30 June 2002
Since March 2001 the working life of Birzeit University has been held hostage to an Israeli army military checkpoint that is used to impede or totally block access to the campus. The Birzeit-Ramallah checkpoint is a prison gate which has been locked shut on numerous occasions with the result of placing the University and 33 surrounding villages under absolute siege. When "open" the checkpoint is a harrowing and dangerous barrier to cross; students and staff have suffered physical injury and threat at the hands of Israeli military forces manning it, and on numerous occasions have been trapped on the wrong side unable to reach their homes when it has been suddenly and randomly re-closed. The impact on university life has been severe and the recent worsening of this situation now raises questions as to whether academic life at Birzeit University can be sustained for much longer.
The Birzeit-Ramallah checkpoint is but one among more than 120 military roadblocks imposed around all Palestinian communities in the West Bank over the past twenty months. The ever-growing strangulation on our mobility has meant that the geographic circle of students and staff making up the University has constantly narrowed. First Gaza students, then northern and southern West Bank students, were unable to continue their education at Birzeit due to the closures around their immediate communities. Over the past twenty months, more than 30% of Birzeit University students have been forced to drop out from the University due to closures. For those remaining -- overwhelmingly students who live in the Ramallah/Jerusalem area -- the Birzeit-Ramallah checkpoint has become the main obstacle between them and the ability to continue their education.
Following Israel's major invasion and re-occupation of West Bank towns in March/April 2002, the Birzeit-Ramallah checkpoint has been closed more often than open -- bringing University life to a complete standstill. When it is open, long lines of pedestrians waiting to cross are often met with tear gas and sound bombs. Young men in particular are constantly being turned back from reaching the university or are a subject to long searches and i.d. checks --often an opportunity for soldiers to demean and humiliate them. Female students are regularly
verbally harassed. Attempts by faculty members to inquire about students being held by soldiers have resulted in faculty detentions as well. The random decisions at any moment to close all movement through the checkpoint has resulted in staff and students on a number of occasions being forced to walk through the valley below in an attempt to return home from campus where they have been fired upon by soldiers from the checkpoint. The soldiers act as if there is no oversight over their actions and they are free to treat the civilian population at the checkpoint as they please. The situation has become so volatile that a small group of foreign staff members at the University who had organized a volunteer checkpoint watch took the hard decision to disband their presence in April 2002 concluding that their own physical well-being was now at risk.
The checkpoint only separates Palestinian communities from each other -- it does not stand on the way to any Israeli settlements in the area. Thus arguments that it plays a security function are unsustainable. Clearly, it is a form of collective punishment, aimed at making the lives of 50,000 inhabitants of surrounding villages and the 6,000 students and staff at the university untenable. Its role has been to cut short the education of hundreds of students, to crush attempts at leading a normal university life, and to disable any attempt to plan, build and dream for the future.
However, since June 20th 2002 the Israeli army has directly re-occupied seven of the eight West Bank towns (including Ramallah) putting 60,000 Palestinians under blanket curfews until further notice. The Israeli leadership has stated they will remain in the towns indefinitely and the most optimistic scenario suggests that they will withdraw to the edges of the towns after a six month period. At present the majority of Birzeit students and faculty are now confined to their homes with no clarity about when or even whether they will be able to return to their academic lives. It is hoped that given what has happened in other towns, the curfews will be "regularized" and lifted during day light hours so as to "facilitate" some aspects of working life. But given that Israel's closure policy remains in place on Palestinian cities even if such a scenario unfolds, reaching the university from Ramallah during the times when the curfew is lifted will still be hampered by the checkpoint between the city and the university.
The Birzeit-Ramallah checkpoint clearly violates students’ right to education under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 26); in willfully obstructing public order and civil life and educational and economic opportunity, and as acts of collective punishment, harassment and degradation of the civilian population. Israel stands in clear violation of its duties as an occupying power under provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Hague Regulations. The Right to Education Campaign at Birzeit University asks for your support in ending the siege on our academic lives. We ask that you support our students rights to have safe access to education , free from fear of physical injury and personal humiliation. We ask that you support our right to teach our students in an environment of basic human dignity. Our hope is in their future and we need your support in making their future possible.
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