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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-isolates-palestinian-universities">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-isolates-palestinian-universities</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Israel isolates Palestinian
universities</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen
Clare Murphy</a></span> <span class="field field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2019-07-11T11:53:27+00:00">11 July 2019</span></span>
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<figure id="file-81076"><source media="(min-width:
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<p>Israel is isolating Palestinian universities by
forcing international scholars to leave their academic
positions in the occupied West Bank.</p>
<p>Two Palestinian human rights groups, as well as <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/birzeit-university">Birzeit
University</a>, 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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>Ranking threatened</h2>
<p>Israeli restrictions threaten Birzeit’s ranking among
the top three percent of universities worldwide, the
educational institution and rights groups say. The
proportion of international faculty and students are
key indicators that determine a university’s ranking.</p>
<p>“By preventing Birzeit from employing international
faculty, Israel is impeding its ability to function as
a university that meets international standards,” the
university and the rights groups Al-Haq and Adalah
stated.</p>
<p>Over the past two years, four full-time and three
part-time faculty members at Birzeit, the oldest
Palestinian university operating in the West Bank,
were forced to leave the country and were unable to
continue teaching after Israel refused to renew their
visas.</p>
<p>This year, two internationals with full-time
contracts at Birzeit were denied entry by Israel. Six
faculty members are currently without valid visas and
another five, including a department chair, “are
overseas with no clear indication of whether they will
be able to return.”</p>
<p>Dozens of international staff and lecturers have been
“detrimentally affected during the previous two years
by Israeli rejections of applications for new visas or
visa extensions or by refusal to allow them to enter
the West Bank.”</p>
<p>Many are Palestinians who hold international
passports, and the majority are from the US and
European Union member states.</p>
<p>Israel’s policy toward international academics
“violates universities’ freedom to expand the areas of
research and studies it offers to Palestinian and
international students alike. As such, Israel is
blocking the occupied Palestinian population from
determining for themselves what kind of education they
want to provide.”</p>
<p>A regulation issued by COGAT, the bureaucratic arm of
Israel’s military occupation, allows international
“lecturers and advisers” to apply for a visa lasting
up to three months only.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Israeli universities “are able to recruit
foreign academics under a separate procedure that
allows the entry and employment of foreigners for a
period of up to five years.”</p>
<h2>Permit regime</h2>
<p>Israel’s permit regime prevents Palestinians in Gaza
from studying at West Bank universities, and vice
versa.</p>
<p>Gaza students once made up some <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2011/mar/21/gaza-higher-education-blockade">35
percent</a> of enrollment at West Bank universities.</p>
<p>Under Israeli blockade for more than a decade,
unemployment among recent university graduates in Gaza
stood at <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/gaza-unemployment-soars-medicine-stocks-hit-zero">nearly
80 percent</a> last year.</p>
<p>International scholarly associations including the
US-based Middle East Studies Association, California
Scholars for Academic Freedom and the British
Societies for Middle East Studies have condemned
Israel’s restrictions on foreign academics in
Palestinian universities.</p>
<p>European academics and researchers have meanwhile <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/eu-and-israels-killing-partnership">called
for an end</a> to EU funding of Israeli academic
institutions with “close ties with Israeli military
industry.”</p>
<p>The European Union has channeled <a
href="https://twitter.com/EUinIsrael/status/1135965199817728002">more
than $800 million</a> to Israeli researchers,
largely through its <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/horizon-2020">Horizon
2020</a> funding program.</p>
<p>Since 2004, Palestinian civil society groups have
called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.</p>
<p>Such institutions “have either contributed directly
to maintaining, defending or otherwise justifying”
Israeli state oppression or have been complicit
“through their silence,” the <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/pacbi/pacbi-call">boycott
call</a> states.</p>
<p>In what is said to be a first, a European association
of mental health researchers has just canceled plans
to hold its 2021 conference in Jerusalem.</p>
<p>ENMESH <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-in-first-european-academic-association-cancels-upcoming-conference-in-israel-1.7452194">reportedly
took the decision</a> after a backlash from board
members who did not want the organization to spend the
next two years under pressure from Palestine
solidarity campaigners.</p>
<p>According to Israel’s <em>Haaretz</em> newspaper,
“This is the first time that an organization of this
kind has walked back on an already approved decision
to hold a conference in Israel, indicating that the
campaign to boycott Israeli academics may be gaining
traction.”</p>
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