Spanish universities have agreed to review ties with Israeli universities and research centres and suspend collaboration agreements with any that “have not expressed a firm commitment to peace and compliance with international humanitarian law [the Laws of War]”.
They also vowed to intensify co-operation with Palestinian research and higher learning institutions, according to a statement on Thursday 9 May by the governing board of the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE).
The decision came as university students across the country began establishing protest camps on campuses this week, as part of pro-Palestinian student demonstrations that have spread across the globe from the United States.
CRUE lends support to students
CRUE, which represents 76 private and public universities in Spain, stated its “deep regret for the very serious events that are currently taking place in the Gaza Strip”.
The statement said: “Spanish universities have already expressed and reaffirmed on several occasions their permanent commitment to peace, coexistence and justice, and defence of international law, which does not prevent us from once again being deeply moved by the worsening of the conflict and the painful consequences it is having for the Palestinian population.”
“We endorse the sentiments of our campuses and the demands that are being made by them to ensure that measures are adopted at different levels to put a stop to the escalation of violence that is taking place.
“Consequently, we demand the immediate and definitive cessation of military operations by the Israeli army, as well as any action of a terrorist nature, and the liberation of the people kidnapped by Hamas,” the statement noted.
It added that the State of Israel should allow entry into Gaza of any humanitarian aid that can be provided to meet the civilian population’s emergency needs, and that international bodies undertake as soon as possible to reconstruct and rehabilitate the Gaza Strip.
CRUE committed to expanding “our cooperation, volunteering and care programs for the refugee population”, it stated.
The rectors’ body also committed to “ensure that in the exercise of free expression, equally reprehensible conduct of anti-Semitism or Islamophobia does not occur, as well as any other hateful behaviour within the university communities”.
University student protests spread across Spain
In Spain, according to the Economic Times, the first pro-Palestinian student protest began at the University of Valencia on 29 April, when a score of tents were erected by students calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza.
That was followed by similar encampments and protests at Barcelona University, then Madrid, the Basque Country in the north, Alicante in the east, and by students in the southern Andalusian region.
According to Europa Press, Spanish students are now camped out in 10 universities, in eight of Spain’s 17 Autonomous Communities.
Specifically, to date, according to the same source, there are student demonstrations in: the City University of Complutense University; Faculty of Philosophy at University Valencia; Elviña Campus at La Coruña University; three Basque Country campuses; the historic building of the University of Barcelona; the University of Granada; Fuentenueva campus at Zaragoza University; San Francisco campus at the University of Santiago de Compostela; the Faculty of History at the University of Alicante; and the Public University of Navarra.
Fighting is ‘in students’ DNA’
In this context, the Coordinator of Student Representatives in Public Universities (CREUP), an umbrella organisation for student unions representing more than one million students in 31 public universities, has demanded that the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, “take action to improve the situation of university students in Palestine and put an end to any type of collaboration with Israel, in particular in the Spanish university system”.
This student organisation contends that “there are only a few university student campuses that are not participating”, according to Telecinco news.
However, at the X (formerly Twitter) feed of Uniper ‘Acampada per Palestina Barcelona’ – a university group in solidarity with the Palestinian people at the University of Barcelona, climate activist Maria Serra posted: “We already have over 12 camps in Spain, in three days we achieved a historic motion in the UB [University of Barcelona] to cut relations with Israel and today we have gathered 100 entities to support our fight.
“Students and civil society are leading the way [translated from Catalan].”
University World News was not able to confirm these claims but, despite understandable communication problems at one of the student encampments, was able to talk directly to Daniel Maire-Richard, 19, who is a Journalism and Audiovisual Communication student at Universidad Carlos III and spokesperson for Madrid’s University Students’ Palestinian Camps.
“We decided to camp in the City University of Complutense University [one of its three campuses] because, although it is a protest of all the universities of Madrid, this location is the most symbolic [due to Franco’s nationalist forces first paralysing its cultural and academic activity and then physically destroying the buildings with bombs in November 1936] and has greater repercussion in the news,” Maire-Richard said.
When asked about CRUE’s stance, however, the representative was categoric in his rejection of the diplomatically worded statement.
“We believe the statement is empty words. We don’t believe it is correct to look at university agreements on a one-by-one basis, we think it is an urgent situation. There is a genocide taking place in Gaza, so we ask universities to cut all agreements and then, if necessary, review it, but in the first instance to cut all of them.
“Also, CRUE should ask the government to sever all links with Israeli universities and companies involved in the sale of arms, because we don’t want our university or government to be responsible for a genocide,”the representative said.
“Today we started talking with the universities,” he continued, “but there have been no advances and so we’ll continue to camp and protest to make our voice heard and bring more pressure to bear on both universities and government.”
For its part, La Sexta locates the current wave of protests in Spain to the historical context of student battles going back to University of Barcelona protest strikes in November 1913 and protests against Franco’s repression in the 1950s and 60s, arguing that the fight for justice and freedom has been a constant in the history of Spanish universities.
“Fighting is in Spanish students’ DNA” it said.
Military operation in Rafah begins
The university rectors’ statement was made a day after Israeli forces began a military operation in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, seizing border crossings, the main entry point for humanitarian supplies and the only way in for aid workers or exit for people wanting to leave.
That action prompted US President Joe Biden to threaten to withhold US weapon supplies to Israel if it moved on Rafah itself, but a senior Israeli official said the operation would go ahead, Reuters reported.
Israel argues that a military assault on Rafah is required to destroy Hamas, which is the objective of its response to the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 240 people were taken hostage.
According to Gaza Ministry of Health figures, 34,844 people had been killed during Israel’s post 7 October military operations in Gaza by 8 May. According to the UN, 1.1 million people in Gaza are facing “catastrophic levels” of food insecurity.
Of the 2.2 million people in Gaza, 1.4 million have been sheltering in Rafah and surrounding towns, most of them displaced from other parts of Gaza, according to The Guardian.
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