• Salah HAMMOURI: « Prisonnier de Jérusalem. Un détenu politique en Palestine occupée » . Libertalia, coll. Orient XXI, 31 août 2023, 144 p., 10 euros. Préface d’Armelle Laborie-Sivan: « Salah Hammouri, prisonnier de Jérusalem, coupable de résister &raqip; (Orient XXI, le 1 septembre, 2023): click here!

  "Dans un récit de vie publié par Libertalia dans la collection Orient XXI, le franco-palestinien Salah Hammouri raconte dix ans passés dans les prisons israéliennes. Le livre est dans les librairies depuis le 31 août. Nous publions la préface d’Armelle Laborie-Sivan, qui a recueilli et rédigé les fortes paroles de Salah Hammouri."

• Mitri RAHEB: « Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible » . Orbis Books, September 2023; ISBN:9781626985490, 184p., click here!

  "Decolonizing Palestine" powerfully examines the inseparability of the liberation of Palestinians and the decolonizing of theological discourses. Raheb interrogates the interpretations of biblical stories as a warrant to practice violence in all its forms while illuminating decolonial theological pathways. The book scrutinizes obvious manifestations of violent Jewish and Christian theological justifications authorizing the dispossession of Palestinians. It also focuses on liberal forms of Christian Zionism and their likewise harmful insidious legacies.

• Peter SHAMBROOK: « Policy of Deceit. Britain and Palestine, 1914-1939 » .  OneWorld Academic, August 3, 2023, ISBN: 9780861546329; RRP: £35.00, 416p., click here!

  In this eye-opening book, Peter Shambrook delves into the secret correspondence between the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, and the Sharif of Mecca during the First World War. McMahon promised the Sharif an independent Arab state, including Palestine, after the war, in exchange for his alliance with Britain against the Ottomans. But what happened next changed the course of history.

• Malaka SHWAIKH and Rebecca Ruth GOULD: « Prison Hunger Strikes in Palestine: A Strategic Perspective. »  International Center on Nonviolent Conflict Press, 2023, pb, 116 pp., $20.00. To order: click here! Review by Yousef M. Aljamal: click here!

  This publication is the first major transnational examination of prison hunger strikes. While focusing on Palestine, the research is enriched by extensive interviews and conversations with South African, Kurdish, Irish, and British ex-prisoners and hunger strikers. This study reveals in unprecedented detail how prison hunger strikes achieve monumental feats of resistance through the weaponization of lives.

• Rebecca Ruth GOULD: « Erasing Palestine: Free Speech and Palestinian Freedom » . Verso, July 2023, 9781839769023, pb £14.99, 176 p.

  The widespread adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-semitism and the internalisation of its norms has set in motion a simplistic definitional logic for dealing with social problems that has impoverished discussions of racism and prejudice more generally, across Britain and beyond. It has encouraged a focus on words over substance... click here!

• Nick RIEMER: « Boycott Theory and the Struggle for Palestine. Universities, Intellectualism and Liberation » . Rowman & Littlefield Publ., January 2023, 224p., pb $35.00.

  The academic boycott of Israel, a branch of the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, is one of the richest and most divisive topics in the politics of knowledge today. click here!

• James FERGUSSON: « IN SEARCH OF THE RIVER JORDAN.  A Story of Palestine, Israel and the Struggle for Water » . Yale University Press, New Haven/London (2023), $30, 293 pp.

  Review: Nancy MURRAY: "A tour through Palestine’s water apartheid" (Mondoweiss, July 23, 2023): click here!

• Avi SHLAIM: « Three Worlds. Memoirs of an Arab-Jew » . Oneworld Publications, July 11, 2023; 336 p.

  A unique coming-of-age story from the lost world of Arab-Jews. In July 1950, Avi Shlaim, only five, and his family were forced into exile, fleeing from their beloved Iraq into the new state of Israel. click here!

• Hil AKED: « Friends of Israel: The Backlash Against Palestine Solidarity » . Verso, April 2023, 304 p., pb ISBN 9781786637659, £13.29; eBook ISBN: 9781786637673, £2.00: click here!

  "Friends of Israel" provides a forensically researched account of the activities of Israel's advocates in Britain, showing how they contribute to maintaining Israeli apartheid. The book traces the history and changing fortunes of key actors within the British Zionist movement in the context of the Israeli government's contemporary efforts to repress a rising tide of solidarity with Palestinians expressed through the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.  Edited excerpt: click here!

