10.12.25
Editorial Note
For a number of years now, Finland has promoted various anti-Israel BDS organizations. Just to name a few – BDS Finland, ICAHD Finland, the Finish Palestine Network, Boykotoi apardheidia, Student for Palestine Finland, Finland Against Apartheid, etc.
Recently, the Tampere University Academics Association (TATTE), the trade union for academic employees, published a statement on its website titled “Statement on ending institutional cooperation with Israeli universities and other complicit organizations.” The statement was approved by the TATTE autumn assembly on November 20, 2025.
The statement claims that Israel’s destructive actions in Gaza have been “recognized as a genocide.” And that “the longstanding patterns of colonization, occupation, dispossession, blockade, and apartheid that preceded the genocide in Gaza continue across the Palestinian territories, including within the 1948 borders of the Israeli state where Palestinian citizens face political repression and ‘second-class’ citizenship status. In such conditions, research and higher education cannot continue as normal. All universities in Gaza have been destroyed, and many academics and students have been killed. Palestinian universities and academics in the West Bank operate under repression, surveillance, forced closures, restricted mobility, and military raids, and Palestinian students and academics within the state of Israel’s 1948 borders face unequal treatment and the risk of imprisonment when speaking out.”
It argued that “Israeli universities are tightly woven into the Israeli state’s settler colonial project, including through research on military and dual use technologies, the development of legal and technical expertise needed for state projects, the training of military personnel, the production of ideological justifications and rationales, and the policing of dissent, especially by Palestinian students and academics. At this point, the authors of this statement added a note saying, “For a detailed account, see Maya Wind (2024) Towers of Ivory and Steel. Verso.” Maya Wind was discredited by IAM in 2024. Similarly, her book was discredited by Prof. Barak Medina of the Hebrew University, who wrote, “Wind completely ignores basic relevant historical and normative aspects. For instance, she provides a partial and hence misleading description of the background to Israel’s foundation… Wind deliberately fails to mention the relevant facts, namely that in 1947, a UN committee, which conducted a thorough investigation, has recommended that two states, one Jewish and one Arab…. Wind strongly opposes to the idea of a Jewish and democratic state, neglecting to offer any argument why only the Palestinian people are entitled to the collective right to self-determination but not the Jewish people.”
According to the TATTE statement, “Palestinian civil society, including scholarly associations and trade unions, have called for international solidarity, especially in the form of boycotts and disinvestment campaigns that would pressure the Israeli state to end its colonial and genocidal actions and create the conditions in which genocide, occupation, blockade, and apartheid would end, political prisoners would be set free, and Palestinian refugees would be able to return to their land as full political equals.”
TATTE “joins the call for an academic boycott of complicit Israeli universities and urges Tampere University to end cooperation with complicit Israeli academic institutions, incorporate human rights criteria into its institutional partnership decisions, take a stand against the inclusion of Israeli institutions in EU-funded initiatives, and to divest from companies complicit in human rights violations.”
The statement calls on Tampere University to, “Incorporate substantive human rights criteria into the due diligence process for all institutional partnership decisions, and, accordingly, to refrain from establishing any institutional partnerships with Israeli universities and other complicit organizations. Cease institutional research cooperation with Israeli universities, including by suspending cooperation in future projects. There should be clear guidelines discouraging institutional research cooperation, and no new Horizon Europe projects that include Israeli academic institutions should be started. Following the example of Ghent University, any such ongoing projects should be reviewed with a priority to discontinue the cooperation with the complicit Israeli institutions, i.e., restructuring cooperation, rather than ending or leaving the project if possible. Tampere University should ensure a fair transition and take responsibility for any costs involved in changing the projects and compensate for researchers’ losses. Advocate that the European Commission exclude Israeli partners from European Union-funded programmes and projects. We hope that Tampere University will follow the example of the University of Helsinki and endorse the Belgian universities’ call for the suspension of the Association Agreement between Israel and the European Union.”
The call requests a full suspension of Israel from Horizon Europe research programs.
The call urges the University to “Facilitate and advocate for the freedom of movement and the continued study and research of Palestinian students and academics, including through encouraging cooperation with Palestinian institutions, enabling mobility to Tampere University, and developing substantive and accessible online learning opportunities. Also, we urge the university to consider offering tuition fee scholarships or waivers for students of Palestinian universities and further supporting and developing the protection actions of programs like Scholars at Risk.”
