The following was e-mailed to me by GUPS-The General Union of Palestinian Students at the University of New Orleans. It was sent out by The Right to Education Campaign at Birzeit University in the West Bank of Palestine, as a resource for campuses that are interested in organizing their own awareness campaigns. It also makes for a great intro into the Palestinian side of this project. Check it out...
“The systematic obstruction and destruction of Gaza by the Israeli military occupation not only violates the human rights of individuals, it is an attack on the means and development of Palestinian society.”
(Right to Education Campaign)
Student Prisoners
The Israeli army often launches waves of arrests and harassment against university students. First year students are particularly subjected to interrogations as a way to collect information on the student body. 21 out of 40 cases represented by Birzeit University's lawyer are prisoners of conscience who are serving time solely for their belonging to student societies or political parties, many of whom held positions of leadership in the Student Council at the time of their arrest. These students are not only being denied their freedoms of association, thought, and liberty; they are being denied their education.
Many students are also held under Administrative Detention, which is a system of imprisonment without charge, where secret evidence from Israeli intelligence is shown to the military judge and used to justify incarceration for a period up to six months, on a renewable basis. The grounds raised are not communicated to the detainee or his/her lawyer, and the resulted mental suffering can amount to torture as defined under the UN Convention Against Torture. A Birzeit student has been held in Administrative Detention for three years.
As reported by Ma'an news today, October 26th 2010, students may even be denied the right to study while in prison. Hadareem prison has denied applications for 19 out of 25 prisoners to study during their time in prison due to security reasons.
Closure of Educational Institutions
Since September, several school have been closed by the Israeli Army and turned into military barracks, while hundreds more have been forced to close periodically due to prolonged curfews and obstructed access. Hebron University and the Palestine Polytechnic University were closed down by military order for 8 months in 2003. During the First Intifada (uprising), between 1988-1992, Palestinian education was effectively criminalised by the Israeli occupation as all Palestinian universities, schools and even kindergartens were closed down by military order.
The Apartheid Wall
The construction of a 8-meter high wall through Palestinian cities and villages in the West Bank is having a devastating impact on Palestinians' access to services, including education. The wall isolates and divides Palestinian population centres, cutting students off from their schools and universities and bulldozing through educational institutions in its path. For example, the Apartheid Wall cuts Al-Quds University, in East Jerusalem, off from 36% of its students.
Checkpoints
As well as the Wall over 500 Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks divide the West Bank into 420 different enclaves with no freedom of movement for Palestinians between them.
Staff and students can be subjected to physical abuse at checkpoints that range from beatings, to being made to wait for hours in the sun or rain. Sometimes access is denied, making Palestinian educational life impossible.
Incursions and Attacks
Hundreds of schools, kindergartens and eight Palestinian universities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been shelled, shot at and invaded by Israeli occupation forces since September 2000. Students and teachers are regularly stopped on their way to school and university and harassed by soldiers at gunpoint, and many children have been injured or killed on the way to school. Classrooms and offices, including those of the Palestinian Ministry of Education, have been raided and ransacked, and a teacher training college in the Gaza Strip was completely demolished in March 2004.
Visa and Entry Practices
Another key way that Israeli policy impedes rights to education in the occupied West Bank is through its restrictive and discriminatory visa and entry practices. Since the beginning of 2006, many thousands of foreigners and Palestinians with foreign passports have been denied entry to visit, work, or study in the occupied Palestinian territories. Birzeit University was particularly affected, as this policy of control resulted in a 50% drop in staff holding foreign passports—from 52 in May of 2006 to only 27 in September of 2006—and revenues received from international students were significantly reduced. In the 2006-2007 academic year, there were at least 14 faculty members at risk of deportation prior to the conclusion of the year due to visa insecurity, as well as 383 students who, in waiting for Israel to issue their IDs, also suffered the constant threat of deportation or imprisonment. Numerous stories of international academics and students being denied entry have been reported, including the barring of academic figure Noam Chomsky from the country in May of 2010.
Ongoing Blockade of Gaza
The 2008-09 assault on Gaza left educational life in pieces. University, as well as primary and secondary school infrastructure was either damaged or destroyed. With the ongoing blockade, there has been no hope of rebuilding. Textbooks, paper, and other basic educational supplies have been made unavailable to students by Israel’s siege on the strip.
In Gaza, there are three universities that offered a limited number of programs for Bachelor’s degrees. No programs are available in occupational therapy, physiotherapy, dentistry, and many other fields. Master’s degrees are even more limited, and PhD programs are non-existent. As a result, many Gazans choose to study in the West Bank and abroad. However, since 2004, Israel has totally prohibited Palestinian residents of Gaza from studying in the West Bank.
