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5-6-2007
 This article on Palestinian universities deals
with the difficulties of operating them under hostile military occupation. Beginning
in 1995, there was a brief period in which the Israeli presence in the West
Bank and Gaza
was minimal, and the universities made substantial progress. Faculty trained in
the United States
developed state-of-the-art programs in a number of fields. Some graduates of
the universities went on to top graduate schools in the United States or Europe;
others found jobs in the nascent Palestinian business sector or in the
Palestine Authority structure. Travel to and among the local universities was
comparatively easy, and even traveling abroad was not difficult.
Today, however, the situation is far worse than
it was in 1990. Towns and villages in the West Bank
are cut off from one another by numerous checkpoints. And the infamous "segregation
wall," which takes up more than 14 percent of Palestinian land, not only isolates
Palestinian areas from pre-1967 Israel, but it also cuts off some Palestinian
towns and villages from others.
Residents of entire towns are under a form of
house arrest, slightly modified to include a few hundred meters surrounding
their homes. They no longer have access to Jerusalem or to other cities, nor do they have
a way to reach their fields or olive groves (nearly a half million olive trees
have been uprooted during the Israeli occupation). Many of the areas cut off by
the wall have no hospital.
Checkpoints and the few gates in the wall are
under Israeli control and subject to arbitrary closure. Students who do not
live in the few towns that have universities (Ramallah, Abu Deis, Nablus, Hebron, Jenin, Gaza City)
have to give up their chance for higher education. In some places, students
cannot even reach secondary schools. Faculty are also often unable to get to
their campuses. The result has been that many academics have simply left Many
of Academics in these universities have
left them because that they have no choice....!
Ramallah is about ten miles north of Jerusalem, and Bethlehem
is about the same distance south. If a Bethlehem University
faculty member wants to confer with colleagues in Ramallah, however, he or she
faces a drive of up to four hours on a dangerous road (if the person can make
it at all). Palestinians living in east Jerusalem
(and thus holding Israeli identification cards) are not allowed in Bethlehem, and no one from Bethlehem
(or elsewhere in the West Bank) is allowed in Jerusalem without a difficult-to-secure
special permit. For those in Gaza,
the situation is even worse.
International exchange is difficult. Palestinians,
even those who have U.S.
citizenship, cannot come through the Tel Aviv airport. Instead, they must spend
several days traveling to Amman and cross into
the West Bank over the Jordan
bridge. Or they can go to Egypt
and cross to Gaza,
if that is their destination and the border is open, which it frequently is not.
They must retrace the same path upon their return.
In spite of the difficulties of everyday
existence, some promising scholarly activities are under way. For example, the
Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem is doing valuable environmental work, using
sophisticated global information satellite technology; Alpha, a statistical
consulting group, is conducting political, medical, and social science research;
and Jaffa Net is engaged in extensive software development. In addition, the
Women's Institute at BirZeit University will soon move into a new building financed
by funds from Kuwait.
Operating as they are in the face of massive violations of international law
and United Nations resolutions, the faculty and students are managing to carry
on.
By: Dr. Salah Od-allah |
