The War On Learning

IDF use tear gas on Birzeit campus (2006)

Courtesy: Right2Education

Birzeit University, situated on the main road from Ramallah to Nablus, attracts the cream of Palestinian students. Entrance demands are comparable to Oxbridge and its reputation is founded on a liberal ideology that treats women as equals and leaves no intellectual stone unturned, including thorny political issues. This partly explains why 85 of its students are currently locked up in Israeli prisons, taking the total to over 400 in the last six years.

Ala Masalmeh, a final year English student, believes the reason for their treatment is both practical and symbolic. "Education is the main reason for the development of any society. They don’t want Palestinian people to be literate and intelligent. Very few of my friends take higher education because of the problems we face. If you tell a soldier at a checkpoint you are a student they will keep you for hours, searching and interrogating you." Masalmeh’s cousin was a prominent activist in Birzeit’s Islamic society and has recently been released after three months in jail, during which he was accused of plotting terrorist attacks. Masalmeh believes the pressure and scrutiny of Israeli police has succeeded in keeping students away from politics. "In the last few years these movements have not been popular, because people are scared to be arrested." In one recent case an engineering student, who wished to remain anonymous, was held for almost six years after being filmed at a campus demonstration. He was told his degree course was "dangerous" and switched for fear of further punishment.

Student at Surda checkpoint on the way to Birzeit

Courtesy: Right2Education

Aman Muhrar studies journalism and agrees there is no longer the appetite for activism on campus. "I used to be involved in such movements, but there is not so much awareness here. Students are like blind sheep, they don’t want to read or learn what’s really happening." For this she doesn’t blame the teaching faculty. "We have great lecturers, like Dr. Sami Hamuda who taught in the US, and the Dean Dr. Saleh Al-Jawad. They try to give you the whole picture, not just opinions, so that you can make up your own mind." Dr. Al-Jawad’s commitment to free thought is evidenced by multiple arrests, the last for staging a sit-in at the checkpoint which was making all his students late. Sadly his passion is not matched by students. The school of political sciences, located above the cafeteria, is one of the least subscribed to departments in Birzeit.

It is a similar story in Hebron University, according to Student’s Council leader Nayim Adoud. "The campus is not very political and the Student Council does not like to make waves. We already have too many teachers and students in jail and administrative detention (indefinite imprisonment without charge)". Indeed Hebron has suffered as much as any West Bank institution. As recently as 2003 it was shut down for eight months by the IDF, who explained their decision by claiming it was a "wing of a Hamas terror cell", a decision condemned by the UN as an "utterly unjustified and illegal act of collective punishment". This was not the first instance of education being effectively banned in the city. A three year closure in 1987 was followed another six month hiatus in 1996.

Student being arrested in Hebron in November

Courtesy: Right2Education

Iyad Barghouti, head of the Ramallah Cultural Centre for Human Rights Studies, says it is "an old argument to connect all student activities with security. We have had tanks on our campuses and attacks on our schools for generations. They try to say that students and terrorists are the same." As a timely reminder, three Hebron students were arrested last week to be held indefinitely for ‘ involvement in an Islamic group‘. The frequency and unpredictability of these attacks makes it difficult to arrange courses with any confidence that they can be completed. "We cannot draw a yearly calendar and we never know when to schedule courses because there are so many obstacles," says Adoud.

These obstacles are higher still for students from Gaza. Despite movement restrictions, the trauma of constant violence and an embargo that has made even paper difficult to come by, students there have maintained an excellent academic record. Almost 2,000 Gazan students were offered scholarships to international universities in the past year. In 2005 there were 370 studying at Birzeit, but the figure today is zero. Iyad Barghouti, director of the Ramallah Cultural Centre for Human Studies (RCHRS), explains their predicament. "Israel continues to regard the West Bank and Gaza as separate areas and Gazans are punished for their government. Neither are they allowed through Rafah (into Egypt), so most of them have lost their places at foreign institutions."

985 of the 2,000 have definitely lost their places, leaving them in limbo, awaiting a change of mood from the Israeli authorities which block their travel. "The siege is destroying every part of human life in Gaza, every part of society. They (Israel) want people to be isolated and living only from foreign aid. Schools and factories are especially targeted. Resources are not allowed through the borders so they have to be smuggled in through tunnels from Egypt. Because of this even basic resources like paper cost four times more than in the West Bank." Students who wish to study abroad rely on an inconsistent system of permits, which have no reliable timescale and can be withdrawn at any time. There are many cases of students waiting so long for permission that their place is cancelled by the time it arrives.

Could the Universities do more to help their potential students? The London School of Economics have held large-scale protests on behalf of Gazan Othman Sakallah, another victim of the siege. He has been made president of the LSESU, which is working hard to pressure both British and Israeli governments. Birzeit students don’t believe their University has any power to help the Gazans who have been ostracised from the West Bank. "If the government can’t do anything, neither can the University," believes Jaha Satta, a Birzeit media student, to unanimous agreement from her table, "we can support them on websites like face book and try to send materials there but help must come from outside. The PA should do more but they won’t because of the Fatah/Hamas split. Their needs to be better media coverage of what is happening in Gaza, so that the world knows how they suffer."

One potential method is the academic boycott, part of the BDS movement, which has gained a foothold in the US and South Africa among other nations. While it may seem perverse to stifle Israeli academics who logically would have the best knowledge of the issues, boycott supporters believe it would hit Israel, a nation that prides itself on intellect, where it hurts. Last month a great victory was hailed by the boycott when Ehud Olmert was loudly booed and jeered throughout a speech at the University of Chicago. Such tactics have been denounced as Antisemitism, but it may do some good to remind Israel that not every academic shares their freedom. Even American supporters of Palestine, notably Norman Finkelstein, have been deprived of the platform to share their views.

Dr. Sahar Francis, director of Prisoner’s Support Human Rights Association in Ramallah famously pronounced that "activism is illegal" in Palestine. It’s true that Israeli security has been effective in suppressing such activity, but their campaign goes deeper, to attack the right to education itself. Whether their much-hyped attempts to link students with terror is a sincere belief, or if they would rather preside over a less capable population, the microscope provided by Berlanty Azzam’s story must not go to waste. The imprisonment, restriction and abuse of Palestinian students goes beyond the immediate victims to attack the core values of every democratic nation.