• Ghada KARMI: « One State. The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel » . Pluto Press, April 2023, pb ISBN: 9780745348315; eBook ISBN: 9780745348339, 208p., £14.99.

  Ch. 1, "The Problem of Zionism", (p. 8): "It is important to frame the situation in Israel/Palestine within its proper context. Israel is not a natural phenomenon in the Middle East, did not arise as a normal result of circumstance, and had no historical antecedents in the region, despite the biblical mythology employed to suggest the contrary. It is a settler colonial state, set up denovo, aiming to provide a home for the Jews of the world, or as many of them as would come, with the aim of maintaining a permanent Jewish majority presence in that state..." click here!

• Oren KESSLER: « Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict » . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2023, ISBN 978-1-5381-4880-8 • Hardback • February 2023 • $26.95 • (£20.99). click here!

  In spring 1936, the Holy Land erupted in a rebellion that targeted both the local Jewish community and the British Mandate authorities that for two decades had midwifed the Zionist project. The Great Arab Revolt would last three years, cost thousands of lives—Jewish, British, and Arab—and cast the trajectory for the Middle East conflict ever since. Yet incredibly, no history of this seminal, formative first “Intifada” has ever been published for a general audience…
  Zack Rothbart, "A Journey to the Roots of Today’s Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" (Haaretz, April 5, 2023), click here!  ‘Palestine 1936,’ a new history of the Great Revolt in the British Mandate of Palestine, argues that the seeds for the Mideast conflict were cultivated, if not sown, nearly a century ago.

• Thomas SUÀREZ: « PALESTINE HIJACKED. How Zionism Forged an Apartheid State from River to Sea » . Olive Branch Press, 2023, ISBN 978-1-62371-819-0, 470p., $ 25.00. click here!  For a 'Selection of Source Documents cited in this book, 'Palestine Hijacked,' and in other writings' of the author: click on paldocs.net. Presentation the back cover: click here!

  The Israel-Palestine so-called “conflict” is typically understood to be a clash between two ethnic groups—Arabs and Jews—inhabiting the same land. Thomas Suárez digs deep below these preconceptions and their supporting “narratives” to expose something starkly different: The violent take-over of Palestine by a European racial-nationalist settler movement, Zionism, using terror to assert by force a claim to the land that has no legal or moral basis.

  About this book: How terror was used by Zionist militias to transform Palestine into an apartheid settler state. The Israel-Palestine “conflict” is typically understood to be a clash between two ethnic groups—Arabs and Jews—inhabiting the same land. Thomas Suárez digs deep below these preconceptions and their supporting “narratives” to expose something starkly different: The violent take-over of Palestine by a European racial-nationalist settler movement, Zionism, using terror to assert by force a claim to the land that has no legal or moral basis...

• Nada KISWANSON & Susan POWER (edd.): « Prolonged Occupation and International Law. Israel and Palestine . » Series: International Humanitarian Law Series, Volume: 66 (Brill, 2023, 408pp.) Info: click here.

  This volume arose from a desire to advance academic discourse and reflection on the broader subject of prolonged occupation. Presentation: by Al-Haq, 30 March 2023, click here.
  "This collection is the best and most comprehensive scholarly work to date on International Law and the longest illegal occupation in modern world; a monumental achievement and a must read for anyone interested in human rights and ensuring accountability and justice for all violations of International Law in Occupied Palestine." Nur Masalha, Historian and Professor, SOAS University of London.

• Francesca P ALBANESE & Lex TAKKENBERG: « UNRWA and the Palestinian refugees: Protecting refugee rights while structurally addressing the agency’s financially unsustainable modus operandi. » Refugees Study Centre, Working Paper, Series 138, 27/02/2023, 18p. download here.

  The 73-year-long failure to resolve the Palestinian refugee question, and the discourse around it, especially since Madrid and Oslo, combined with the unsustainability of UNRWA’s current modus operandi – essentially a means to manage the humanitarian dimension of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict – prompt a critical re-examination of the way the Palestinian refugee question has been approached and how UNRWA has interpreted and implemented its mandate over the past decades. This paper calls for a fundamental paradigm shift in the approach to protection of and solutions for the Palestinian refugees...

