Arab Students Demonstrate at the Hebrew University

In the last couple of days the Hebrew University campus in Jerusalem witnessed several demonstrations made by the Arab students movements. The Arab movements Aljabha, tajamo, Abnaa albalad, Watan, Ikra and Alreslaeh called the students to participate in a demonstration which was made last Tuesday to demonstrate against Israel’s policy in East Jerusalem.

More than one hundred fifty students participated in the demonstration while holding posters and shouting slogans asking from the Israeli government to end occupation in East Jerusalem and putting an end to the settlements building in the city.
A few Israeli rightist students started to attack the demonstration while cursing and threatening those who participated in it. The University security and Israeli policemen protected the Israeli students and arrested some of the Arab students. Six students were arrested and three were injured.

The Arab student movements sent an objection letter to the Dean of the university accusing the University security of taking part in the attack against the Arab students instead of protecting them from the rightist Israeli students. The Arab movements also accused the university of taking part in the attack, which was made; the entrance to the university was closed while the students were trying to go back into the campus.
The Dean office replied that the university would respond to the letter soon and stated that the right of freedom of expression is something that the university respects. On Wednesday the incidents developed since the Arab students declared a strike for two hours between twelve and two o’clock. The Dean office and the security men called the Arab movement’s representatives and ordered them to end the strike and ask from the students to leave the University forum. The Arab movements asked for a response from the dean office regarding the objection letter but the latter refused to give any immediate response. The Arab movements refused to end the strike and the Dean office threatened to punish those who are in charge of the sit in the forum of the university. The Dean office also threatened to freeze the Arab movements work in the campus.

The Arab movements threatened to expand the demonstrations and accused the university of preventing the Arab students from expressing their opinions and national identity.
http://www.middleastpost.com/1706/arabs-students-demonstrate-hebrew-university/

Israel bars Gaza woman from West Bank university

GAZA, Dec 10 (Reuters) - A chance arrest at an Israeli checkpoint has dashed the hopes of Gaza woman of graduating along with the rest of her class this month from a Palestinian university in the occupied West Bank.

Israel deported Berlanty Azzam, 22, to blockaded coastal Gaza in late October, after blindfolding and handcuffing her following her arrest at a checkpoint in the West Bank, territory where Israel says she was residing illegally.

Her case has spotlighted the plight of many of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians, largely prevented from leaving the barbed-wire enclosed Hamas-ruled territory except for a medical emergency or through a rarely open crossing with Egypt.

An Israeli high court ruling on Wednesday upheld the military's decision, confirming Berlanty could not leave Gaza, not even for the three weeks left before her planned graduation from a Vatican-sponsored university in the West Bank.

"It's the worst feeling of injustice I've ever felt," Berlanty told Reuters in an interview. "Is it a crime that young people from Gaza want an education?"

Israel has not charged her of involvement in militancy, or of posing any particular security risk to the Jewish state, she added. Berlanty's Israeli lawyers said she has never been accused of any security offences.

A member of a minority Christian population in Gaza, Berlanty enrolled in Bethlehem University in 2005 for an undergraduate degree in business administration.

Israel stopped her in a car in October at a checkpoint in the West Bank, when she said she was on her way back to the Bethlehem campus from a job interview nearby.

Soldiers dropped her off at the Erez crossing to Gaza late the next night. "It was so embarrassing. All I had were my clothes on my back, and no degree," Berlanty said.

An Israeli military statement said that Berlanty had been sent back to Gaza because a check of her documents showed she was "residing in the West Bank illegally".

It did not accuse Berlanty of involvement with militants, but said "students from Gaza residing in the West Bank illegally have on more than one occasion engaged in terrorism, thus constituting a significant security threat."

In its ruling, the Israeli court upheld the military's view that a permit Berlanty had to visit the West Bank four years ago had expired, and that Israel does not at this time permit Palestinians from Gaza to attend universities in the West Bank.

Israel adopted the policy in 2000 when an uprising, in which hundreds of Israelis were killed in suicide bombings and shootings, erupted over failed peace talks.

Thousands of Palestinians were also killed in the uprising in a series of Israeli military raids against militants.

Israel further tightened restrictions on travel from Gaza after Hamas seized control in 2007, an Islamist group that refuses to recognise or negotiate peace with the Jewish state.

Universities in the West Bank, where Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement holds sway, offer a greater variety of courses, and the territory has better job opportunities than impovershed Gaza.

Sari Bashi, director of Gisha, an Israeli rights group that represented Berlanty in court, argued Israel should judge Gazans seeking entry permits particularly for academic study, on an individual rather than a collective basis.

"If you have security concerns, then run a security check. If there are no claims, then let him or her travel," Bashi said.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Shana)

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