A number of Israeli Education students, studying at the Beit Berl Israeli College, informed the College administration that they refuse to hold their final project at an educational institution located in Ariel illegal Israeli settlement bloc, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

Ariel Settlement - fourth largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank

Israeli Ynet News reported that ten of a group of 30 students told their professor that they will not to participate in this project for political reasons.

The professor then handed the issue to the administration of Beit Berl College, but the administration refused to accept the stance of the students, and said that they must do the project as planned.

A representative of the College met with the students and informed that the institution “does not make political considerations” and that the decision to hold the project in Ariel settlement was made as Ariel College is suitable for it.

The Ynet stated that the response provided by the College led other students to express their rejection to the location of the project. Meanwhile, other students formed a group demanding that the project be held in Ariel as planned.

As the issue remains unresolved, and as the Beit Berl College insists on holding its education project in Ariel, a college official stated that the project will be held as planned, and that students who refuse to participate will have the chance to participate in a different project.

It is worth mentioning that more than 50 Israeli actors and theater professionals previously declared they are boycotting Ariel settlement.

Ariel settlement is one many settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s official stance is that those settlements are “Israeli cities”, and that Israel will never evacuate its settlements blocs under any peace deal with the Palestinians.

Recently, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, slammed the artists’ boycott of Ariel, and said that the initiators of boycott targeting Ariel Cultural Center are “cutting into the flesh of the Israeli society”.

During a meeting with his cabinet, Netanyahu said that all calls for boycotting cultural events held in West Bank settlements must end.

Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition announces the launching of its Palestinian Children’s Right Campaign. The mission of this campaign is to advocate for the immediate release of all Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons, and to demand an end to the institutionalized and systematic abuse that these children are subjected to. The campaign has set as its goal the full restoration of Palestinian children’s rights in accordance with international law including, but not limited to, their right to return to their homes of origin, to education, to medical and psychological care, and to freedom of movement and expression.

BACKGROUND

Al-Awda Launches New Palestinian Children's Rights Campaign

According to International Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights, 1,859 Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli army since September 28, 2000. This is equivalent to more than one quarter of the 7,407 Palestinians who were killed by Israel in the same period. According to mental health care organizations, approximately 80% of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip display symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder and are in need of care. According to Defense Children International (DCI), a Geneva based non-governmental agency, about 700 Palestinian children in the West Bank alone are imprisoned by Israel every year. Further, based on a survey of 100 of these imprisoned children in 2009, DCI found that 69% were beaten and kicked, 49% were threatened, 14% were held in solitary confinement, 12% were threatened with sexual assault, including rape, and 32% were forced to sign confessions written in Hebrew, a language they do not understand. Such institutionalized and systematic mistreatment by the Israeli state of detained Palestinian children is considered torture by the United Nations under international law. Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are also systematically denied their right to education, to medical and psychological care, and to freedom of movement and expression. The total Palestinian population in the world today is estimated at about 11 million. Of these, 7.2 million including their children are living in forced exile or internally displaced, and are denied their right to return to their homes and lands of origin by the state of Israel.

ACTION

The current situation and the severity of the systematic attack by the Israeli state on the children of Palestine demands a comprehensive and coordinated response. Therefore, Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition has decided to launch this campaign specifically to demand the release of all Palestinian children from Israeli prisons and an end to all forms of institutionalized abuse of these children by the Israeli state. The committee, which has been formed to lead this campaign, intends to provide comprehensive education to the public, politicians and the media, and to organize effective advocacy for the rights of Palestinian children living under occupation, internally displaced or in forced exile in refugee camps and elsewhere. It intends to raise funds to support its work and help provide mental health services for children in need of such service.

