Education has been a source of both hope and transformation for the Palestinian people. However, Palestinian educational life over the past seven decades has had to contend with the oppressive and often violent measures of the Israeli occupation in its systematic efforts to cripple and isolate higher education institutions. A set of procedures recently published by the Israeli Defense Ministry puts more and more restrictions on who can enter, work, stay, lecture and teach at universities in the occupied West Bank. The ministry reportedly plans to decide which foreign lecturers are allowed to teach in Palestinian universities in the West Bank and what topics they are allowed to teach.

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, a new set of rules issued by the ministry's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) will allow Palestinian institutions in higher education to employ lecturers from abroad only if they meet specific criteria defined by Israel. Those lecturers and researchers need to be "outstanding," with at least a doctorate. They have to submit a visa application at the Israeli consulates in their countries before traveling to the West Bank. The COGAT is setting a limited number of teaching visas, which will not exceed 100. The new rules were issued last month by Israeli army generals at the COGAT but will come into effect at the beginning of May. There will also be a yearly limit of 150 visas issued to international students who would like to study at Palestinian universities.

Haaretz reported that the COGAT and the defense ministry will have the power to restrict the academic subjects taken by international students, who also need to go through an interview at the Israeli consulate as part of their visa application. One document the COGAT requires to be submitted as part of the visa application by students or lecturers is an official invitation letter issued by the Palestinian Authority (PA). Lecturer and students' visas will be valid for a year, with the possibility of extension. Lecturers can teach for a maximum of five non-consecutive years, but they have to depart the country for nine months after 27 months of teaching in order to comply with Israeli regulations. International students can stay for four years to complete their graduate or post-doctoral degrees, and then they have to leave. These new procedures will include all students and academics traveling to the West Bank from countries that had diplomatic ties with Israel, including the United Kingdom and the European Union. Besides, the citizens of Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Morocco, who all have diplomatic ties with Israel, can only apply for shorter teaching and studying visas under stringent rules. The new rules will also decide the visa time of workers at nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the Palestinian areas and for investors and businesspeople who would like to work in the West Bank.

Systematic restrictions

As the occupying power, Israel retains full control over access to the occupied Palestinian territories and places restrictions on exit and entry. The freedom of Palestinian universities is undermined by the potential threat of closure by Israeli authorities and the expulsion of academics and students. Military raids of university campuses remain a regular occurrence and Israel refuses to grant work permits or student visas to foreign passport holders to teach or study at Palestinian universities. Students and academics carrying foreign passports are therefore reliant upon short-term visitor permits, which are often delayed, issued without predictability and may be unexpectedly canceled. Visiting academics and students are often face denied entry.

A study dated February 2018 by the Palestinian Ministry of Education found that more than half of the international lecturers and staff (32 out of 64) at eight Palestinian universities were 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. These academics, many of them Palestinians holding foreign passports, are citizens of various countries including the Netherlands, France, Germany, India and Jordan, with the majority from the U.S. and EU member states.

There are about 50 licensed higher-education institutions in the West Bank and Gaza, including universities and colleges, with more than 220,000 students. Israeli procedures are aimed at obstructing the work of Palestinian universities, preventing their progress and success as there has recently been a sharp rise in the number of academics who have been prevented from renewing their stay or returning from abroad.

However, human rights groups say that since at least mid-2016 there has been a marked escalation in visa rejections and a tightening of restrictions, which included the denial of entry to the West Bank, rejection of visa extension applications and arbitrary decisions to issue short-term visas, sometimes ranging from two to three months only. The Israeli authorities’ refusal to renew work permits and the absence of clear procedures for issuing entry and residency visas cause many academics to hesitate to work in Palestinian universities.

Illegal procedures

The Israeli policy toward international academics violates both Israeli law and international law. It 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. The Israeli military occupation cannot prevent Palestinians from exercising their right.

Indeed, according to the interpretation applied to Article 43 of the Hague Regulations of 1907, the sovereignty of education does not change hands – it is inalienable – and must remain in the hands of the occupied Palestinian population. Besides, Palestinian universities are often raided or closed, their buildings ransacked, staff and students regularly tear-gassed, shot with live ammunition and summarily arrested.

Engulfed as they are by a hostile military power, education throws Palestinians a lifeline and despite Israel’s efforts to sever it, it is one of the few things the populations of the West Bank have left. Learning can be disrupted, but it can’t be stolen, demolished or imprisoned – so it’s no surprise that despite Israel’s ongoing blockade of universities, Palestine has, by international standards, a high rate of participation in tertiary education. Palestinian universities, similar to all universities in the world, must be allowed to employ foreign academics from abroad without impediment or restriction in order to enable them to independently exercise their academic freedom and conduct higher education in a proper and orderly way. Palestinians have the right to exercise their academic freedom and quality education in the context of their right to self-determination and their universities will remain major channels of aspirations for freedom and justice.