Victory For Free Speech on Palestine & Zionism at Delft University, Netherlands as I defied the ban on speaking on campus

 According to Rector Professor Timothy van der Hagen’s Lackey I Posed a Threat to Delft’s ‘open and inclusive’ community unlike Lockheed Martin’s Admiral James O Ellis

The Student Magazine at Delft's Report of My Visit!

The Rector’s anonymous lackey was curt, short and to the point

‘The views of the invited speaker goes against the values that TU Delft stands for: an open and inclusive community where everyone feels safe.’

There was of course no explanation. The Rector’s lackey merely referred to the guidelines for demonstrations on the TU Delft Campus and the Code of Conduct. ‘gatherings on the TU Delft premises in which these values are violated are not permitted.’

Tony Greenstein speaking on the steps of the library at Delft University

There was of course no explanation as to which parts of the Code had been infringed nor why. This is how bureaucracies work. I was banned for being a Jewish anti-Zionist. We could of course guess that my presence was as welcome at a university liked Delft as a ham sandwich in a synagogue! But this is mere speculation.

Admiral James O Ellis, a warmonger extraordinaire is welcomed to Delft by its Administration

Two weeks before I spoke Admiral James O Ellis, who was on the Board of Lockheed Martin (2004-2024) was invited to speak at Delft. Lockheed Martin is one of the largest arms companies in the world, whose fighter aircraft have been prominent in the shredding of children in Gaza and in committing genocide.

Tony Greenstein speaking on the steps of the library at Delft University

Ellis was considered a suitable speaker whose presence was quite compatible with the ‘values’ of their code of conduct. Clearly the code of conduct which I was held to be in potential breach of had nothing to say about warmongers and supporters of genocide.

I was only travelling to The Netherlands because an old friend, Sue Blackwell, who had been prominent in the launch of the Academic Boycott in Britain in 2005, was getting married to Egbert Harmsen. Both are involved in The Netherlands BDS. I let it be known that I was happy to speak to meetings while I was there and one was arranged at Delft University of Technology, the largest technical university in the country, ranked no. 49 in the world’s rankings.

Activists in the Palestine Collective at Delft therefore faced a dilemma, whether or not to go ahead. Understandably some were worried about attempts to victimise them but in the end it was decided that I would speak on the steps of their impressive library and that is what I did to a crowd of about 100 students.

In his profile the Rector of Delft, Professor van Der Hagen, stated:

The most important task of TU Delft is to make a contribution towards building a better society.

I felt sure that despite being professor nuclear physics he had a broad mind and would countermand his flunkeys.  It was not to be.

When I learnt that I was banned from speaking I decided to write Hagen an Open Letter which students distributed around campus. I’ve always believed in going to the organ grinder rather than the monkey.

I explained that there was a genocide taking place in Gaza with the murder of 16,000+ children about which Israeli soldiers have boasted. I also explained that the Netherlands has a long history of colonial war crimes and in banning speakers exposing Israel’s war crimes, in which his university is intimately involved, given its collaboration with Israeli universities, he wasn’t setting a good precedent.

I pointed out that I had recently brought out a book Zionism During the Holocaustwhich explains the relationship of the Zionist movement towards anti-Semitism and the Nazis during the holocaust.

It is this which Delft’s thought police are trying to suppress. Genocide in Gaza does not come from nowhere. Zionism has always been a movement of racial supremacy.

I pointed out that my book carries blurbs from Ilan Pappe, Professor of Middle East History at Exeter University; Richard Falk Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Professor of Global Law at Queen Mary College, London; Moshe Machover, Emeritus Professor at King’s College, London as well as Ken Loach, twice winner of the Palme d’Or. All the aforementioned academics are Jewish and two of them are Israeli.

I felt sure that the good professor would take note and rescind my banning. I also pointed out that famous Jews such as Einstein, Hannah Arendt and Sigmund Freud had opposed the nationalist madness of Zionism in their time and warned of the consequences.

I also pointed out that contrary to the usual jibe of ‘anti-Semitism’ which is directed against opponents of Zionism, it is the anti-Semites themselves who are the best friends of Zionism. Indeed it was leading Nazis who were most fulsome in support of Zionism, because they both shared the belief that Jews did not belong in Germany. I quoted Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi Party’s theoretician, who was hanged as a war criminal at Nuremberg, who wrote in 1919 that

‘Zionism must be vigorously supported in order to encourage a significant number of German Jews to leave for Palestine or other destinations’

Mientje Meijer - the leader of the sewing girls strike

I pointed out that in Netherlands during the Nazi occupation, 75% of the Jewish population was exterminated. This was despite the fact that in February 1941 Dutch workers staged the Amsterdam General Strike, the only strike in Nazi occupied Europe against the deportations. The working class of The Netherlands was magnificent but not so the Dutch state. The strike was savagely repressed with 389 being deported to Mauthausen concentration camp where most died.

Dutch Nazi Collaborators from the NSB

The Dutch state, the Blue Police and its academic functionaries, collaborated extensively with the Nazi occupiers. The Dutch civil service produced an identity card which was almost impossible to forge making the life of Jews in hiding extremely difficult.  The Dutch State adopted the Aryan Paragraph which deprived Dutch Jews of citizenship and allowed the deportations to be legally carried out. Jewish Supreme Court judge Lodewijk Visser was removed without protest from fellow judges from the Court by the Nazis.

In The Netherlands the Nazis set up a Jewish Council, the Joodsche Raad,under David Cohen, a leading Zionist official and Abraham Asscher. They assiduously compiled lists on Jews to be deported and carried out the Nazi instructions faithfully.

