Palestine in Focus - Forms of Protest: Moving a University
In this tenth session of Palestine in Focus, we will focus on two forms of protest aimed at convincing the universities to cut their ties with Israeli universities.
We start the session with student protests. We will show the 34-minute documentary Class Outside, about the protests in Amsterdam in 2024. This film, directed by Aylin Kuryel, Deniz Buga, and Fırat Yücel, is a collective video diary capturing everyday moments of resistance, solidarity, and conflict, following the student encampments in Amsterdam during May 2024 and the various subsequent actions at other places.
One outcome of the ongoing protests by students and staff has been that Dutch universities have installed ethical committees. Subsequently, some steps have been taken, but no Dutch university has effectively cut its ties with their Israeli counterparts.
Following the film screening, we will turn to the recently published Expert Report on Israeli-Dutch Academic Ties, by a group of researchers from Dutch universities. This independent report, drawing on legal, political, ethical, historical, and sociological expertise, now makes the case that suspending all institutional collaborations is the only responsible path. Pepijn Brandon, researcher at the IISH and professor of Global Economic and Social History at Vrije Universiteit, will discuss whether this report could mark a turning point.
The bigger questions are: what forms of protest are effective? What is needed to move not a mountain but a university? And what lessons can be drawn from earlier social movements?
Practical
Date: 6 October 2025
Time: 16:00
Place: IISG, Cruquiusweg 31, Amsterdam
Entrance: Free admission, but please send an email to event@iisg.nl if you want to join.
Pepijn Brandon is researcher at the IISH and professor of Global Economic and Social History at Vrije Universiteit and specializes in the history of capitalism, war and economic development, and slavery.
Aylin Kuryel is an Assistant Professor in Literary and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam. Her research areas are nationalism, image politics, aesthetics/resistance, and the politics of emotions.
Fırat Yücel is a documentary maker and film editor based in Amsterdam and Istanbul. He collaborates with Aylin Kuryel under Image Acts to produce essayistic documentaries and curates video series for Altyazı Fasikül: Free Cinema in Istanbul.
Deniz Buga was born in Istanbul and currently lives in Amsterdam. Their film, video, and photography works primarily focus on urbanism, minority politics, and queer stances.
