Students at the faculty of Law and Criminology of the Free Brussels University decided to name their classe for 2025 after virulent anti-Israel French extreme-left MEP Rima Hassan.
The decision by students at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Free University of Brussels (ULB) to name their class for 2025 after virulent anti-Israel French MEP Rima Hassan ”illustrates two years of growing activism regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the inaction of university authorities,’’ said Noa Kalisz, president of the Union of Jewish students oin Belgium (UEJB).
Every year, students at the ULB vote to choose the name of their graduating class. The students of the class of 2025 at the ULB’s Faculty of Law and Criminology chose the name it “Rima Hassan,” who is a member of the extreme-left ‘La France Insoumise’ (France Unbowed) party, a choice that provoked strong reactions.
“No one was surprised that Rima Hassan was the final choice,” Noa Kalisz told i24news as she pointed out that the university “did not take responsibility” for moderating the debates.
A petition is currently circulating to prevent this naming, but Kalisz doubts its effectiveness: “I don’t think it will succeed. The university remains inactive despite repeated antisemitic incidents. ”
“Being Jewish on a Belgian campus today is not easy.” She recalls that her predecessor was attacked without any legal action being taken. “Several friends no longer dare to go to class because they are being harassed. It’s complicated to be Jewish, complicated to be Zionist and to claim it.“ Faced with this climate, she deplores the inaction of the university administration: ”Apart from a bogus poster campaign, absolutely nothing has happened.“
She said she refuses to hide: ”I am Jewish and I am proud of it. ”
In June, a letter signed by nearly 1,300 people was sent to the university administration to oppose the possibility of the class being named after Rima Hassan because of her positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
They recalled that Rima Hassan is “the subject of four complaints for condoning terrorism and they mentioned an ambiguous relationship between the La France Insoumise MEP and the Algerian, Iranian, and former Syrian regimes of Bashar al-Assad. Not to mention, her radical stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and her questioning of Israel’s legitimacy. Recently, Rima Hassan stated that Hamas’ actions were “legitimate from the point of view of international law.”
Despite the protests, the students still opted for Rima Hassan. “The Faculty acknowledges the result of this democratic process,” the ULB said in a statement.
For Denis Ducarme, a Belgian federal MP from the Liberal french-speaking MR party and a graduate of the ULB, “the ULB is abanding its own values. Rima Hassan is not just anyone on the European far-left spectrum. She is one of its most radical figures. I would remind you that Rima Hassan publicly presents Hamas as a militant group, even though it is classified as a terrorist organization.” ‘’This is not just a question of freedom of expression, because Rima Hassan advocates terrorism,’’ the MP added.
The choice made by the students sparked reactions not only in Belgian political circles, but also among French intellectuals such as Arno Klarsfeld, philosopher Pascal Bruckner and filmmaker Elie Chouraqui. In an open letter, they deplored the choice and stressedf that Hassan’s extreme-left party ‘’is one of the most fervent activists of that obscure nebula of Islamist terrorists, notorious anti-Semites to boot, that is the infamous Hamas, responsible for the abominable pogrom, genocidal in nature, of October 7, 2023 against the Jews of Israel.’’