According to the statement, the call aligns with Tampere University’s values of building “a sustainable world” and “developing solutions to improve human health and wellbeing, societal resilience, and environmental sustainability” (Strategy of Tampere University 2030), and its aim “to address global challenges, such as the ecological crisis and threats to democracy” (Tampere University’s International strategy 2030).
For the statement’s authors, “upholding the university’s stated values of societal responsibility and courage to tackle the world’s vicious problems has to mean advocating for human rights and refusing complicity in the colonial and genocidal actions of the Israeli state that are attacking the fundamental conditions of Palestinian life and of Palestinian research and higher education.”
TATTE published a similar statement last September, titled “Statement in Support of Ending Institutional Collaboration with Israeli Academic Institutions.”
TATTE also published a statement in May 2024, titled “TATTE’s statement of support for the Palestine solidarity camp at Tampere University,” where they thanked the students for erecting solidarity camps on campus and urged colleagues and the entire university community to visit the encampment, to learn from the students and to “find ways to respond to their call for action and their example of solidarity.”
IAM noted before that Palestinians and pro-Palestinians are taking over professional academic institutions.
The statement’s requests are indicative of this, when it urges to “Facilitate and advocate for the freedom of movement and the continued study and research of Palestinian students and academics, including through encouraging cooperation with Palestinian institutions” and “urge the university to consider offering tuition fee scholarships or waivers for students of Palestinian universities.”
Another example is when the statement contains claims that while the University holds values of building “a sustainable world” and “developing solutions to improve human health… and environmental sustainability,” or the “global challenges, such as the ecological crisis and threats to democracy,” however, for the authors, it “has to mean advocating for human rights and refusing complicity in the colonial and genocidal actions of the Israeli state that are attacking the fundamental conditions of Palestinian life and of Palestinian research and higher education.”
Without acknowledging the brutality of Hamas in Gaza and the “pay to slay” policy of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, the TATTE statement provides a twisted reality of what Israel is facing.
The growing tendency of some academic groups—such as TATTE and similar collectives—to adopt sharply anti-Israel positions requires a response that is both principled and grounded in academic norms. The first step is to emphasize the distinction between legitimate scholarly criticism and ideologically driven activism that singles out Israel in ways inconsistent with how other states are treated.
When academic organizations adopt resolutions, statements, or syllabi that portray Israel as uniquely malevolent while ignoring regional context, internal plurality, or comparable human-rights concerns elsewhere, they risk abandoning scholarly rigor for advocacy.
The various resolutions are based on selective framing and a lack of comparative standards.
Many anti-Israel academic statements rely on selective historical narratives, excluding key facts such as the regional security environments, internal Israeli political diversity, or the role of non-state armed actors. A critical reply should underscore that serious academic inquiry requires comparative analysis and methodological consistency, not exceptionalism applied only to Israel.
When academic groups adopt activist positions as institutional stances, they risk undermining academic freedom. Scholars who dissent may feel marginalized or professionally threatened. A balanced response should assert that universities and scholarly associations exist to uphold the purity of ideas, not to enforce a single ideological line on complex international conflicts.
Strong anti-Israeli postures often create a hostile climate for Israeli scholars, students, and Jewish students and faculty who hold mainstream or centrist views. Responses should foreground that academic spaces must be inclusive and safe for all members, regardless of nationality or identity, and that one-sided statements can unintentionally fuel bias or social pressure.
Academic leadership in Finland should take note.
REFERENCES:
Statement on ending institutional cooperation with Israeli universities and other complicit organizations
Tampereen yliopiston tieteentekijät – TATTE
25.11.2025
The current situation in Palestine demands action. The Israeli state’s destructive actions in Gaza since October 2023, in which more than 68,000 Palestinians have been killed, have been recognized as a genocide by the UN Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well recognized as a plausible genocide by the International Court of Justice and has resulted in war crimes charges from the International Criminal Court. It has also been condemned as a genocide by leading international civil society organizations from Amnesty International to B’Tselum to the International Association of Genocide Scholars. The current ‘ceasefire’ has not ended the killing, and starvation due to the Israeli refusals to allow aid to enter Gaza continues. More broadly, the longstanding patterns of colonization, occupation, dispossession, blockade, and apartheid that preceded the genocide in Gaza continue across the Palestinian territories, including within the 1948 borders of the Israeli state where Palestinian citizens face political repression and ‘second-class’ citizenship status.
