The academic year closed with dramatic protests to shut down pro-Israel and free speech events. But other developments, the rejection of a BDS resolution and further association with the movement by the United Methodist Church, and the appointment of BDS supporters to the Democratic Party’s platform committee, show BDS is firmly an issue in the religious and political mainstream. The two Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton who denounced BDS before the Methodist vote, and Bernie Sanders, who appointed the BDS supporters to the Democratic Party platform committee, neatly illustrate the role of political leaders in suppressing and encouraging anti-Israel sentiment. The divide also portends a bitter divide within the party. The most dramatic campus BDS protest in May took place at the University of California Irvine where pro-Israel students screened a film about the Israeli army. Some 50 BDS protesters including the local Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Pe...

The national leadership of the UK’s National Union of Students (NUS) has voted to align itself with the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. In reaction, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by smearing the millions-strong organization as supporters of Islamic State, the violent extremist group also known as ISIS or ISIL. “In a 19-4 vote with one abstention, the confederation of 600 student unions across the United Kingdom passed the pro-BDS proposal on Tuesday at a meeting of its National Executive Council,” according to JTA. The NUS press office could not immediately provide The Electronic Intifada with an official copy of the resolution, but said it would be posted on its website in coming days. Netanyahu’s smear “This is less than a year after they refused to support a boycott of ISIS,” Netanyahu said in reaction to the vote, during a meeting with Canada’s foreign minister. “They boycott Israel but they refuse to boycott ISIS. Tha...

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- A student list affiliated with Hamas on Wednesday came out on top in the closely-watched student elections at Birzeit University near Ramallah. A day after thousands turned out for a student debate between Fatah, Hamas, and the leftist parties participating, the Islamic List emerged victorious with 26 seats, while the Fatah-affiliated list trailed with 19. The leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine list emerged with five, while an alliance of three smaller leftist parties – the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian People’s Party, and Fida -- took one seat. Voter turnout was reported at 77 percent of all undergraduate students entitled to vote, who numbered around 9,000. The victory for the Islamic List at the historically staunchly pro-Fatah campus took observers by surprise. In the absence of regular national elections, university elections are seen as important indicators of public opinion by political commentat...

Palestinian students are being forced to cross through sewage channels to reach a high school in western Ramallah district after a settlement road cut off the only other means of access, residents told Ma'an. Up to 200 students from the villages of al-Tira and Beit Ur al-Fuqa now reach the school using a four kilometer route that runs along the separation wall, where armed settlers, as well as Israeli soldiers, almost daily interrupt their commute. The route passes through sewage channels and regularly takes students up to 40 minutes to reach their school, as the channels are filled with rainwater in the winter and snakes in the summer. Students told Ma'an that Israeli soldiers regularly fire tear-gas canisters at them on their way back. The al-Tira Beit Ur al-Fuqa high school is now enveloped by the Israeli separation wall on three sides at a point where the wall extends more than five kilometers inside the 1949 Armistice Line. The wall separates the villages from the i...

Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced that a quota of 50 students would be permitted to exit Gaza "for the purpose of academic studies" in the West Bank. However, as related by NGO Gisha, the very same evening, COGAT clarified that there had been a "clerical error" in the relevant document, and that there would be no such permits. The Israeli government has opposed Palestinians from Gaza studying in the West Bank on the grounds of 'security'. The High Court of Justice has also rejected petitions by human rights groups on the matter, including one filed on behalf of five women studying gender, democracy and law. In 2009, 21-year-old, Bethlehem University student Berlanty Azzam was arrested at a West Bank checkpoint and immediately returned to the Gaza Strip, after a solider noted Gaza City as the town of residence on her ID. The ill-fated announcement was included on a list of various measures apparently pr...

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- University students from the Gaza Strip on Sunday threw imitation diplomas into the Mediterranean Sea to symbolize their lost collegiate dreams, they told Ma'an. Many students who study outside Gaza have all but given up hope of catching up with their college credits after being stranded in Gaza for months due to the closure of Egypt's Rafah crossing with the Strip. In response, dozens decided to throw symbolic diplomas into the sea in protest against the jointly enforced Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza. One protestor said he had "lost confidence in the humanity of the world and its human rights councils." Another protester, named Mansoon, said she had been admitted to a university abroad but was not able to attend given the ongoing closure of the Rafah crossing. The protesters urged Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to prioritize their "responsibilities" toward Gaza. more

From Mondoweiss, by Scott McConnell - What do you do if you are a committed American supporter of Israel and find that everywhere you look campaigns for Palestinian rights are gaining ground? You could, as a number have done, use whatever resources and platforms you possess to try to persuade Israel to change course and negotiate a settlement with the Palestinians that is at least relatively just and practical. Along these lines you could vigorously encourage American efforts to impose on Israel a two state solution. Alternatively you could double down on repeating various Israeli talking points—villa in the jungle, children as human shields, America’s best friend, what about Tibet and Darfur? Or you could escalate your financing of American politicians who will do Israel’s bidding automatically, and pray that Palestinian activism somehow runs its course like a bad fever. But there is fourth, more innovative and indeed daring alternative, which was analyzed at a fascinating Institu...

