Newsletter - April 2026
In this newsletter:
- LSP action day
- Student demo CvB
- Book talk Dr. Areej Sabbagh-Khoury
- Monthly Walk Out and Brief and Loud Protest
- Organize boycott info session in your department (FNV)
- Upcoming events: Calendar
LSP Action Day
Monday 11 May 15:00-18:00
End academic complicity, cut the ties, take action against scholasticide.
For 2.5 years, Israel has systematically targeted university infrastructure, students, and academics for elimination - in Palestine, of course, but also in Lebanon and Iran. Israeli universities are active participants in the state’s crimes and have been for 75 years. Yet, Leiden maintains its institutional ties with them.
Enough. We have one clear demand: cut the ties. Join us on Monday 11th May, for a panel discussion and a demonstration and let leiden management know that we reject their inaction and refuse to be made complicit with genocide, human rights violation, and the murder of our counterparts in Palestine and beyond.
15:15-16:30 Panel discussion, Lipsius (room tba): The case for an academic boycott, still, now more than ever.
16:30-17:00 March to Rapenburg 70
17:00-18:00 Demo in front of CvB office
We would love for people to give a hand in organizing and promoting the event! Please let us know ([email protected]) if you would like to help us spread the word. We will hold a flyering session in front of different buildings on Monday 20 April and 4 May at 15:00.
On Thursday 30 April, 14:00-16:00 in Lipsius, we will come together for an informal banner painting session with tea and snacks. Please send us an email at [email protected] for the room number!
Student demo CvB
On Monday 30 March, a group of students gathered outside of the University Council meeting room and waited for the members of the College van Bestuur to arrive. They gave a speech shaming our administrators for the scandalous delay of Leiden University in taking any meaningful action concerning ties with complicit Israeli institutions. Read more here: https://www.mareonline.nl/nieuws/tijd-voor-de-hamvraag-waar-blijft-het-advies-over-israel
Book talk Dr. Areej Sabbagh-Khoury
Colonizing Palestine: the Zionist Left and the making of the Palestinian Nakba
Wednesday 15 April (tomorrow!)
17:00-19:00 Wijnhaven 3.60, the Hague
Book talk by Dr. Areej Sabbagh-Khoury (Department of Sociology, University of California Berkeley, and Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies), moderated by Dr. Sai Englert.
Colonizing Palestine (published by Stanford University Press) examines the formation of settler-colonial hierarchies in Mandatory Palestine and the crucial role played by socialist Zionism in shaping the conditions that culminated in the 1948 Nakba. Drawing on a meticulous and historically grounded analysis of eight Zionist and Israeli archives—examining two periods, from the mid-1930s to the 1950s and from the 1970s to the 1990s—the book traces how practices of domination, dispossession, and territorial control were developed, institutionalized, and normalized over time. Challenging conventional narratives that portray the socialist Zionist left as a force of coexistence, the book demonstrates how this political tradition was deeply implicated in the consolidation of settler-colonial logics. By examining the material and symbolic mechanisms of land appropriation, population transfer, and legal-political governance, Colonizing Palestine reveals how the structures established during this formative period continue to shape the sociopolitical landscape of Israel/Palestine today—including enduring patterns of dispossession and resistance.
The author, Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on political and historical sociology, particularly in relation to colonialism, Indigenous studies, and memory. She is the author of Colonizing Palestine: The Zionist Left and the Making of the Palestinian Nakba (Stanford University Press, 2023). Her work has been widely published on settler colonialism, citizenship, political sociology, and Israel/Palestine in journals such as Sociological Theory, Politics & Society, Theory and Society, Current Sociology, and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Sabbagh-Khoury has received research grants and fellowships from the H.F. Guggenheim Foundation, the Palestinian American Research Center, Fulbright, and the Israel Science Foundation (ISF). She is a member of the General Assembly and the Academic Research Committee of Mada al-Carmel – The Arab Center for Applied Social Research. She is also a member of Academia for Equality. In May 2021, she co-founded the Emergency Helpline, and she is a co-founder of the Palestinian Carmel Forum, a think tank for political and social action in Israel.
Monthly Walk Out and Brief and Loud Protest
Monday 4 May 2026 12:00 - 12:07 Agora Building
On the first Monday of May just before the alarm sounds at noon, we will lay down our work and walk out of the Agora Building. In front of the building we will make as much noise as we can for 5 minutes and call for justice in Palestine, to cut the ties with Israeli universities and an end to the wars. This monthly protest is part of a nationwide protest of wijwerkenhiernietaanmee.nl. Please join us if you can and bring your pots and pans.
Organize boycott info session in your department (FNV)
As most of you know, the labour unions FNV and AOb have co-organized a petition for an academic boycott of complicit Israeli institutions (more info: https://www.fnv.nl/cao-sector/overheid/onderwijs-onderzoek/leiden-boycot ). If you feel you and/or your colleagues in your department still have some questions about this action and are hesitant about whether to sign or not, you can organize a Q&A session. A member of the union and a member of LSP will come to your location and answer questions about the nature of the complicity of Israeli academic institutions, implications of a boycott for colleagues working in a research collaboration with Israeli institutions, the possibilities to still work together with Israeli scholars, the opportunities and limitations of the role of the union on this topic, and any other questions you may still have.
Please contact the LU FNV representatives at [email protected] .