• John DUGARD, Michael LYNK & Richard FALK: « OCCUPIED PALESTINE: Working Through the United Nations. » Foreword by Francesca Albanese. Clarity Press, 2023, ISBN 978-1-949762-54-9; eBook ISBN 978-1-949762-55-6, 398p., 2023; $32.95 - $22.00. click here!

  This book is the first comprehensive examination of UN efforts to protect Palestinian human rights in the territories occupied by Israel more than 50 years ago in the 1967 War. Working through the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, three top international legal experts – Richard Falk, John Dugard and Michael Lynk – served for six consecutive years as unpaid Special Rapporteurs with a UN mandate to report on Israeli violations of international humanitarian law and human rights standards. Being outside the discipline that controls UN bureaucrats, they enjoyed a high measure of political independence in carrying out their factfinding and reporting missions. Strikingly, despite their differences in background and political outlook, they came to a unanimous consensus confirming the routine and various Israeli violations of Palestinian basic rights.

“Scholasticide” – the systematic destruction by Israeli forces of centres of education"
(RIGHT2EDUCATION, Birzeit University, January 10, 2009): click here.
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.

Nick Riemer: “Scholasticide: The Relentless Attack on Palestinian Universities"
(The Wire, January 1, 2019): click here.
Israel’s efforts to cripple higher education in occupied Palestine continued relentlessly in 2018, with Israeli universities acting as key tools of the occupation. The systematic punishment inflicted on Palestinian academics and students didn’t attract anything like the global attention of Gazans’ March of Return, but it deserves to be documented and organised against for what it is: a slow, sadistic crushing of learning, and a stifling of the life opportunities it provides. A selection of the manifestations of this “scholasticide,” all drawn from local reports, is catalogued in this article, along with some brief indications of Israeli universities’ collaboration in it. This suggests the full violence of Israel’s siege on higher education in Palestine – and the urgent necessity of an effective response on the part of people of good conscience around the world, including those who work in universities.

• Fayha Shahash, « Palestinians decry Israel army's 'barbaric' university raid and student arrests. » Eight members of Birzeit University student council detained in the latest crackdown on student politics » (Middle East Eye, Sept 25, 2023): click here!

  Palestinians have condemned the Israeli army's storming of a leading West Bank university and the arrest of student activists. Around 10 military vehicles violently raided Birzeit University's campus at dawn on Sunday before dozens of special forces disembarked and surrounded the student council building, according to student Basil Barghouti. Troops assaulted university guards, vandalised the council's office and arrested eight of its members. The detained students, including the council's elected president, Abdul Majeed Hassan, had been barricading themselves inside the building for two weeks fearing arrest by the Palestinian security services. "The soldiers destroyed the contents of the building and broke equipment that was to be used in activities during next week," Barghouti told Middle East Eye. "They also confiscated many items belonging to the student council."

• « Diplomatic missions across Europe call on Israel to stop West Bank demolitions" » (Times of Israel, May 27, 2023): click here.

  Consortium led by EU office to West Bank and Gaza says Israel should ‘return or compensate’ about 10 countries for humanitarian items, after razing EU-funded school near Bethlehem. In a press statement Friday, the consulates general of Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, and the representative offices of Denmark, Finland, Germany and Ireland, as well as the EU office to the West Bank and Gaza, slammed Israel for the recent demolition earlier this month of an EU-funded school in the Palestinian village of Jubbet al-Dhib near Bethlehem, and the “threatened demolition of another 57 schools in the West Bank.”

• Rafaël Rutten: « Isolation and Control. Israel’s denial of foreign nationals to the oPt », The Center for Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights “Hurryyat” (May 23, 2023): click here.<

  In December 2022, Israel implemented a series of new guidelines for foreigners applying for a visa for the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). The 62 page document titled ‘Procedure for Entry and Residence of Foreigners in the Judea and Samaria Area’, published by the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), outlines extensive requirements for obtaining a long term visa for the oPt. These requirements severely limit the possibility for foreign nationals to visit, work or study in the oPt...

• Human Rights Watch, « West Bank: New Entry Rules Further Isolate Palestinians » (HRW, January, 23, 2023): click here.

  Israel's Guidelines Impede Visiting, Studying, Working.

• Yuval Abraham: « Palestinian school razed after campaign by gov’t-linked settler group » (+972, May 8, 2023): click here.

  The residents of Jib al-Dib lost their years-long fight to save their elementary school, leaving dozens of children without proper access to education.