On Tuesday night, the University of California at Los Angeles became the sixth of nine undergraduate campuses in the UC system within the last two years to pass a resolution calling for divestment from firms that profit from the Israeli occupation. The resolution was passed despite expensive efforts by anti-Palestinian groups to thwart such a victory. In a landslide victory — with eight student senators voting in favor, two voting against and two abstaining — UCLA’s resolution formally calls on the University of California to “withdraw investments in securities, endowments, mutual funds, and other monetary instruments with holdings” in eleven US-based companies linked to the occupation. More than thirty student groups representing a wide spectrum of causes supported the divestment resolution. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UCLA stated in a press release following the vote that members of the UCLA student council “from a variety of political affiliations voted in favor...

The Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI), a group of Palestinian students in Gaza dedicated to the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign of Israel and the global justice movement for Palestinian justice and liberty, respectfully call on students around the world to stop banking with Barclays until Barclays divests from and ceases trading in shares in Elbit Systems, the major Israeli military company and drone manufacturer. As Palestinians we suffer immeasurably from drone attacks. In 2012 and 2013, drones have killed more of us in Gaza than any other aircraft. As Palestinian Human Rights organisation Al-Mezan point out, drones are so deadly because “they are in the sky all the time, and they (the Israeli air force) don’t have to plan the attack properly beforehand.” Al Mezan found that, “When Israeli forces started to use drones, the number of people killed increased.” Ayah Bashir, a Gaza-based BDS activist, said: “during...

Solidarity activists in the UK declared victory Monday, as the National Executive Council of the Nation Union of Students voted to pass a motion in solidarity with Palestine, and for an arms embargo against Israel. The NEC motion condemned Israel’s lethal assault on and blockade of the Gaza Strip. It also called on the NUS membership, comprising seven million students, to boycott “corporations complicit in financing and aiding Israel’s military, including G4S and Hewlett Packard.” This is an expansion of already existing NUS policy supporting the BDS movement, as it resolved to “provide information and resources to support student unions and student organizations campaigning for boycott and divestment of companies identified as supporting Israel materially, economically, militarily, and/or as helping maintain the illegal Israeli settlements.” One of the main NUS activists pushing for the BDS motion was Malaka Mohammed, a student from Gaza currently studying law in Sheffield. Malak...

Student representatives at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, voted on Sunday to support divestment from companies profiting from Israeli military occupation in Palestine. “While the resolutions passed by student governments at other universities have had largely symbolic implications, the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) holds a separate endowment that will soon be divested from companies implicated in the Israeli occupation,” Wesleyan University students involved in the initiative said in a statement sent to The Electronic Intifada. The Wesleyan Student Assembly endowment, worth several hundred thousand dollars, is the first in the US to be funded and managed by a student government. The endowment supports the activities of student organizations on campus. more

Four universities in California held lengthy sessions over the past week as their student senates considered divesting from companies involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestine, while students at the University of South Florida submitted the largest petition in the university’s history calling on the university to divest. Also taking on a major role in the divestment campaign is the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where graduate students recently passed a resolution which calls for the divestment from companies profiting from violations in both occupied Palestine and at the US-Mexico border. The University of California (UC) Santa Barbara, UC Riverside and San Diego State held simultaneous student senate sessions, last Wednesday, to consider resolutions to divest. The sessions lasted into the night, and the votes were close at all three schools. UC Riverside voted in favor of divestment, while the other two schools voted down the resolution, in very close votes. When ...

Northeastern University’s administration recently suspended its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a recognized student group whose mission is to educate about the plight of Palestinians living under more than half a century of Israeli occupation. The administration also initially threatened some members of SJP with expulsion from the university. As a former executive director of Northeastern University’s (NEU) Hillel Foundation and its university Jewish chaplain, I am especially sensitive to issues involving NEU’s Jewish students, Israel and anti-Semitism. Not in spite of this, but because of this, I am deeply troubled by Northeastern’s actions. The university contends that its decision was based specifically on SJP not having followed explicit university rules and, more generally, by its acting in ways considered “uncivil” — in particular creating an atmosphere that caused some students, specifically Jewish students, to feel “unsafe.” In reality, these are justif...

