The president of Berlin’s Humboldt University is being criticized for tolerating the occupation of rooms by pro-Palestinian activists. Now she explains her reasons.
The President of Berlin’s Humboldt University (HU), Julia von Blumenthal, has defended her strategy of dialogue with pro-Palestinian occupiers of university premises.
“We have reached the limit with our tolerance because we are convinced that it is necessary to explore these limits to see whether we can still enter into a dialogue with the students,” said von Blumenthal on RBB Inforadio from Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg. It was possible to enter into a dialogue with one of the two student groups involved and to reach agreements, such as not to carry out any more graffiti.
On Thursday, however, a “decision was made from above” to have the police clear the occupied premises after about a day of protest. “We were (…) in a dialogue in that situation, and from our point of view we needed a little more time to see whether we could bring this dialogue to a conclusion ourselves or not,” said von Blumenthal. “We wanted to bring this attempt to an end ourselves. And so we had to break off the attempt at dialogue.”
University management relied on dialogue with occupiers
Pro-Palestinian activists occupied HU rooms on Wednesday in protest against Israel and in support of the Palestinians. The university administration initially tolerated this and relied on a dialogue with occupiers and scientists. On Thursday evening, the police cleared the occupied building. Science Senator Ina Czyborra (SPD) gave the order in agreement with Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU), von Blumenthal posted in the evening on the platform X (formerly Twitter). The CDU and SPD had criticized the temporary tolerance of the occupation.
“The question of evacuation was always an option for us,” explained the university president in the RBB interview on Friday morning. It was clear that the university had set a deadline for the occupiers. “We would have asked them to leave after this deadline, and if they had not left voluntarily, we would have evacuated too,” said von Blumenthal. “Of course. We would not have tolerated this occupation any longer than this evening.”
Source: Stern
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