Our EMET for Israel group at Brandeis, SAIPA (Students for Accuracy about Israeli and Palestinian Affairs) is supporting university president Fred Lawrence’s decision to suspend the partnership between Brandeis University and Al Quds University.
They are circulating an online petition supporting the decision, in the form of an open letter to the president. SAIPA wrote their letter in response to a recent initiative on campus to reinstate the partnership, which is spearheaded by the Brandeis University and Al Quds University Student Dialogue Initiative. Show your support for SAIPA and President Lawrence’s decision by signing the petition here!
The partnership between the two universities was formed in 2003. However, due to acts of hate and intolerance on the Al Quds campus, the partnership has been officially suspended as of November 18, 2013.
Al Quds University has been a hotbed of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic acts. As SAIPA notes in their petition, rallies have been held where students proudly displayed the Nazi salute, a professor was harassed after taking students on a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the Islamic Bloc (a Hamas recruitment group) set up an exhibit praising the attempted murder last summer of Rabbi Yehudah Glick. These, in addition to multiple other acts, have shown that Al Quds University is not an institution that Brandeis should be partnering with. In fact, the institution has proven itself to be in direct opposition to Brandeis’ core values of tolerance and coexistence.
Kol HaKavod to SAIPA for speaking the truth and supporting a strong pro-Israel agenda at Brandeis!
