Israeli university’s boundary lines a dilemma for the University of Copenhagen

Is the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) collaborating with a university on illegally occupied land?

This question, along with a discussion of a general academic boycott of Israel, has been debated since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out last October.

The core of the dispute is the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with which the University of Copenhagen has an exchange agreement. The agreement means that UCPH students can study abroad at the university in the historic city.

In an interview with the University Post, Rector Henrik C. Wegener has previously said that the collaboration is especially aimed at students at UCPH who are studying Hebrew.

Parts of Hebrew University’s campus are outside the Israeli territory

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark in a written reply to the University Post

Hebrew University has several campuses. But the disputed area is located on the Mount Scopus hill in northeastern Jerusalem. In the years between the Arab-Israeli War (1948-49) and the Six-Day War (1967), Mount Scopus was a UN-controlled and demilitarized Israeli exclave on the then Jordanian side of the Jordan-Israel border.

Today, the area is part of the West Bank, which has a Palestinian autonomous government.

Students Against the Occupation have for a long time called on UCPH to suspend cooperation with Hebrew University, as the group believes that the Mount Scopus campus has moved across the Israeli border and onto Palestinian soil.

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At the same time, several academics and international jurists have accused the Israeli university of, through the course of several years, expanding beyond the original demilitarized zone.

Specifically, it is a sports centre west of the border of the original demilitarized zone, and a larger dormitory area northwest of the border.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark: Hebrew University is on occupied land

The University Post has been in contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to clarify the issue.

In a response, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes that the Israeli university itself states that »parts of Hebrew University’s campus are outside Israeli territory,« and the ministry concludes that it »should therefore be considered located on occupied Palestinian territory.«

We have asked the Rector’s Office at UCPH whether the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ statement to the University Post will lead to changes in the nature of the current collaboration with Hebrew University.

The Rector’s Office does not wish to be interviewed, but writes that UCPH is awaiting a response from Ministry of Higher Education and Science before management will comment on the issue.

Management adds that as a result of the ongoing war, there are currently no UCPH students on exchange at Hebrew University.

In a post for the Canadian Friends of Hebrew University, the rector of Hebrew University Tamir Sheafer writes that it owned private land holdings in East Jerusalem before the establishment of Israel in 1948, and that it therefore still believes it is permitted to use these »regardless of the sovereign status of the territory.«

»Furthermore, the facilities in question are used by all Hebrew University students, including Israeli, Palestinian and foreign students,« the rector writes.

Military connections

The area on Mount Scopus is Hebrew University’s original campus, and was founded in 1925 with the renowned physicist Albert Einstein as one of its collaborators. The university was therefore founded a long time before the establishment of Israel in 1948.

According to Professor in Global Studies at Roskilde University Michelle Pace, the establishment of Hebrew University and two other universities was an important part of what she describes as the Zionist movement’s plan to expand on Palestinian soil.

»The University played a very important role in this kind of claim on the land in preparation for the emergence of the state of Israel,« she says.

Michelle Pace is a member of the pro-Palestinian group Academics for Palestine and has repeatedly called for an academic boycott of Israeli universities.

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She also emphasized to the University Post that there is a close collaboration between Israeli universities and Israel’s armed forces, the IDF:

»The universities have funded, created, and promoted most of the scientific research through which the Israeli security state, Israeli weapons and businesses have been built. So I don’t think you can have a stronger evidence-based argument for saying that Israeli universities are partly responsible for the illegal settlements, and the illegal exploitation of Palestinian land.«

Rector at Hebrew University Tamir Sheafer denies the allegations, including the accusation that the university played a role in the Zionist movement’s claim to Palestinian land.

The university itself emphasises that it is an independent research institution without government interference that regularly criticises the government in power:

»As in other liberal democracies, researchers at the university continuously criticize government policy, propose policy changes, expose various kinds of injustices, and uncover unofficial historical accounts. In the constitutional crisis that preceded the war, the faculty and students successfully protested against the government’s plan for judicial reform,« he writes.

Tamir Sheafer also writes that the institution works intensively to create equality between Jews and Palestinians. It highlights that 16 per cent of the 24,000 students at Hebrew University are of Arab descent, half of whom are Palestinian.

Hebrew University makes no secret of the fact that it cooperates with both the military and the Israeli police. The  courses for soldiers and officers are purely of an academic nature, according to Tamir Sheafer:

»These programmes contribute significantly to the training of soldiers and police officers and provide a strong foundation for the protection of human rights, ethics, morals and the fundamental structures of liberal democracy,« he writes.