After the war Willy Lages, Commander of the German Security Police, was asked ‘How was the Jewish Council used?’ to which he replied, ‘In every possible way.’ To the question ‘Did you find them easy to work with?’ he responded, ‘Very easy, indeed.’

By way of contrast in France, where the Communists led the resistance and organised the rescue of Jewish children in particular, 75% of the Jews were saved. In Belgium half the Jews were saved. In both of these countries the Judenrat were forcibly prevented from operating and in Belgium its leader Robert Holcinger was executed by the resistance. Tragically the Joodsche Raad was not terrorised.

The Rector of Delft Professor Timothy van der Hagen 

I explained all this to Rector van der Hagen but to no avail. I pointed out that his own University, Delft had a magnificent record.

Its students were the first to protest and strike on 25 November 1940 against the Nazi order 1940 barring the employment of 6 Jewish professors. When Professor Joseph Jitta was barred from giving his final lecture, the students decided to boycott his replacement. But as this report explains

‘While the Rector tried to prevent the strike the next day, the lecture hall seats on 25 November were virtually empty.’

It seems that the current Rector at Delft has a predecessor who did everything in his power to prevent solidarity by the students with a Jewish professor. The parallels go even further. His worthy predecessor did all he could to bar Jews from Delft’s campus and Prof. Hagan has approved the banning of a Jewish anti-Zionist. 

A plaque to Frans van Hasselt, a Delft student murdered by the Nazis in Buchenwald - the present Rector has ignored the history of the anti-Nazi struggle at Delft in favour of wining and dining arms merchants

Most Jews in Europe before the holocaust were anti-Zionist. One of the reasons that the Zionists say little about Anne Frank is because in her diaries she didn’t dream of going to Palestine but living in a free Netherlands.

One of the University’s students, Frans van Hasselt, who inspired the strike with a rousing speech, was arrested by the Nazis the following April. He was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp where he died.

Dutch fascist leader Geert Wilders is welcome at Delft

I also asked Van Der Hagen whether in view of the ban on me he would also ban Geert Wilders from campus. But I guess not as it would appear that it is only Jewish anti-Zionists and supporters of the Palestinians, not fascists who are banned.

I also explained to Professor Hagen that the Nazis began with ethnic cleansing and ended with genocide and that is now the path that the Israeli state is taking with the complicity of the Dutch State.

I quoted Heinrich Heine who once remarked that ‘those who burn books will in the end burn people.’ It turned out to be prophetic and I offered to send him a copy of my book in order that he might have the opportunity of burning it.

I ended my letter by thanking Rector Magnificus Van der Hagen for what he and his flunkeys had done.

If I had been allowed to speak on campus perhaps 50 people would have heard me. As a result of your actions hundreds if not thousands will.

On Monday morning I arrived early on campus to meet with the organisers and have lunch. At close to 1 pm the meeting began on the steps of the library since we had been barred from any meeting rooms. About 100 students stopped to listen to this hastily organised meeting, literally at one day’s notice. I was introduced by Sue Blackwell who also finished the meeting. I took questions from anyone who wanted to ask one. Unfortunately so far only half an hour of the meeting has been caught on film though more may be available later on.

Tony Greenstein speaking from the steps of Delf's library

I also sold over 20 of my books to students who were interested in learning the history of the holocaust that is not taught in the Dutch or Western education systems. How the Zionists, who never hesistate to use the Jewish holocaust against the Palestinians and their supporters, were a quisling movement who betrayed the Jews of Europe.

I ended my speech to the students by saying that although Israel claims it inherits the memory of the Jews who died in the holocaust in reality it inherits the memory of those who killed them. That today, just as in the past, it is the anti-Semites above all who love Israel – from Geert Wilders in The Netherlands, to Marine Le Pen in France to Germany’s Alternative for Germany.

After the meeting two Jewish Zionist students came up to me. They didn’t seem particularly afraid for their safety and asked me the usual Zionist talking points – why there were no Arab democracies and about the collaboration of the Mufti of Jerusalem with Hitler.  My response was simply that US imperialism which backs Israel has done its best to ensure that democracy doesn’t exist in the Middle East as their main interest is oil. Israel has helped them in that task. As for the Mufti, well he was appointed by Britain’s Zionist High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel in 1921 despite coming fourth in elections.

It wasn’t the Palestinians who elected him but the British and the Zionists! Nonetheless it was a common feature of the struggle against colonialism that the resistance adopts the position of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ although in fact thousands of Palestinians did serve in the British army during the war, unlike the Zionists who until near the end abstained from the war effort.

I also asked how it was that the Zionist terror organisation, the Stern Gang made not one, but two offers of military co-operation to the Nazis?  One of their leaders, Yitzhak Shamir twice became Prime Minister of Israel and today the pro-Nazi leader, Yair Stern, is honoured in Israel. Postage stamps in his honour, streets are named after him.  There is even a town, Kochav Yair.

However this meeting was important because it said that come hell or high water we will not allow the Dutch state and its academic servants, who collaborated so willingly with the Nazis during the war, to prevent our right to speak out. I have made it clear that I am happy to come back and speak if the students wish me to and to speak at other universities in The Netherlands too.

What the determination of the students at Delft proved was that the enemies of free speech on Palestine will back off when they are confronted because they have no arguments. They refer to codes of conduct and peoples’ safety all the while entertaining US Generals and Admirals and others who profit from death and destruction.  Our message should be that

The racists and the imperialists  will not silence us

My thanks go out to the students at Delft University and all those who helped make this meeting a success.  Now let Professor van der Hagen live up to his words about making the world a better place by cutting his ties with Israel’s complicit universities and its military-industrial complex.  Actions speak louder than words.

Tony Greenstein