A week of events organized to bring attention to Israel's practices and policies which resemble the South African race-based system known as apartheid were held at hundreds of universities from March 2nd to 7th 2014. Among the universities that held events this year was the Israeli Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where a photo exhibit documented some of the issues faced by Palestinians living under occupation. The week of film screenings, cultural events, discussions and lectures was meant to draw attention to the parallels between the Israeli policies, including the more than fifty Israeli laws that explicitly discriminate against Palestinians; and the South African system of apartheid, which blatantly discriminated against black South Africans until it was abolished in 1994. 2014 marks the tenth year that students and activists have organized the week of action known as 'Israel Apartheid Week', and one of the biggest participants is South Africa, where the week of e...

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education on Wednesday strongly condemned an Israeli raid on Al-Quds University campus in Abu Dis in which dozens of students suffered tear gas inhalation and university property was damaged. The PA ministry denounced the attack as "desecrating the sanctity of the institution, obstructing the educational process," and "intentionally horrifying thousands of students and staff members by utilizing all terrorist means including random heavy firing." The raid on Wednesday was part of a "continuous and systematic context of violations against the Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, including the educational institutions and their cadres," a statement added. These violations aim to challenge the Palestinian presence in occupied East Jerusalem and push Palestinian society towards ignorance and poverty, the ministry said. more

New York Times - RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Dozens of high school students scrambled among the sand dunes here in recent days, learning how to shoot AK-47 rifles, crawl under barbed wire and jump over burning tires. Their bearded commanders barked at those who were too slow in hoisting iron bars overhead or those who hesitated around the thick flames. Having seen two major Israeli military operations in Gaza in their short lives, many of the teenagers came to this boot camp, which is run by Hamas, the Islamic militant group that has led Gaza since 2007, to prepare for what they see as the inevitable next round. “By then, I should be ready and know how to deal with the Israeli soldier’s gun when I pick it up from the ground,” said Mohammed Ghanem, 15. If the Israelis do not make another incursion into Gaza, he said, “we will go to fight them on the border.” The six-day program, Futuwwa, enrolled about 13,000 boys at nearly a dozen sites across the Gaza Strip over the past week, with traine...

Gaza proves its creativity everyday. The besieged region has never bowed down to the confines of a brain-sapping blockade complete with crippling closures, meager resources and traumatic experiences of war. Many Gaza youths transcend all of these odds with their dreams, where the stars of hope light up their minds. But how could the youth of Gaza translate their ideas into a concrete reality that lives up to their aspirations? One avenue is the Palestinian Forum for Innovation and Technology-PALFIT, organized by the University College of Applied Sciences along with 12 universities and colleges. The forum opened their doors to more than 100 creative enterprises to show and market what Gaza’s youth have done. The events of the forum were held for two days, October 29 and October 30th, in the Rashad Al Shawa Cultural Center in central Gaza City. It included an exhibition of the projects and four workshops. “The workshops discussed the role of universities and trade unions in [ad...

RAFAH, (PIC)-- Dozens of Gaza students staged a sit-in at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Monday demanding opening the terminal in order to allow them to join their universities. The Egyptian authorities have been closing the Rafah border terminal since last Wednesday, which exacerbated the suffering of the besieged Palestinians in the Strip especially the sick and the students. Participants in the sit-in hoisted Palestinian and Egyptian flags along with posters demanding an end to the Gaza blockade and opening the Rafah crossing. Mumen Baroud, a student, delivered a speech on behalf of the students asking the Arab and Islamic countries and free people of the world to intervene and break the “oppressive” siege on Gaza that has been in force for the past seven years. more

Protests on campus against Israel's treatment of Palestinians 'do not constitute actionable harassment,' the Department of Education concludes. The U.S. Department of Education has dismissed Jewish students' contentions that anti-Israel protests at UC Berkeley created an illegally hostile and anti-Semitic atmosphere on that campus. The department's civil rights office has determined that the campus protests last year against Israel's treatment of Palestinians, which reportedly included mock military checkpoints, may be upsetting to Jews but "do not constitute actionable harassment," according to a letter from the department released by the University of California on Tuesday. The year-long investigation is now ending, the department said. "In the university environment, exposure to such robust and discordant expressions, even when personally offensive and hurtful, is a circumstance that a reasonable student in higher education may experienc...

“‘TERRORIST! GO! BODY!’ I’m sprinting across the rocky terrain to reach safety...Heart racing, out of breath, I’m trying to remember the instructor’s commands. Muscle memory, no time to aim, hurry, hurry...” So begins one California college student’s first-hand account of a June 2013 “commando tourism” paintball session at Caliber 3, a privately-owned counter-terrorism training facility in the illegal Israeli settlement bloc of Gush Etzion. The student, identified only as “JJL”, was on a ten-day BlueStar Fellows summer tour of Israel, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights with twenty-three peers from five California universities. The trip was part of a year-long program launched by San Francisco-based Israel advocacy group BlueStar PR with the goal of molding students into “powerful pro-Israel advocates, spokespeople and opinion leaders” on their college campuses. In over fifty entries on the BlueStar Fellows program blog (penned with the assistance of a writing coach) participants f...