In such conditions, research and higher education cannot continue as normal. All universities in Gaza have been destroyed, and many academics and students have been killed. Palestinian universities and academics in the West Bank operate under repression, surveillance, forced closures, restricted mobility, and military raids, and Palestinian students and academics within the state of Israel’s 1948 borders face unequal treatment and the risk of imprisonment when speaking out.Israeli universities are tightly woven into the Israeli state’s settler colonial project, including through research on military and dual use technologies, the development of legal and technical expertise needed for state projects, the training of military personnel, the production of ideological justifications and rationales, and the policing of dissent, especially by Palestinian students and academics.¹
In response, Palestinian civil society, including scholarly associations and trade unions, have called for international solidarity, especially in the form of boycotts and disinvestment campaigns that would pressure the Israeli state to end its colonial and genocidal actions and create the conditions in which genocide, occupation, blockade, and apartheid would end, political prisoners would be set free, and Palestinian refugees would be able to return to their land as full political equals.
In this statement, Tatte joins the call for an academic boycott of complicit Israeli universities and urges Tampere University to end cooperation with complicit Israeli academic institutions, incorporate human rights criteria into its institutional partnership decisions, take a stand against the inclusion of Israeli institutions in EU-funded initiatives, and to divest from companies complicit in human rights violations. In joining this call, we are following the important leadership of so many students and academic colleagues here in Tampere and around Finland who have been demanding a response to the genocide in Gaza. We join with our Tieteentekijät colleagues at the Helsinki University Association of Researchers and Teachers (HUART) who took an important stand earlier this fall, as well as the calls for the academic boycott within the student union organizations, including by the National Union of University Students in Finland (SYL), the Student Union of the University of Helsinki (HYY), and the Student Union of Tampere University (TREY). We also join academic unions around the world who have taken similar stands, such as the Teachers Union of Ireland, NTL at the University of Oslo, UCU Cambridge, and the National Tertiary Education Union in Australia.
Specifically, we call on Tampere University to:
- Incorporate substantive human rights criteria into the due diligence process for all institutional partnership decisions, and, accordingly, to refrain from establishing any institutional partnerships with Israeli universities and other complicit organizations.
- Cease institutional research cooperation with Israeli universities, including by suspending cooperation in future projects. There should be clear guidelines discouraging institutional research cooperation, and no new Horizon Europe projects that include Israeli academic institutions should be started. Following the example of Ghent University, any such ongoing projects should be reviewed with a priority to discontinue the cooperation with the complicit Israeli institutions, i.e., restructuring cooperation, rather than ending or leaving the project if possible. Tampere University should ensure a fair transition and take responsibility for any costs involved in changing the projects and compensate for researchers’ losses.
- Advocate that the European Commission exclude Israeli partners from European Union-funded programmes and projects. We hope that Tampere University will follow the example of the University of Helsinki and endorse the Belgian universities’ call for the suspension of the Association Agreement between Israel and the European Union. The call to move towards a full suspension of the State of Israel from the research programmes of the Horizon Europe framework programme has already been supported by the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers – Eurodoc and by SYL.
- Create clear guidelines banning investments in companies that are complicit in human rights violations (in Palestine, as well as in any other territory or conflict). These guidelines should also cover indirect investments made through equity funds.
- Facilitate and advocate for the freedom of movement and the continued study and research of Palestinian students and academics, including through encouraging cooperation with Palestinian institutions, enabling mobility to Tampere University, and developing substantive and accessible online learning opportunities. Also, we urge the university to consider offering tuition fee scholarships or waivers for students of Palestinian universities and further supporting and developing the protection actions of programs like Scholars at Risk.
Our call focuses on institutions, not individuals. Nothing in this call should be interpreted to prevent individual-level scientific cooperation with academics who are based at Israeli institutions, unless those individuals hold positions officially representing the institution, such as a Dean or Rector.
This call aligns with Tampere University’s own values, and taking these steps could strengthen the university’s credibility as it pursues its strategic goals of building “a sustainable world” and “developing solutions to improve human health and wellbeing, societal resilience, and environmental sustainability” (Strategy of Tampere University 2030), as well as its aim “to address global challenges, such as the ecological crisis and threats to democracy” (Tampere University’s International strategy 2030). In our view, upholding the university’s stated values of societal responsibility and courage to tackle the world’s vicious problems has to mean advocating for human rights and refusing complicity in the colonial and genocidal actions of the Israeli state that are attacking the fundamental conditions of Palestinian life and of Palestinian research and higher education.
