OVER 370 TRINITY COLLEGE Dublin staff members and PHD researchers have signed a letter that calls on the university’s provost to conduct a full review of the college’s “links with Israeli institutions”. 

The letter also takes objection to what it labels as Trinity’s “silence and professed neutrality on Israel’s assault on Gaza”. 

Over 30,000 people in Gaza are reported to have died as a result of Israel’s military campaign in the region, which was initiated in response to the October 7 Hamas attacks that saw roughly 1,160 people killed, and 250 people being taken hostage, who are mainly Israelis. 

Dr Fintan Sheerin and Dr David Landy of the Trinity branch of Academia for Palestine met with the Provost Linda Doyle on Thursday to deliver the letter, and to present its demands that the college “condemn the attack on Gaza”, support students from the region, and “cut links with Israeli institutions”.

They said that Doyle agreed to study the contents of the letter and to respond in due course. 

Dr David Landy, who is an assistant professor of sociology at the college, said that his place of work is “complicit in genocide”. 

Landy further said: “We have research links with Israeli institutions backing the war, we use Israeli suppliers linked with the IDF, and we invest in Israeli companies committing human rights abuses.

While we seek to profit from these links with Israel, the Israeli government has destroyed every single university in Gaza. This is beyond shameful.”

Landy and Sheerin referenced a report from The Ditch on Trinity’s investments in companies that are operating within Israeli settlements in the West Bank. 

The letter comes after various other calls from staff members and the college’s students’ union to end its links with Israel. 

Dr Fintan Sheerin said that it is “unprecedented” for hundreds of staff members to sign a letter “like this”. 

“In the end, our college cannot remain neutral in the face of genocide,” he added. 

The full letter can be viewed here.