To members of the UM, UCM and Zuyd Communities;

Over the last year, Free Palestine Maastricht (FPM), has organised events in the name of Palestinian rights, social justice and Palestinian awareness with varying associations. Whilst being noble causes permitted to proceed, the zero-sum narrative applied to the Israel-Palestine Conflict is deeply hurtful.

On April 23rd, FPM (+ Feminists of Maastricht & Black Lives Matter Maastricht) organised a protest with calls to ''Globalize the Intifada'' and calls to consider ''Intifada Revolution'' to be the only solution to Israeli existence. Other chants include: ''Smash the Settler Zionist State'', ''We dont want no Zionists here'', ''Long live the Intifada'', ''Israel is an apartheid/terror State'' and ''Fro

FoM & BLM Maastricht are funded by the University. Meaning, the University as an institution is indirectly complicit in this protest and its calls for massacre or genocide.

To elaborate, the narratives pushed are antagonistic towards Israel, Israelis and indirectly, Jews under the label of ''Anti-Zionist discourse''. This does not achieve peace nor solutions, rather, a deeper conflict that is exported to our Campus. 

Multiple antisemitic incidents and harrassments have been recorded in Maastricht since May 2021, going as far as to alienating a Jewish student so bad that they dropped out. Jewish students have felt excluded from movements and groups based on their identity and presumptions made about such as pushed by FPM.

Moreover, FPM has hosted numerous lectures and workshops on Campus grounds, in which antisemitism was described as a ''Zionist tool'', where the Holocaust is 'exaggerated and employed by Zionists to fool the West' along with the direct calls to ''end Israel and Zionism''.

FPM has also organised protests, which have featured many instances of direct incitement to violence and glorifications of convicted terrorists in the name of Palestinian rights. 

If you desire a full list of problematic, threatening or inciteful behaviour, please contact the person who sent you this petition.

SOLUTIONS

• Calls for the University to make a public statement of denunciation of violence and inciteful behaviour in seeking peace and justice in the Middle-East.
• Calls for FPM to be suspended (either temporarily or permanently) from holding and organising events or actions on University premises.
• Calls for deeper commitment from the University to accommodate Jewish and Israeli students and organise multi-cultural meetings and events.