In making this call, Tatte also commits to taking the following steps:
- Undertake a review of our investments to ensure we are not currently investing money in companies that are complicit in human rights violations, including especially those companies that are complicit in illegal Israeli settlement activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as listed in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights database. We have no direct investments in such companies, and the review will focus on indirect investments.
- Create guidelines for the investment of our funds that prohibit investment in companies complicit in human rights violations and support ethical and sustainable investment.
- Explore further possibilities for solidarity and direct support for Palestinian scholars and academics, as well as support for Palestinian-led initiatives in strengthening the conditions for academic research and higher education.
- Encourage other unions and local associations to undertake similar processes with their own actions and investments.
Approved by Tatte’s 2025 Autumn Assembly, November 20
¹For a detailed account, see Maya Wind (2024) Towers of Ivory and Steel. Verso.
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Statement in Support of Ending Institutional Collaboration with Israeli Academic Institutions
Helsingin yliopiston tieteentekijät – HYT
03.09.2025
Statement approved in HUART additional general meeting on Sep 2 2025.
The current situation in Palestine is critical and demands action from all sectors. Since October 2023, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, hundreds of thousands injured, and vast swaths of Gaza’s infrastructure have been destroyed. Israel has blocked humanitarian aid and basic goods distribution to the Gaza Strip, creating a man-made famine.
We believe the University of Helsinki has both the responsibility and opportunity to meaningfully contribute to diplomatic efforts to force the Israeli government to end the war now, and bring an end to the genocide, blockade and occupation of Palestine, by joining the rapidly growing calls at an EU level for an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Moreover, it is the responsibility of the University to uphold and implement its own ethical guidelines, rather than shifting responsibility to individual researchers.
The situation facing academics and universities in Palestine
In recent months, every university and college in the Gaza Strip has been demolished by Israeli airstrikes. Most academic staff and students have been displaced, and many have been killed. The UN has described this as “scholasticide” – an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system.
In the West Bank, universities operate under a constant state of siege, facing closures and military raids. Entry for international students and staff is strictly controlled by Israeli authorities, and the ability of Palestinian academics to travel abroad or participate in international collaborations is subject to Israeli approval.
Israeli academic institution’s involvement in war
Israeli institutions of higher education have long been complicit in sustaining the occupation and enabling war crimes. Many maintain close ties with the Israeli military, contributing to the development of weapons, legal frameworks, and strategic doctrines that support the ongoing colonization and violence. Several universities offer special programs for active-duty soldiers and collaborate directly with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). For detailed documentation on this point, we refer to the work of scholar Maya Wind, author of the book Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom.
University of Helsinki’s Ethical Guidelines and academic freedom
As members of the University of Helsinki community, we all commit to the University’s Ethical Guidelines, which emphasise the promotion of universal human rights and the defense of academic freedom in all university operations. On the basis of these guidelines, certain aspects of work with institutions from Russia and China have been restricted.
The University of Helsinki has numerous connections to Israeli universities that are deeply and inextricably embedded in Israel’s acts of war in Gaza. Maintaining such links amounts to being complicit in the ongoing genocide and innumerable war crimes in Gaza.
We believe the higher education sector has a moral responsibility to abstain from and actively reject complicity in such abuses. In line with this ethical obligation, HUART calls on the University of Helsinki to support the BDS 1-led academic boycott campaign, which seeks an institutional boycott of Israeli universities..
Support for staff members and researchers at University of Helsinki
Recently, 740 staff members and researchers at the University of Helsinki signed a petition in support of an academic boycott of Israeli institutions. We believe there is an even greater number of staff at the University who support such action, and as a trade union representing over 1600 members of our staff community, we are adding our voice to the campaign.
The university leadership’s response failed to take the demands seriously and avoids any responsibility or commitment to action. Moreover, it is worrying how university leaders have responded to members of the university community (both staff and students) who have raised this issue during the past year and a half. As a trade union, we are concerned by the claims that those who share information about the academic boycott or the situation in Palestine have faced threats and intimidation, and that requests to meet and engage in dialogue have been ignored, and peaceful protests have been shut down. Even more worrying are the reports that staff members’ attempts to communicate information about the boycott have been met with invitations to disciplinary hearings under the threat of a written warning, and the leadership has attempted to isolate the employees by aggressively scheduling the hearings and by limiting the representation the employee is allowed to bring with them. This pattern of repression is deeply troubling and undermines the values of academic freedom, open discussion, and democratic participation within the university.
