UU Vice-President Margot van der Starre talks with activists

Pro-Palestine activists occupied one of UU's buildings at Drift 13 this morning. Banners with pro-Palestinian slogans are hanging everywhere, including one saying that Utrecht University is complicit in the war in Gaza. Today, Utrecht University was going to hold its Open Day in that building. That's an event in which the university informs prospective Bachelor's students about its undergraduate programmes. Some of the Open Day activities have been postponed due to the occupation.

At around 4:00 pm, a group of activists was at the door talking to UU Vice-President Margot van der Starre. She was friendly (although a bit awkward) to the 20 or so activists who surrounded her. Student Itaï van der Wal led the conversation and the activists took turns to ask questions.

Most questions merely repeated what has been said before: Does the university realise that many people are dying in Gaza and Lebanon and that the Israeli state is responsible for this? According to the activists, boycotting Israeli universities is the only answer. Otherwise, they believe the university is partly responsible for the genocide.

Van der Starre repeated several times that she is extremely concerned about the situation in Gaza and that she finds it terrible that so many people are being killed. However, she does not think that a boycott is the solution to the conflict. The university has looked into its research partnerships with Israeli universities and concluded that they cannot be used for military purposes or be linked to the violence in Gaza. She also said that the university often collaborates with individual scientists, many of whom do valuable research in fields like health care.

The activists disagree with her point of view. They argue that all universities are connected to the state and therefore to the genocide. They also say that individual researchers often receive grants from the Israeli state and are therefore connected to it.

Van der Starre says they would have to agree to disagree and the activists indicated that they want to keep talking to the Executive Board about this topic, as long as it is a public conversation such as this one. They refuse to leave the building until the university meets their demand for a boycott. They didn't care about Van der Starre's remark that she couldn't solve this problem on a Friday night.

Van der Starre then left for another building on Drift to consider further steps. The activists are asking sympathisers to bring food and ask friends to come by for support. They are walking around the building and shouting slogans like "Free, free Palestine". It is not yet known how the university is going to proceed.