And as they fight for their survival under apartheid rule, they are receiving no real solidarity from their Israeli counterparts. Later this month, the Israeli authorities are expected to put into effect a 97-page ordinance, called "Procedure for Entry and Residence for Foreigners in Judea and Samaria Area", which would grant the Israeli Ministry of Defence and thus, the military, absolute power to determine how many and which foreign academics and students can visit, study or work at all 15 Palestinian universities and colleges in the West Bank... In an arguably unprecedented move, the General Assembly of the Hebrew University sent an official letter to the Israeli military commander of the West Bank, emphasising the problematic restrictions set out in the procedure...

Over the past two months, Adalah's team has worked to protect Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line against Israel's growing attempts to restrict and control their education systems, in violation of their rights to education, freedom of expression and self-determination. Adalah sent a letter on behalf of Birzeit University to the Attorney General and the Israeli army on 26 May 2022 demanding that the procedures be amended and that many of the restrictions be lifted, and to allow Palestinian universities to submit applications for residence permits for foreign lecturers and students rather than requiring individuals to make requests. Israeli universities enjoy wide institutional autonomy and decision-making power in recruiting foreign academic staff and in accepting foreign students, and facilitating their entry and stay.

Birzeit University rejects Israel’s most recent attempt to constrict the fundamental right of Palestinians to education and to undermine the academic freedom and autonomy of Palestinian universities. Scheduled to take effect in May, 2022, the “Procedure for Entry and Residency of Foreigners in Judea and Samaria Region” grants Israeli military immense powers to isolate Palestinian universities from the outside world, and to determine the future course of Palestinian higher education. The new directive invests the Israeli military the absolute right to select which international faculty, academic researchers and students may be present at Palestinian universities, as well as impose their own arbitrary criteria on which fields of study are permissible and what qualifications are acceptable.

L’Université palestinienne Birzeit, en Cisjordanie, s’inquiète d’une nouvelle procédure du ministère israélien de la défense qui entrera en vigueur à partir du mois de mai. Cette procédure permettra à l’armée israélienne de décider quels professeurs et étudiants, et en quel nombre, pourront venir chaque année enseigner ou étudier dans les universités palestiniennes. « Il s’agit d’une violation du droit à l’éducation », selon l’appel lancé par l’Université de Birzeit.

"Dear Prime Minister, Ministers, Brigadier-General, and Chief Clerk, We write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to protest Israel’s recently released directive, “Procedure for Entry and Residency of Foreigners in Judea and Samaria Region,” scheduled to take effect as policy in May 2022. Released by COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories), the policy vests the Israeli military with the unilateral power to select and exclude international faculty, academic researchers, and students who wish to teach, study, and conduct research at Palestinian universities. We regard this as both an attempt to isolate Palestinian scholars and students from the international scholarly community and a form of censorship aimed at constraining the freedom of speech and association of international academics and students by denying them access to and engagement with Palestinian scholars and students, as well as professional and educational opportunities at Palestinian universities. We condemn this proposed policy in the strongest terms as a clear escalation of the persistent efforts of your government to deny Palestinians the right to education."

De Palestijnse Birzeit Universiteit op de Westelijke Jordaanoever is bezorgd om een nieuwe procedure van het Israëlische ministerie van Defensie (COGAT) die vanaf mei ingaat. Die zou strenger gaan beoordelen welke en hoeveel docenten en studenten jaarlijks aan Palestijnse universiteiten mogen komen lesgeven of studeren. ‘Een inbreuk op het recht op onderwijs is dit’, klinkt het. Belgische academici ondersteunen de oproep.

We express our strong opposition to Israel’s most recent attempt to restrict Palestinian rights to education and to undermine the freedom and autonomy of Palestinian academic institutions. Scheduled to take effect in May 2022, the “Procedure for Entry and Residency of Foreigners in Judea and Samaria Region” grants the Israeli military absolute powers to select which international faculty, academic researchers and students can be admitted to teach or study at Palestinian universities. Under this law, Israeli authorities will be in the position of determining which fields of study are permissible and what qualifications are acceptable. Further, it requires applicants to submit to Israeli investigation at diplomatic missions in countries of origin. Finally, it sets a limit on the number of foreign teachers and students (100 and 150 per year, respectively) and limits the duration of employment to five non-consecutive years, effectively denying the hiring and promotion of faculty, and with immediate effects for current faculty and students who do not hold residency permits. This includes many Palestinians, who will lose their jobs, their access to education, and their rights to live in their homeland. The new directive also would effectively end all student exchanges. In short, it is an all-out assault on Palestinian academic freedom and collaborative intellectual exchange. In the words of Birzeit University, it “puts Palestinian Universities under siege and divests them of basic control over their academic decisions."

An officer in the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories will soon rule that a certain college instructor, a U.S. citizen, cannot enter the West Bank to teach at a university in Jenin because her area of expertise is not an “essential field” for Palestinians. The field will be determined in accordance with a COGAT ruling.

