Behind the glass-walled classrooms of INSEAD, one of the world’s top business schools that touts its ability to “bring together people, cultures and ideas to develop responsible leaders”, a quiet but fierce battle is brewing.
Alumni, students, and faculty have united to challenge the institution’s silence on the catastrophe in Gaza, launching a campaign that strikes at the very heart of the school’s brand.
The campaign, led by the INSEAD Alumni Justice for Palestine Committee, is far more than a typical campus protest. It is a calculated, high-stakes demand for accountability.
These alumni, many of whom have gone on to influence global markets, are now using their leverage to force their alma mater to align its institutional power with international law.
The roots of this insurgency are tied to a perceived double standard. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, INSEAD’s leadership was swift and vocal. The President of the INSEAD Alumni Association, Frans Blohm, sent a rallying cry to the community: “We stand in solidarity with Ukraine,” explicitly encouraging students and alumni to provide humanitarian aid and blood donations.
However, when the war in Gaza began, the response from INSEAD Dean Francisco Veloso was markedly different. In an October 12, 2023 email seen by Rolling Stone MENA, Veloso condemned Hamas’s attacks in Israel but remained silent on the mounting Palestinian death toll. This omission did not go unnoticed.
“We felt they were showing us where their priorities were, and we felt it was up to us to make the difference,” says Ezzeddin Zahzah, a co-founder of the committee. The contrast in institutional support left many feeling that the school’s vaunted “responsible leadership” values were being applied selectively.
The committee isn’t looking for lip service. Their petition, which has garnered more than 1,000 signatures, lays out four non-negotiable demands that would fundamentally alter INSEAD’s operations:
The first is regarding divestment, whereby there is a public commitment to pull endowment funds from any entities contributing to the Gaza genocide or violations of international law.
The second is academic decoupling, which would end all research partnerships and exchange programs with Israeli academic institutions.
The third demand centers on ‘Freedom of Expression’, allowing the creation of an official “Justice for Palestine” student club.
The final demand concerns a military policy to ban admissions for active members of military forces accused of genocide, war crimes, or terrorist activities by recognized international bodies. These would include the current Israeli Occupation Forces. It is understood that INSEAD has admitted students who have served in the Israeli Air Force during the current conflict.
This final demand is potentially groundbreaking, rare and an unprecedented attempt to link the prestige of a top-tier business education to the personal accountability of the students it accepts. As co-founder of the committee Salah Belkhayat puts it, “Everything begins with the school. The students here are going to go on to work at the top companies in the world, to become key investors and established businesspeople”.
Despite the scale of the petition, the response from INSEAD leadership has been one of deflection.
According to the committee, early efforts to engage were ignored, and communication channels were effectively shuttered. When Belkhayat attempted to distribute the petition draft to alumni, he alleges he was threatened with legal action under European privacy laws and saw his posts on LinkedIn deleted by school officials.
A 15 June 2026 email from the Board to Belkhayat, also seen by Rolling Stone MENA, confirmed that leadership considered the matter closed, maintaining that previous responses were “consistent with the school’s current policies and practices”.
But the committee remains undeterred.
“The ICJ continues to rule against Israel’s actions, yet INSEAD’s continued silence and refusal to engage in divestment isn’t just a Public Relations issue. It’s a moral failure,” adds Zahzah. “INSEAD has a responsibility as a recognized top business school to react in an ethical and morally correct fashion to global events – especially vis-a-vis the plausible genocide in Palestine.”
“Ultimately they have a high level role in shaping leaders’ commitment to ethics and social responsibility across strategy, governance, policies, and decision-making. Their inaction on this particular issue may have ramifications for years to come.”
“The biggest disappointment,” Belkhayat summarizes, “is that INSEAD’s inept reaction has denigrated the standing of its reputation and the reputation of the alumni. We’re not trying to be destructive, but simply trying to do what’s right and we are not afraid to raise our voices for justice either.”
For now, the standoff continues. But in a world where global business is increasingly forced to reckon with its role in human rights, the INSEAD Alumni Justice for Palestine Committee has sent a clear message.
Silence is no longer an option for elite institutions.
