1,256 students and graduates of the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University of Morocco have signed a petition demanding an end to the partnerships that the university maintains with Israeli academic institutions.
In a press release, received this Thursday in Yabiladi, the signatories also call on professors and students from other Moroccan universities to join the movement against what they call “academic standardization”.
This is not the first attempt by UM6P students to put an end to this academic standardization. In May, students and alumni submitted a letter to the university’s presidency, calling for the termination of its partnerships with “Israeli institutions involved in the occupation, apartheid, war crimes and genocide against the Palestinian people.
Although they were invited to a dialogue and a meeting with a university representative, the administration refused to end these partnerships, the statement added.
“This initiative stems from our desire to ensure that the university positions itself on the right side of History and is based on the fact that we, students and laureates, represent the university and that it in turn represents us. »
The signatories also state that they reject “agreements between our university and its Israeli partners, which are implicated in the occupation, apartheid, war crimes and genocide in Gaza.”
“We also affirm our determination to continue the fight by all legitimate means and to express our firm rejection of the continuation of these partnerships,” the press release further mentions.
According to these students, UM6P would have established the “largest number of partnerships and hosted visits by high-level delegations” from Israeli institutions. The university even created a special position, “Chargé d’affaires to the president in charge of Israeli partnerships.”
These partnerships, the statement details, include eight Israeli universities and higher education institutions, Israeli companies and research centers, such as: Bar-Ilan University, Ben-Gurion University, Tel Aviv University, the Academic College of Western Galilee, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion), Reichman University (Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center) and Sapir College.
Last May, professors and employees of Abdelmalek Saadi University in Tetouan signed a similar petition, demanding the cancellation of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between their university and that of Haifa in Israel in September 2022.
This petition was signed by more than 600 faculty and staff from 12 academic institutions.