Un ensemble de procédures publié par le ministère de la Défense impose de nouvelles restrictions sur la sélection de qui peut entrer, travailler et rester en Cisjordanie. Israël permettra aux institutions palestiniennes d’enseignement supérieur d’employer des enseignants venus de l’étranger seulement s’ils enseignent dans des domaines qui ont été désignés comme essentiels par Israël et seulement si ces enseignants et chercheurs sont accomplis et possèdent au moins un doctorat, selon un nouvel ensemble de procédures du ministre de la Défense.

Birzeit University hosts between 10 to 15 visiting professors, and all of them face the problem of visa renewals.

Israel will permit Palestinian institutions of higher education to employ lecturers from overseas only if they teach in fields that have been designated as essential by Israel, and only if the lecturers and researchers are accomplished and possess at least a doctorate, according to a new set of procedures by the Defense Ministry.

Birzeit University, Adalah, Al-Haq now fighting to end escalating discriminatory Israeli policy aimed at preventing international academics from staying in the West Bank and refusing to renew visas for those with teaching contracts .

Heightened restrictions on Birzeit University's right to hire and maintain international faculty persist into the 2019-2020 academic year. Israel has escalated what can only be understood as a policy whose ultimate goal is the elimination of any international faculty presence at Palestinian universities. Our 14,800 students returned to classes on 4 September with a third of their international faculty missing, the Israeli authorities having denied them entry or forced their departure by refusing them any viable means to stay in the country or return. The status of international faculty able to make it to campus remains extremely precarious; 60% have lapsed or only short-term visas due to expire before the end of the first semester. In short, except for a handful of instructorsunder foreign government fellowships or programs, all of our international faculty currently in the country are under constant threat of deportation.

According to data collected by Right to Education, a grassroots campaign aimed at defending education in Palestine, Israeli forces have detained at least 64 university students since the start of this year. A spokesperson at Addameer, a Palestinian prisoners’ rights organization, told +972 that Israel has been targeting an increasing number of Palestinian students since the start of 2019. There are currently 260 Palestinian high school and university students in Israeli prisons. Of the 18 Birzeit students who were arrested in August, Israel has released only three.

Committee says refusal to grant visas to guest lecturers is not in its purview. Hundreds of academics ask top officials to match guidelines at West Bank institutions to those at Israeli ones.

While the denial of visas to international scholars might seem a small inconvenience by comparison, put into the context of the overall weakened conditions of Palestinian schools and universities, as well as the totality of deprivation the Palestinians suffer under, it is a terrible thing indeed. The international community, especially the international academic community, needs to wake up.

Why should Israeli professors and students care that their country is subverting the academic freedom of Palestinian universities and interfering with their hiring of foreign lecturers? This routine Israeli interference with the ordinary life of Palestinian universities doesn’t interest presidents, faculty deans or senior lecturers of Israeli universities, nor their student population. Their voices are not heard despite the fact that the meddling of the Interior Ministry and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories in granting visas to academics and students headed for the Palestinian enclaves began long ago, and has only exacerbated over the last three years.

Short-term tourist visas and refusals to extend them are routine obstacles, but the West Bank's Birzeit University is now fighting back... Israel's scholasticide policies are clearly driven by "the desire to weaken our institutions and destroy the Palestinian future. When they fight against the quality of the Palestinian academic institution, they’re weakening our future”.

Birzeit University, Adalah, Al-Haq are now fighting to end escalating discriminatory Israeli policy aimed at preventing international academics from staying in the West Bank and refusing to renew visas for those with teaching contracts. In a letter sent on 30 April 2019 to Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, Israeli Chief Military Advocate General Sharon Afek, and the Israeli military's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Kamil Abu Rokon, Birzeit University, Al-Haq, and Adalah demand that Israel: lift the restrictions preventing international academics employed by Birzeit University from staying and working in the West Bank; refrain from imposing arbitrary restrictions on the duration of stay or extension of stay for international academics; order the publication of a clear and lawful procedure for issuing entry visas and work permits for international academics in the West Bank, which will enable the university to manage and maintain its academic freedom. Adalah Deputy General Director Attorney Sawsan Zaher, who drafted the letter to Israeli authorities, said: "Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – like all other peoples around the world – are entitled to exercise their right to academic freedom as part of their right to self-determination. The Israeli military occupation cannot prevent Palestinians from exercising this right". Indeed, according to the interpretation applied to Article 43 of the Hague Regulations of 1907, sovereignty of education does not change hands - it is inalienable - and must remain in the hands of the occupied Palestinian population.

Israel is isolating Palestinian universities by forcing international scholars to leave their academic positions in the occupied West Bank. Two Palestinian human rights groups, as well as Birzeit University, are calling on Israel to lift restrictions preventing international academics from working in the West Bank and to publish “a clear and lawful procedure for issuing entry visas and work permits.” Israel’s policy of denying internationals entry to the West Bank, as well as refusing and failing to process visa extension applications in a timely manner, has affected dozens of scholars working at Palestinian universities.