Among its goals, the committee intends to develop informational campaigns that will include regular updates, the production of factsheets, organization of lecture tours, film showings, rallies and protests, and other educational events. The committee will also organize meetings with politicians, newspaper and other media editors and editorial boards. It will publish calls and petitions to action, and press releases regularly. It
intends to highlight the work needed for Palestinian child rights at the Annual International Al-Awda Conventions, and to reach out to community and student organizations, clubs, churches, mosques, etc. The committee also intends to coordinate its work with other children’s rights organizations and to support all boycotts, divestment and sanction campaigns until children achieve their full rights in compliance with international law and legal norms and standards. The committee also intends to fundraise to support its work and to help provide mental health services for children in need of such service.

We need your assistance with all aspects of this campaign!

Volunteer: If you would like to volunteer to help us with the action plan outlined above, please write to us at child.rights@al-awda.org explaining how and with what aspects you may be able to help.

Donate: To make a tax-deductible donation to help with the work of this campaign, please address your check or money order to Al-Awda – PRRC, PO Box 131352, Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA. Please indicate “Palestine Children’s Campaign” in the memo line. Alternatively, you can submit your donation using your credit card online using the PayPal button at MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from “r20.rs6.net” claiming to be http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html . If you prefer, you may call us 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. Monday to Friday at 760-918-9441 with your credit card information instead.

Organizations: We invite all organizations, who would like to advocate for the children’s rights and would like to coordinate efforts with us on this campaign, to write to us at child.rights@al-awda.org .

Children are the most vulnerable members of any society. Israel’s systematic attack on Palestine’s children demands that all people of conscience stand up and take action in demand of their full rights!

As a boycott, divestment and sanctions conference was convened in Montreal last week, activists launched a boycott campaign at two city universities. A group of students, professors and staff from Concordia and McGill universities are calling on the schools cut ties with the Israeli Institute of Technology, more commonly referred to as Technion University.

A report compiled by the group says that the links between Concordia, McGill and Technion universities “serve to normalize the Israeli state’s policies of institutionalized oppression and should be of serious concern to students, faculty and all members of McGill and Concordia’s campus community.”

The 13-page report, entitled “Structures of Oppression: Why McGill and Concordia’s campus community must sever their links with the Technion University” [PDF], examines Technion’s links to military technologies and manufacturers and the militarization and repression of political dissent on the Israeli university’s campus. The report also details the nature of Concordia and McGill universities’ relationships with the Israeli institution.

Based primarily on news articles, websites of Israeli weapons and military technology manufacturers, Technion press releases and reports written by human rights organizations, the report highlights “Technion University’s involvement in the development of deadly military technologies and the intense militarization of an academic institution which directly and indirectly denies Palestinian citizens of Israel the same access to education as other students.”

“Technion is complicit in the violations of international law and human rights abuses committed by the Israeli military against Palestinians by providing new military technologies to defense manufacturers,” the report stated.

Technion University

Founded in 1924 in Haifa, Technion University is a science and technology research-focused university that today enrolls approximately 12,600 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students.

The university boasts on its website that “Technion graduates comprise the majority of Israeli-educated scientists and engineers, constituting over 70 percent of the country’s founders and managers of high-tech industries.”

Technion University also prides itself on its deep and far-reaching links to Israeli military technology manufacturers and to the Israeli military itself.

According to a report released by the Alternative Information Center in October 2009, titled “Academic Boycott of Israel and the Complicity of Israeli Academic Institutions in Occupation of Palestinian Territories,” Technion University “has all but enlisted itself in the military.”

“The extent of cooperation between the Technion and Israeli military was demonstrated when the Technion opened a center for the development of electro-optics in complete partnership with Elbit, one of the biggest Israeli private weapons’ research companies which is also heavily involved in development for the Israeli military,” according to the AIC.

AIC reports that Technion University’s technological programs are directly linked to the many human rights abuses perpetrated by the Israeli army:

“The [Technion] students and professors who are working in these co-op programs are directly participating in the research, manufacturing and upgrading of weaponry of which the vast majority is used in the [Israeli] occupation, as well as acts of aggression like the 2008 attacks in Gaza which resulted in over 1,400 mostly civilian deaths.”