• Canaan Lidor: « Israel razes EU-funded Palestinian school near Bethlehem » (The Times of Israel, May 7, 2023): click here.

  Demolition, which follows a court ruling from March, prompts protests from the European Union and Palestinian Authority... The Palestinian Education Ministry called the demolition “a heinous crime,” adding: “These practices fall within the framework of the occupying regime’s ongoing crimes against the Palestinian educational sector, targeting students, teachers and educational institutions in complete disregard of international conventions and principles" (m.u.).

• « Israeli Court Approves Palestinian School Demolition near Bethlehem » (The Palestine Chronicle, March 6, 2023): click here.

  An Israeli occupation court ruled on Monday in favor of the demolition of a school in the Jub Al-Dhib community, near Bethlehem, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. The coordinator of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Hassan Brijiyeh, said that the Central Israeli Court issued a ruling in favor of the demolition of the al-Tahadi 5 School in the southern occupied West Bank village, effectively accepting a petition submitted by the Regavim settler group to demolish the structure.

• « Palestinian Students under Suspended Detention » (AURDIP, Feb 25, 2023): click here.

  The Israeli occupation authorities systematically and persistently target Palestinian university students for arbitrary arrest and detention. This practice, amounting to a form of collective punishment, violates Palestinian students’ rights both to education and to freedom of association, assembly, and expression, all protected under international legal standards. Each year, the Israeli occupation authorities viciously arrest and detain dozens of Palestinian students, often under the pretext of involvement with student groups deemed “illegal” under Israeli military orders. Though the Israeli occupation authorities target students and student groups across Palestine, students at Birzeit University have been subjected to the most consistent, systematic attacks, raids on campus, arbitrary detention orders, and torture and ill-treatment.

• HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: « West Bank: New Entry Rules Further Isolate Palestinians. » Israel's Guidelines Impede Visiting, Studying, Working (HRW, January 23, 2023): click here.

  Israel's Guidelines Impede Visiting, Studying, Working. Jerusalem – New Israeli guidelines on access to the West Bank for foreigners threaten to further isolate Palestinians from loved ones and global civil society, Human Rights Watch said today.
  Israeli authorities have long made it difficult for foreigners to teach, study, volunteer, work, or live in the West Bank. The new guidelines codify and tighten longstanding restrictions, threatening to make it even harder for Palestinians in the West Bank, who already face severe Israeli-imposed movement restrictions, to be with family members who lack a West Bank ID and to engage with foreign students, academics, experts, and others. “By making it harder for people to spend time in the West Bank, Israel is taking yet another step toward turning the West Bank into another Gaza, where two million Palestinians have lived virtually sealed off from the outside world for over 15 years,” said Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “This policy is designed to weaken the social, cultural, and intellectual ties that Palestinians have tried to maintain with the outside world.”

• Shahd Safi: « In Gaza, Students’ Heavy Endeavors are Going in Vain » (The Palestine Chronicle, November 25, 2022): click here.>

  From the 1948 Nakba, the Naksa of 1967 to now, many Palestinians have been forced to live as refugees, facing dire social and financial difficulties. Education is their only hope for survival. But so many families can’t afford the expenses associated with college and university.

• Kadoorie University Denounces Israeli Occupation’s Violation Inside its Campus in Tulkarem (AURDIP, November 20, 2022): click here.

  The administration of Palestine Technical University – Kadoorie (PTUK) denounces and strongly condemns the Israeli Occupation forces’ desecrating actions, disrespecting its sanctity and forcing the university staff to open the main gates and the cameras control room to drag out certain records and photocopied clips.

• Committee on Academic Freedom: « COGAT regulations’ impact on international scholar selection » (MESA, October 20, 2022): click here.

  Letter sent on 20 October 2022 to:  Israel PM Yair Lapid, Minister of Education Yifat Shasha-Biton, Minister of Justice Gideon Sa'ar, Brigadier-General Ghasan Alyan, Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Chief Clerk Idit Malul, Supreme Court of the State of Israel.

• Yumna Patel & Michael Arria: « Israeli restrictions on foreign travel into occupied West Bank take effect despite criticisms » (Mondoweiss, October 20, 2022): click here.

  A draconian set of Israeli restrictions on foreign travel into the occupied West Bank take effect today, despite months of condemnations by rights groups and legal efforts to stop them.