Birzeit, which has ranked within the top three percent of universities worldwide, is fighting back. The highly acclaimed university, hand in hand with legal rights groups Adalah and Al-Haq, is "demanding an immediate halt to this policy targeting Palestinian academic freedom and isolating Palestinian institutions of higher learning," the groups said in a press release on Thursday. "Blocking our right to engage international academics is part of an ongoing effort by the Israeli occupation to marginalize Palestinian institutions of higher education," Birzeit University President Abdullatif Abuhijleh said in a statement. "The latest escalation in visa restrictions is just one in a longstanding and systematic Israeli policy of undermining the independence and viability of Palestinian higher education institutions."

Letter sent to: Mr. Avichai Mandelblit, Attorney General of Israel, Mr. Kamil Abu Rokon, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Mr. Sharon Afek, Chief Military Advocate General, Mr. Aryeh Deri, Minister of Interior.

Dear Prime Minister, Ministers, and Major, We write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to urge a halt to the Israeli army and security forces conducting arbitrary arrests at and incursions into Palestinian universities, assaulting students, faculty, and staff, and obstructing the education of thousands of students. We also condemn in the strongest possible terms the Israeli Army’s harm to students at all levels of education through these arrests and incursions.

Earlier in January, the university was informed by representatives of the US government that students from the West Bank and Gaza would no longer be eligible for comprehensive scholarships under its US - Middle East Partnership Initiative - Tomorrow’s Leaders (MEPI-TL) program and that their funding would cease effectively January 31, 2019. It was explained that suspension of assistance to all projects in the Palestinian Authority and to citizens of those areas was an unintended consequence of the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018 (ATCA) passed by Congress on October 3 last year.

In denying that Israel limits academic freedom in Palestine, the Israeli embassy in Washington seems to forget about the Palestinian students and academics whose movement it restricts.

Ministry promised online course would 'give equal opportunity for all citizens,' but rights group says it 'perpetuates gaps' by putting Arabs at a disadvantage.

Israeli forces raided the al-Quds University, on Wednesday, in Abu Dis village, southeast of the central occupied West Bank district of Jerusalem. Local sources confirmed that a large number of heavily armed Israeli forces raided the campus, ransacking several faculties and offices, causing material damages.

Supporters of the academic boycott of Israel are frequently told it's wrong in principle to boycott universities since they are bastions of free speech, and it's downright perverse to boycott Israeli universities since they are islands of liberal opinion in an otherwise reactionary country...

Palestine has had to contend with Israel's systematic obstruction of education: from enforced closures, campus raids, and the oppression of individual students and teachers, including arbitrary arrests and detention without trial.

On Monday 15th October, Fobzu and representatives of the major education unions – including UCU, NEU, NASUWT, EIS and UNISON – wrote to Minister of State for the Middle East, The Rt Hon Alistair Burt MP to call on the UK government to stand up for Palestinian students and educators. Responding to the growing restrictions on foreign national faculty working at universities in the occupied West Bank, we raised our collective concern about the declining access to the occupied Palestinian territory and the impact this is having on Palestinian education.

"Monsieur le Recteur, Au nom des signataires de la présente lettre je vous fais part d'un appel à bien vouloir entendre et diffuser le plus largement possible le cri d'alarme émanant de l'Université de Birzeit,...".

"Geachte Rectoren, In naam van de ondergetekenden sturen wij u een oproep om aan de noodkreet vanuit de Palestijnse Birzeit Universiteit gehoor en weerklank te geven en een krachtig signaal uit te sturen tegen het feit dat de Israëlische autoriteiten de universiteiten en hogescholen in de Bezette Palestijnse Gebieden steeds verder internationaal isoleren en aldus de academische vrijheid van onze collega’s beknotten...."

"Dear President, On behalf of the endorsers of this letter, we would like to urge you to access and disseminate as widely as possible the urgent call from Birzeit University, and to send a strong signal against the alarming academic isolation imposed by the Israeli authorities on Palestinian universities in the Occupied Territories."

"Dear Prime Minister and Ministers, I am writing on behalf of the British Society for Middle East Studies (BRISMES) to protest against Israeli violations of Palestinian academic freedom..." (The letter) has been forwarded to Prof. Ghassan Khatib at Birzeit university to support its campaign of protest against the enforced departure of academics from Palestinian campuses

Since the beginning of the current academic year (2017-2018), scores of foreign passport holders, many of Palestinian origin but without residence documents, living and working in the occupied Palestinian territory have been denied entry in the country, or have had their visa renewal applications refused by the Israeli authorities. At Birzeit University alone, we have 15 foreign passport-holding faculty members whose requests for visa renewals have been refused or significantly delayed. Contact: Ghassan Khatib.

A new word emerged from the carnage in Gaza this week: “scholasticide” – the systematic destruction by Israeli forces of centres of education dear to Palestinian society, as the ministry of education was bombed, the infrastructure of teaching destroyed, and schools across the Gaza strip targeted for attack by the air, sea and ground offensives. “Learn, baby, learn” was a slogan of the black rights movement in America’s ghettoes a generation ago, but it also epitomises the idea of education as the central pillar of Palestinian identity – a traditional premium on schooling steeled by occupation, and something the Israelis “cannot abide… and seek to destroy”, according to Dr Karma Nabulsi, who teaches politics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford.