Students opposing the war in Gaza began dismantling their protest camp at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland on Wednesday night, after the institution agreed to divest from three United Nations-listed Israeli companies. for its links to settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Trinity said it would proceed to divest as early as next month, and that its endowment fund would also look to divest other Israeli companies in the future.
“We fully understand the driving force behind the encampment on our campus and stand in solidarity with students in our horror at what is happening in Gaza,” the university said in a statement released Wednesday night.
“We abhor and condemn all violence and war, including the atrocities of October 7, the hostage taking and the continued ferocious and disproportionate attack on Gaza,” he added. “The humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the dehumanization of its people is obscene.”
The statement was approved by the university’s board of directors.
The Trinity protest, which began five days ago and remained peaceful, was organized by the students’ union and its branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement. The demonstration emerged as students across Europe staged pro-Palestinian sit-ins and protests against anti-Semitism at other universities on the continent, taking a similar approach to their counterparts in the United States.
Jenny Maguire, incoming president of Trinity’s student union, compared the calm atmosphere in the university’s Fellow’s Square, where students were already removing flags and tents in anticipation of the statement’s release, to violence at some American universities. , where police were deployed to clear some occupied buildings amid anti-war protests.
“The university was determined that he would be an example in the future,” Maguire said Wednesday night. “He refused to follow the United States’ example of bringing in the police and made it clear that he would not pursue anything like that here.”
Professor Eoin O’Sullivan, who led the university’s negotiation team, said: “I think the negotiations were very productive and fruitful, and I would congratulate the students for their participation in them.”
Support for the Palestinian cause is strong in Ireland, where many people compare Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian territories to centuries of British colonialism in their own country.
Ireland is also, along with Spain, one of the strongest supporters of the Palestinian cause in the European Union. Last month, the prime ministers of both governments, Simon Harris and Pedro Sánchez, said they would recognize a state of Palestine “when the time is right.”
Students who protested at Trinity said they were glad the university had met their demands, which included establishing a special working group to consider their future involvement with Israeli businesses, academic institutions and student exchanges. The university has also undertaken a plan to finance the tuition and accommodation of eight students from Gaza.
This week’s protest had forced the university to close the world-famous Book of Kells exhibition, where some of Ireland’s oldest and most valuable books (one of the university’s main sources of external income) are stored, along with university libraries and other facilities. Around a million tourists pay each year to visit the Kells exhibition.
Professor O’Sullivan said the review of Trinity’s ties to Israel and the wider Middle East would likely follow the model of a recent working group into the university’s own colonial legacy.
A major recommendation was to rename a university library previously named after philosopher Bishop George Berkeley, a renowned Trinity graduate who owned slaves during his years in the American colonies. It is now known on campus as Library X.