[Correction (March 21, 2026): This article has been edited to clarify that Vassar’s program with The Hebrew University takes place in Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv].
As I enter the second half of my freshman year here, I am beginning to think about my future as a Vassar student, namely in terms of studying abroad. Nearly half of all Vassar students study abroad. Not surprisingly, we have sponsored programs across Europe—in Bologna, Paris, Berlin—along with approved programs all over the world. Much to my surprise, Vassar offers two approved programs in Israel, one on a Kibbutz (a small village in rural Israel with roots in political Zionism) and one with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. We offer these programs despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza. We ignore that Palestinian students cannot travel freely, and college students in Gaza cannot study as the universities have been decimated by Israeli bombs and 20,000 children in Palestine will never grow old. Studying abroad normalizes the policies of the nation, and they allow for a regime of terror to continue. To operate or approve of a study abroad program is to recognize the policies of the nation it is in as acceptable enough to justify study, even when said policies are horrific. Vassar, by approving these programs, tacitly endorses the genocidal policies of the state of Israel.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Vassar, like many schools, suspended its study abroad program in Russia, while we have maintained a program in Israel since the beginning of the genocide in October of 2023. Colleges and universities canceled programs as they did not consider Russia a safe and healthy place for studying and to serve as statements against Russian acts of aggression, yet refuse to hold Israel to the same standard. By all accounts, travel to Israel is risky; flights are regularly halted and, every few months, the United States comes to the brink of war. Just as Russia is committing a genocide in Ukraine, so too is Israel in Palestine. In September 2025, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel issued a report confirming that, without question, Israel is committing genocide. The state has launched a war of starvation, blocking humanitarian aid, targeting civilians, engaging in systemic sexual violence and espousing genocidal rhetoric eerily reminiscent of the Nazis. Why do colleges, including ours, continue to send students to Israel? Does it mean we as an institution endorse genocide? By continuing study abroad programs in Israel, we have shown that we are willing to accept some genocide, but not others. This must change; all genocides are evil and we must demonstrate this.
Perhaps the justification is that studying in Israel does not equate to joining the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and partaking in war crimes. We know, of course, that international students here do not sign on to the invasion of Venezuela or the occupation of Minneapolis. However, merely abstaining from war crimes does not absolve one of guilt. To encourage or support, even if tacitly, is itself a form of guilt.
This implicit approval, which allows for the continued genocide, is exactly the focus of my critique. To endorse our students studying in Israel is to sanction the actions of a genocidal regime. Study abroad programs do not exist in a geopolitical vacuum; they exist as forms of soft power and institutional endorsement. The brutal violence in Gaza and the West Bank is sustained not just by Israeli power but by the legitimacy lent to Israel by the international community. The genocidal policies of Israel are unique in their total reliance on soft power programs for their continued existence. Unlike other nations that commit atrocities where American universities operate study abroad programs, Israel relies heavily on this soft power for its continued existence and to justify its actions. It is international willingness to accept Israel’s genocide as acceptable, which allows it to continue; it is international unwillingness to end arms sales or sanction the Israeli government, which allows it to act with impunity, and this is all upheld by our participation in their soft power programs. Every student we send to Jerusalem is a message that our institutional values are such that we accept the behavior of the state of Israel.
I ask us to remember our parents’ time in college, when South Africa was an apartheid state. They could not study abroad in Johannesburg, yet we can study in Jerusalem despite the genocide and apartheid regime. Would we allow a program in Berlin circa 1936 or Turkey during the Armenian Genocide? Other universities have joined in this debate, and some, like Pitzer College, have taken the critical step to close programs in Israel. We must join Pitzer and demonstrate our commitment to justice and set an example for fellow elite universities. Many remember the intensity of discourse around Israel since the genocide began, but we cannot refuse to act for justice in the face of fear of conflict. Closing this program would be a representation of our commitment to an ethical world and our refusal to sanction injustice. Since the beginning of the invasion of Palestine in 2023, tens of thousands have been killed, millions have been displaced, mass starvation has ensued and there are no signs of this genocide slowing down. The stories of Hind Rajab, a Palestinian child whose family vehicle was shot 355 times by IDF soldiers, and the mind-numbing amount of other children who will never grow up to attend college or even high school should make our stomachs turn. We should feel stricken with sadness over this mass slaughter, and I believe many of us are. With this in mind, we must reject institutional attempts to normalize it. Those who believe in justice and oppose senseless murder have the duty to oppose these programs. I believe in studying abroad, in opening up our horizons to other perspectives, but not in Israel—not when they are committing a genocide and existing as an apartheid state. Vassar must end approval for studying in Israel, for if we do not, we are no better than universities that sent students to Berlin in 1936, no different from those who called for institutional silence in the face of South African apartheid and no better than the conservative students so many of us love to critique.
Hear hear.
Vassar approved programs in Israel normalizes Israeli apartheid and the genocide of Palestinians.