Brandeis University President Frederick Lawrence said he would reach out to the president of Al-Quds University in the wake of the U.S. school suspending relations between the two institutions over an Islamic Jihad rally.
In a statement posted Nov. 22 on the Brandeis website, Lawrence said the decision to suspend relations with Al-Quds University “was taken deliberatively and with broad input.”
The universities have been sister institutions since 1998.
The suspension was announced on Nov. 18 in light of recent events at the Palestinian school, including a demonstration on its main campus in Jerusalem glorifying terrorism.
Lawrence said Al-Quds University President Sari Nusseibeh’s condemnation of the demonstration, in which he said “Jewish extremists” were using the demonstration to “capitalize on events in ways that misrepresent the university as promoting inhumane, anti-Semitic, fascist, and Nazi ideologies,” was “unacceptable and inflammatory.”
In his statement Nov. 22, Lawrence said he was “dedicated to keeping the lines of communication open between our institutions” but would not respond to issues raised by Nusseibeh in the media. On the same day, Nusseibeh in an email to the Times of Israel said Lawrence had “gone overboard” in his reaction to the rally.
The Jerusalem Post reported Nov. 22 that Syracuse University’s Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism also has “indefinitely” suspended its relationship with Al-Quds. — jta