Dear Executive Board of Amsterdam University of the arts,

Thank you for your recent message on the situation in Gaza. We acknowledge your recognition of the horror and urgency of what is unfolding, and we value your intent to create space for dialogue within the university.

However, we are deeply concerned by what your statement omits — and by what it subtly reframes.

Despite growing consensus among international legal scholars, human rights organizations, and UN experts identifying genocidal characteristics in Israel’s actions in Gaza, your message avoids naming a perpetrator. This deliberate vagueness erases the structures of violence at play and undermines meaningful accountability. It also overlooks the tireless work students at the Academy of Theater and Dance have done to educate, organize, and mobilize around these injustices — often in the face of silence or resistance from the very institutions that should support them.

You write of the importance of “respecting opinions” and avoiding discrimination — values we of course share. Yet the inclusion of a caution against antisemitism, when no such incidents have occurred in our student organizing, feels like a veiled framing of legitimate protest as potentially hateful. This subtle gesture, whether intended or not, delegitimizes the student movement and distracts from the urgent matter at hand: the ongoing mass killing, displacement, and destruction of Palestinian life.

We also wish to stress that under international law — including the Genocide Convention — civilians have a responsibility to prevent genocide. That includes students, artists, educators, and institutions of culture. The university cannot claim to uphold human rights while remaining complicit through silence, neutrality, or vague moral symmetry. In the face of mass atrocity, neutrality is not impartiality — it is complicity.

In that spirit, we formally request that the Academy of Theatre and Dance and the wider AHK join PACBI (the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel). This would be a principled step toward aligning with international human rights standards and would also honor the students whose advocacy has been driven by care, integrity, and an unwavering commitment to justice.

We ask: If not now, when?

With respect,