“But what most people don’t realize is how this militarization effects Palestinian students who are citizens of Israel; many programs are off limits to these students for not having (nor wanting) the military experience and security clearance required,” the report adds.

Institutional racism in Israeli academia

In the “Structures of Oppression” report by the Montreal campus activists, researchers outline Technion’s connection to Elbit Systems Ltd., which is “‘one of two main providers of the electronic detection fence’ in the West Bank, deemed to violate international law by the International Court of Justice.” In July 2004, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion stating that Israel’s construction of a wall on occupied West Bank land was contrary to international law.

The Montreal activists’ report specifies that Elbit “also provides the Israeli army with unmanned aerial and ground vehicles that are routinely used in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.”

Technion University’ connections to Rafael Advanced System Ltd., one of Israel’s largest military technologies companies, are also exposed in the report.

“Rafael technologies were … reportedly used in indiscriminate attacks on civilians during the Israeli offensive into Gaza in December 2008/January 2009. Spike-MR (medium range) missiles — built by Rafael — were used in attacks launched by unmanned combat aerial vehicles that killed at least 29 civilians,” the report states.

Today, while Palestinians make up 20 percent of the citizens of Israel, they are only 9.5 percent of undergraduate students. Less than 5 percent reach the MA degree level, only 3.2 percent earn a PhD, and only 1 percent of university staff is Palestinian.

According to “Structures of Oppression,” “these statistics are indicative of discrimination and the persistence of institutional racism against Palestinian Israelis in the academic realm.”

In addition, the report states that Arab students at Technion University “are prevented from practicing their basic rights of expression and from forming an Arab students union, for the freedom of speech right is limited to those who support the Israeli state project.”

During a police-approved demonstration earlier this year against the 31 May Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, ten Palestinian Technion students were arrested while a right-wing counter-protest — which was not approved in advance by the university — went ahead without problems or arrests.

The report also outlines Technion University policies and programs that unfairly favor Israeli Jewish students over their Palestinian counterparts, including the Brakim academic reserve program.

The Brakim program gives 15 students the chance to complete bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in four years.

“According to a brochure released by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the ‘Brakim program [was] initiated to meet the request of the IDF [Israeli army] to create an elite group of mechanical engineers to become the future [research and development] leaders in [the] IDF,’” the report states.

The report adds, “an academic institution that not only places a major amount of its efforts in military technology, but also in promoting student/soldier cooperative programs, is therefore deeply implicated in the occupation and crimes committed by the military.”

Cutting off ties

Concordia University currently maintains a program called the Goldie and Joe Raymer Fellowship that enables “alternating yearlong visits for students between Concordia and the Technion” and covers students’ airfare, tuition and housing costs.

For its part, McGill University lists Technion as a partner institution in its student exchange program, and allocates two spots each year for students to study at the Israeli institution.

According to the authors of the report, these programs serve as a way to legitimize Technion’s complicity in human rights violations, just like the role North American universities had in maintaining the status quo did during the time of South African apartheid.

“There’s no question, North American universities that maintained institutional links to South African universities during the apartheid era were indirectly legitimizing institutions that openly oppressed a major section of the indigenous population. Israel is no different,” the report states.

The authors explain that this is why it is so crucial for McGill and Concordia to severe their ties to Technion University.

“So long as Concordia and McGill keep [these] institutional links, they are helping normalize a university which openly and flagrantly violates the human rights of the Palestinian people, whether in the Occupied Territories or [as] citizens of Israel, as well as people who openly speak out about against these policies. McGill and Concordia have to come clean and cancel these programs until the state of Israel complies with international law and basic human rights, as stipulated by the three demands of the [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement.”

Originally from Montreal, Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a reporter and documentary filmmaker based in occupied East Jerusalem. More of her work can be found at http://jilldamours.wordpress.com.