Radboud professor reports Education Min. in escalating conflict over anti-Israel posts
Harry Pettit, an assistant professor at Radboud University in Nijmegen, has filed a criminal complaint against the caretaker Minister Gouke Moes of Education (BBB). According to Petit, the Minister abused his authority when he urged the university to press charges against Pettit and accused the professor of anti-Semitism.
In the WNL talk show Café Kockelmann last week, Moes said that Radboud University should press charges against Pettit because of anti-Israel posts the professor had made on X. If the university didn’t act, the Minister said he would consider taking steps up the “escalation ladder.”
“It is unacceptable for a Minister to publicly pressure the university to file a complaint and thus indirectly pressure the Public Prosecution Service (OM) to prosecute,” Adem Çatbaş, the lawyer representing Pettit, told the Volkskrant. “This not only undermines the rule of law, academic freedom, and freedom of expression, but is also a misdemeanor.”
Following the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, Pettit posted on X that this is not the time to stop resisting Israel, but to finish what the Palestinians started on 7 October 2023. He urged people to continue calling for boycotts on Israel, to isolate it until it is dismantled and Palestine is free.
When entering the Council of Ministers last week, Moes said that the post “raises suspicions” of a call for violence and could therefore constitute a criminal offense. He then said on television that the university should report Pettit.
Pettit posts daily on X about Gaza and participates in protests at the university. “I want to raise awareness that Palestinians, as an oppressed people, have the right to armed resistance,” he told the Volkskrant. “Calling October 7th a legitimate resistance operation doesn’t mean I condone everything that happened that day. But Israel wants us to see Hamas as barbarians who hate Jews. That’s a racist frame that serves to legitimize the genocide. It also obscures decades of oppression.”
With “October 7th,” Pettit refers to attacks Hamas committed on Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,137 people. Israel responded with large-scale bombings that lasted two years until a ceasefire deal was signed last week. In addition to attacks, Israel also did not let aid into the Gaza Strip in any significant amounts for months.
In the two years of what the United Nations calls the genocide in Gaza, Israel has killed at least 67,967 people, including at least 20,179 children. 463 people have starved to death in Gaza. 157 of them were children and babies. At least 170,179 people are injured, al Jazeera reported based on figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, updated on October 15.
