   
Harassment of Nablus Students at Checkpoints
Daphna Banai, Machsom Watch, 10 May 2004
During the last year, while monitoring the Nablus area checkpoints, we have witnessed terrible abuse of students attending universities in Nablus, and of Nablus residents who study elsewhere - all the student population that needs to pass the strangulation ring of checkpoints surrounding the town. We tried to raise the issue with the Military Commander of Nablus Harel Knafo, but the answers were unsatisfactory, and we have not seen any effort by the army to alleviate the problems:
1. Only students attending certain institutions are allowed to pass the checkpoints. The situation depends on the extent of cooperation of the university heads with the army. For example, the administration of the A-Najah University met with the army representatives (according to Commander Knafo). The resulting understanding included prohibition of ALL POLITICAL ACTIVITY in the university (please note not terrorist activity). The administration of the Al-Quds University branch in Nablus refused to be part of such understanding, and therefore students of this institution are denied passage at the checkpoints. We have witnessed hundreds of cases of denied passage as a results of this decision.
2. The students are granted passage through the checkpoints on specific weekdays only. Entry to Nablus is allowed only on Saturday, and exit - on Wednesday. This is since there are no regular classes on Thursday and Friday. This decision is arbitrary and interferes seriously with academic freedom. Let me describe some of the resulting difficulties which we encountered:
a) The decision forces students who are not Nablus residents, to live during the weekdays in Nablus. The expenses are substantial, especially these days, when most of Palestinians are unemployed. Besides, many parents are likely to object to the possibility that their 18 year old daughter will live alone in the town.
b) We meet many students who are prevented from attending exams taking place during weekends. For example, two weeks ago we encountered many students who were prevented by the soldiers from attending an exam that took place on Thursday. Other students, who remained in town for this exam, could not get home for that weekend. A month ago we encountered students who arrived on Thursday morning to attend the pharmacists' certification exam . They were denied entry to Nablus and returned with tears in their eyes.
c) A student who has to return home on another day, because of being sick, or because of a family problem or disaster, cannot leave town (the soldiers do not believe him, of course). Conversely, if a student cannot return to school on Saturday (due to sickness, or family needs), he or she has to loose a week of school and to wait till next Saturday.
d) A week ago the school ended on Tuesday, and Wednesday was declared a holiday. Hundreds of students who arrived to the checkpoints were turned back to Nablus and requested to return on the next day, a Wednesday.
The checkpoints make life of civilians miserable in countless ways. They are a hotbed of frustration, hatred, and terrorism, resulting from humiliation, harassment and oppression of millions of people. There is no justification for the checkpoints, especially the ones separating Arab villages from Arab towns, and one Arab town from another. It is not enough that every village is blocked with dirt mounds and there is no way to leave in a vehicle. It is not enough that Arabs are discriminated with respect to Jews on the West Bank roads, and that settler roads are closed for Palestinians.
The checkpoints prevent any kind of normal life. Palestinians cannot get to work, and most of them have to subside on handouts from human rights organizations. The checkpoints stand in the way of people who need to visit a dying aunt, to see a doctor, to fix a car, to pass a vehicle test (and the police is continuously hunting for "transgressors" of vehicle laws, in order to fine them). And much more.
The only justification of this abuse of fellow human beings, could be, possibly, security. But the claim of the Nablus Commander is that the orders were instituted for the convenience of Palestinians! because if students would pass every day, that would be pressure on the checkpoints, and disturbances may ensue. According to this kind of logic, one might anticipate orders that women will be allowed to pass the checkpoints only on (say) Monday mornings, the old people - only on Thursdays, and the the sick should wait patiently till next Sunday. Surely that would reduce the the pressure on the checkpoints!
We see the students' plight every day. They are detained at checkpoints for hours, sometimes for as many as 12 hours. (On night we stayed with detained students till 11PM. On that freezing-cold January night, the detained were forced to sit in the mud, facing the wall. After their release, there was no transport, and they had to endanger themselves by sneaking on foot through the mountains, some for 30 kilometers).
I THINK THAT IT IS A DUTY OF THE ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS TO INTERVENE SO THAT THEIR COUNTERPARTS IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES WILL HAVE A CHANCE TO PROVIDE EDUCATION. I should like to express my respect and admiration to the Palestinian students, and their drive to acquire education, despite the difficulties and the painful efforts they have to make. And every day new difficulties are piled in their way. I hope very much that Israeli students and academics will find ways to help their colleagues beyond the Green Line, to struggle together for the right to study.
Sincerely,
Daphna Banai
MachsomWatch
www.machsomwatch.org
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