Higher Education Minister Anna Maria
Bernini on Tuesday blasted the University of Palermo for
breaking off ties with Israeli researchers and universities over
the war in Gaza.
While stressing that the decision "falls within the university's
autonomy", she said that "I consider it a wrong choice,
especially at a time when the political-diplomatic process of
peace, of searching for peace, is intensifying.
'Universities should not take sides," she added during a visit
to the Università Politecnica delle Marche Le Torrette in
Ancona.
"Universities do not go to war, they are bridge builders, peace
makers, they are great factories of scientific diplomacy".
The move comes in the wake of series of protests and occupations
at Italian universities against institutions having relations
with Israeli ones and calls for boycotts, which have led Italy's
Jewish community to sound the alarm about anti-Semitism in the
world of higher education here.
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