Irish university to cut links with Israel over Gaza war
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Trinity College Dublin said it had accepted the recommendations of a task force to sever institutional links with the Israel, Israeli universities and companies headquartered in Israel.
PHOTO: TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN/FACEBOOK
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DUBLIN – Ireland’s prestigious Trinity College Dublin said on June 4 that it would cut all links with Israel in protest against “ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law”.
The university’s board informed students by e-mail that it had accepted the recommendations of a task force to sever “institutional links with the state of Israel, Israeli universities and companies headquartered in Israel”.
The recommendations would be “enacted for the duration of the ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law”, said the e-mail sent by the board’s chairman, Mr Paul Farrell, and seen by AFP.
The task force was set up after part of the university’s campus in central Dublin was blockaded by students for five days in 2024 in protest against Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Among the task force’s recommendations approved by the board were pledges to divest “from all companies headquartered in Israel” and to “enter into no future supply contracts with Israeli firms” and “no new commercial relationships with Israeli entities”.
The university also said that it would “enter into no further mobility agreements with Israeli universities”.
Trinity has two current Erasmus+ exchange agreements with Israeli universities: Bar Ilan University, an agreement that ends in July 2026, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which ends in July 2025, the university told AFP in an e-mail.
The board also said that the university “should not submit for approval or agree to participate in any new institutional research agreements involving Israeli participation”.
It “should seek to align itself with like-minded universities and bodies in an effort to influence European Union policy concerning Israel’s participation in such collaborations”, it added.
Ireland has been among the most outspoken critics of Israel’s response to the Oct 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel
Polls since the start of the war have shown overwhelming pro-Palestinian sympathy in Ireland.
In May 2024, Dublin joined several other European countries in recognising Palestine
It then joined South Africa in bringing a case before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza – charges angrily denied by Israeli leaders.
In December, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of the country’s embassy in Dublin, blaming Ireland’s “extreme anti-Israel policies”.
The University of Geneva also announced on June 4 that it has ended its partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem following student protests, saying it no longer reflected the institution’s “strategic priorities”. AFP