• Awdah Hathaleen: "In Masafer Yatta, teachers like me can’t guarantee our students an education" (+972, November 15, 2022): click here.

  With schools facing demolition orders and soldiers detaining students and teachers for hours, obstacles to education are becoming insurmountable.

• Hamoked Center for the Defence of the Individual: "New Israeli Procedure on Entry of Foreigners to the West Bank" (Briefing paper Sept 2022): click here.

  Interference with Palestinian Civil Society and Academic Freedom: In the new procedure, the Israeli Defense Ministry gives itself the prerogative to set academic qualifications for lecturers. Faculty and student visas can only be renewed for a maximum of 27 months, and then a person would have to leave the West Bank before applying for a new visa. There is no possibility to offer tenure to foreign faculty, as after a cumulative stay of five years, a foreign lecturer must remain abroad for nine months before they can re-enter the West Bank... It should also be noted that this procedure would not apply to foreigners who wish to travel to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. For example, foreign lecturers and students at Ariel University in the Ariel settlement will continue to be governed by the much more lenient regulations set by Israel’s Ministry of Interior.

• Maureen Clare Murphy: "“Racial engineering” behind Israel’s new West Bank entry restrictions" (The Electronic Intifada, 26 Sept, 2022): click here.

  The 97-page procedure serves Israel’s “racial engineering” of the population in the West Bank “within the framework of its apartheid regime, which constitutes a crime against humanity,” according to a coalition of Palestinian human rights groups... Those seeking to work or study in the West Bank “must apply for an entry visa 45, 60, or even up to 153 days before arrival as well as provide an extensive questionnaire on their CV [resume], and any familial or spousal connections in the West Bank,” according to the coalition of rights groups.

• Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC): "International Community Must Take Prompt and Concrete Measures to Halt Israel’s New Procedure for Entry and Residence of Foreigners in the West Bank" (Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, 8 Sept, 2022): click here.

  The Israeli occupying authorities have imposed further restrictions on the entry of foreign nationals and Palestinians who hold foreign passports and wish to work, volunteer, join their Palestinian family members or act in solidarity with the Palestinian people in the oPt. The constraints of the new procedure, which was published on 4 September 2022 and will enter into force on 20 October 2022, also apply to foreign nationals whose work requires that they stay for any length of time in the West Bank (excluding occupied Jerusalem).

• Neve Gordon: « Palestinian universities are once again under attack » (AlJazeera, July 15, 2022): click here!

  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...

• « Academic Freedom & Palestinian Universities in the Occupied West Bank. » Letter to the Israeli authorities by Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (English translation, Adalah's News, 30 June 2022, pdf, 10p.): click here!

  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.

• BZU CALL TO ACTION: “BIRZEIT UNIVERSITY REJECTS ISRAELI MEASURES AGAINST ACADEMIC FREEDOM” (March 12, 2022): click here! Version in pdf: click here!

  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.

• "Atteintes graves à la liberté académique en Palestine" (Le Soir, le 6 avril, 2022): click here!

  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.

• Committee on Academic Freedom: “Letter protesting new Israel Government directive regarding selection of international scholars and students to teach and study in Palestinian Universities ” (MESA, April 5, 2022): click here!

  "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."

• “Stop de Israëlische belegering van Palestijnse universiteiten” (MO*, 31 maart 2022): click here!

  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.

• “Statement on Israel’s Latest Repression of Palestinian Universities” (USACBI, March, 2022): click here!

  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."

• Haaretz Editorial: "Resist Israel's Academic Occupation of the Palestinians" (Haaretz, March 10, 2022): click here!

  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.

• Nasim AHMED: "Israel deciding who can teach at Palestinian universities is another nail on the apartheid regime" (MEMo, March 10, 2022): click here!
• Amira HASS: "À Israël de décider pour les Palestiniens quels enseignants étrangers peuvent enseigner dans les universités de Cisjordanie" (Haaretz, trad. AURDIP, 10 mars 2022): cliquez-ici!

  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.

• Mohammed NAJIB: "Palestinian students, professors report harm of Israeli restrictions on campus" (Arab News, March 9, 2022): click here!

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

• Amira HASS: " Israel to Decide for Palestinians Which Foreign Lecturers Can Teach at West Bank Universities. A set of procedures published by the Defense Ministry puts further restrictions on who can enter, work and stay in the West Bank" (Haaretz, March 8, 2022): click here!

  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.