Thursday, October 26, 2006

Education vs. security

There has been international media attention on the case of Sawsan Salameh, a 29 year old Palestinian woman who lives in Anata a small village on the West Bank near Jerusalem. She applied for and was granted a full scholarship from Hebrew University to do a doctorate in theoretical chemistry. However, in order to do this she requires permission from the Israeli military authorities that control entry from the West Bank of the Palestine Authority into Israel. Of course, the general attitude of the media is that this is an open-and-shut-case of Israeli discrimination. But, one must examine the situation more closely to see that it is not.
First, there are literally thousands of Israeli Arabs studying at Hebrew University and many hundreds of them have scholarships. In my own group we now have a young Arab woman from central Israel who is doing a PhD in Pharmacology, and she is indistinguishable in her dress from other secular Israeli women. However, there are very many Muslim women in the Medical School and University who wear head scarves and long dresses, but very few if any who cover their faces. So there is no case of simple discrimination against Arabs/Muslims. In fact, while there are thousands of Israeli Arabs studying at Israeli Universities, there are no Jews studying at Palestinian Unviersities (Bit Zeit in Ramallah for example) because if they set foot in there they would be killed. Such is the difference between them and us.
Sawsan Salameh wears a head scarf, but the difference between her and the majority of Muslim women at HU is that she is not an Israeli citizen, she is a Palestinian citizen of the PA. Therefore, the Israeli authorities are under no obligation to grant her automatic entry into Israel, particularly since there have been many security cases in which Palestinians entering Israel using legitimate visas have carried out activities against the State, including some that have ended in tragedy. One should remember that about 2 years ago a cafeteria on the Mount Scopus campus of HU was blown up by two Palestinians who had permission to work in the University (although they were not students). This resulted in 5 deaths and many injuries.
I personally knew a young Palestinian man who obtained his doctorate at the Medical School and was engaged in post-doctoral research, who seemed very nice and friendly, but who was recruited by Hamas on a visit to his family in Jordan. He sent coded letters to his family, but they were intercepted and decoded, and he was tried and jailed for three years for providing security information to the enemy.
Would the US automatically allow the entry of someone from a hostile country, even if it was close by, to take up a private scholarship given by an educational institution. Of course, not. In fact, due to the difficulty of terrorists to infiltrate Israel (due partly to the Security Fence) there is a greater reliance of the terrorists on people with entry visas and particularly women. So it is well within the current blanket denial of visas for the Israeli authorities to bar Sawsan Salameh entry.
Nevertheless, a case can be made that since she has no known connection to any terrorist organization or any security activity, why should she personally be denied entry? An Israel civil rights group called Gisha is appealing to the Israeli Supreme Court to allow her entry. However, because they are using her case to oppose the blanket security denial of visas to Palestinians for educational purposes (this as a political cause), the Israeli Army is opposing this appeal, since they are prepared to consider appeals on a case-by-case basis, but not a blanket reversal of their authority.
There are in fact currently 14 Palestinians who enter Israel daily to study at HU, and none of them have had any problems. Many Israelis think that allowing more Palestinians to enter Israel to study could in the long run lead to better relations between Israelis and Palestinians. But, there is no doubt that a balance between such considerations and security must be found, and where this balance lies is not an easy matter to determine.

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