-operation.”

[ Academics for Palestine criticise universities over ‘neutrality’ and lack of action on war in Gaza ]

University of Galway president Prof Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh earlier this year pledged to review the college’s relationship with Israeli institutions. He said it was in light of the Government’s call for a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement – which governs trade relations – following warnings that Israel may be in breach of human rights obligations embedded in the pact.

At UCD, a spokesman referred to comments made by its president, Prof Orla Feely, last year where she said taking an institutional position on geopolitical matters would “inhibit the freedom of members of our community to express their individual positions and suppress our ability to sustain and respect a diversity of views”.

“That I do not issue statements on geopolitical matters should not be interpreted as indifference to suffering of those within our community or in the wider world – I am deeply affected by the suffering and loss of life at the present time,” she said. “Rather, in the face of what will often be conflicting views and local and global tensions, it is a path to focusing on the particular responsibilities of the university and maintaining both academic freedom and an inclusive intellectual community where civil discourse on divisive issues is possible.”

For all the talk among university presidents of promoting a tolerant and inclusive campus for civil discourse, some feel it has been anything but over recent months.

Among Jewish students – a minority on campus – some feel the atmosphere has become hostile and intolerant. “There are Jewish students who feel afraid of coming on to the campus now,” says one Jewish student, who asked that her name not be used for the article. “They are getting abuse online and have deleted their social media profiles. They are worried about incidents happening ... ”

She said an email from Trinity College Students’ Union – which described the Hamas attacks as a “military operation” – was one of the ways the Jewish experience has been diminished or excluded in commentary since last October.

Agne Kniuraite, chair of TCD’s Jewish Society, wrote recently that Jewish students “have been subjected to an unending barrage of prejudice and spoken of the isolation, fear and sense of rejection they have experienced on campus this year”.

“Our concerns as a Jewish student body have fallen on deaf ears, most notably through the squashing of the opposition groups and anti-union campaigns,” she wrote in the Jewish Chronicle.

TCD students’ union did not respond to a request for comment. Other students, however, feel the union is doing a good job of reflecting the opinion of the student body – which is, overwhelmingly, pro-Palestine.

We have sought to support all of those affected by the war no matter where they come from or what their political stance

—  Dr Linda Provost

“I’ve hardly met anyone who is pro-Israel,” says Zoya Kherani, a second-year law and business student at Trinity. “They’re either neutral or pro-Palestine. There’s a lot of protest, the students’ union is very active, they share their stance on social media. No one I’ve met thinks ties with Israel are a good thing. I understand why some may feel it’s an intimidating environment as it’s very pro-Palestine; but it’s always been peaceful protests and demonstrations.”

Trinity provost Dr Linda Doyle, meanwhile, said the university’s diverse staff and student body – almost a third are international students – must all feel welcome on campus.

“We have sought to support all of those affected by the war no matter where they come from or what their political stance,” she said. “I also want to be absolutely clear that all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, have absolutely no place here.”

As for what will happen on campuses in Ireland over the coming months, it remains to be seen. Some academics believe “institutional silence” on the part of universities is unlikely to quell conscientious student protest. How future protests are handled, say some, will be key in determining whether we see a repeat of scenes in the US playing out in Irish universities.

“The difference with the US is that censorship and policing of pro-Palestinian support in US universities has been severe, manifesting now in the quite incredible crackdown on the Gaza camps – this is what is radicalising students over there,” said Patrick Bresnihan, a Maynooth University lecturer and member of Academics for Palestine.

“If students protested here – for example by setting up solidarity camps – and the response from the universities was harsh, then I think you would see something similar here in terms of the radicalisation of students.”

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