Therefore, we reiterate that the University of Helsinki should:
- Immediately revoke the two existing exchange agreements with Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and not establish others;
- Cease research cooperation with Israeli universities, including:
- Suspend cooperation in future projects. New Horizon Europe projects that include Israeli institutions should not be started 2;
- Review ongoing projects case-by-case. The priority would be to exclude the Israeli institution rather than ending or leaving the project, and UH should bear the responsibility of the costs that changing/editing projects might imply and compensate for researchers’ losses. See an example of this from Ghent University;
- Develop clear guidelines discouraging cooperation, in support of a fair transition, and urge the European Commission to exclude Israeli partners from EU-funded programmes and projects. In line with this, UH should endorse the Belgian universities’ call for the suspension of the Association Agreement between Israel and the European Union.
- Create clear guidelines banning UH investments in companies that are complicit in human rights violations (currently in Palestine, as well as in any other territory or conflict). These guidelines should also cover indirect investments made through equity funds.
- Facilitate and advocate the freedom movement of Palestinian students and academics between the Palestinian territories (Gaza, West Bank) and the University of Helsinki.
As a trade union, we view it as a moral, political, and professional obligation to stand in full solidarity with fellow academic workers and the Palestinian people who are victims of genocide. In calling for an institutional academic boycott, we join other unions who have taken a stand, including the Teachers’ Union of Ireland, the University and College Union (UCU) in the UK, and NTL at the University of Oslo.
In supporting an academic boycott, we join the calls already made by the Student Union of the University of Helsinki (HYY) and the National Union of University Students (SYL) in 2024 for implementing academic boycotts of Israeli institutions.
We emphasize that this boycott targets institutions, not individuals. Academic collaboration with individuals who openly oppose Israel’s occupation and war policies will not be affected. However, individuals acting in official institutional capacities, such as rectors and deans, may still fall under the scope of the boycott.
HUART Commitments
While calling on the University of Helsinki to take steps to undertake an academic boycott of Israeli institutions, HUART also commits to ensuring our own operations meet the standards we demand from the University.
Therefore, HUART is undertaking the following steps:
- Undertake a review of our investment portfolio to ensure we are not currently investing money in companies that are complicit in human rights violations. As a guide, we refer to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights database. A first review of our investments has found no investments in companies listed in the OHCHR’s database.
- We will create guidelines for the investment of our funds that prohibit investment in companies complicit in human rights violations and support ethical and sustainable investment.
- We will encourage other unions and local associations to undertake similar processes with their own investments.
Finally, HUART reaffirms its opposition to all forms of discrimination, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. Criticism of the State of Israel is not antisemitism.
1 The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is a Palestinian-led global campaign that seeks to apply non-violent pressure on Israel to comply with international law and respect Palestinian rights. It calls for the end of Israeli occupation, equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, BDS advocates for institutional boycotts, divestment from companies complicit in human rights abuses, and sanctions against the Israeli state.
2 Recently, the European Commission voted on a proposal for the partial suspension of Israel’s participation in Horizon Europe, specifically under the Accelerator program of the European Innovation Council (EIC). The EIC Accelerator is a funding programme aimed at start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This partial suspension targets start-ups and small businesses working on disruptive innovations and emerging technologies with potential dual-use applications. It would not impact the participation of Israeli universities and researchers in collaborative projects and research activities under Horizon Europe. Therefore, the proposal appears insufficient, and it would not even affect UH-related Horizon projects directly. However, to the date (2nd Sep) the proposal has not yet been approved.
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TATTE’s statement of support for the Palestine solidarity camp at Tampere University
Tampereen yliopiston tieteentekijät – TATTE
15.05.2024
In recent weeks, students around the world have been raising their voices to demand an end to the violence being inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza and calling on universities to understand and to end their complicity with genocide and occupation in Palestine. Here in Tampere, students have set up a Palestine solidarity camp in front of the Main Building on the city center campus.
Responding to calls from Palestinian academics and unions last fall, TATTE has called for a ceasefire and for an end to occupation and apartheid in Palestine, and we welcome the students’ continued action and leadership in this moment, when so much is at stake.
This kind of activism is an important part of university life that deserves protection and support. We thank the students for leading the way in pushing the university community to reckon with our responsibilities, and for being the critical voices that many of us as researchers and teachers seek to support in our work. We urge our members and the entire university community to visit the encampment, to learn from and about what the students are doing, and to find ways to respond to their call for action and their example of solidarity. You can also find out more about the camp, current donation needs, etc. from their instagram account: @tuni_leikkauksiavastaan.
israel-academia-monitor.com 