Palestinian Student Movement

Abstract:

The Palestinian student movement is a product of crisis conditions that the Palestinian cause has experienced and is still experiencing. the specificity of the Palestinian student movement is nothing but the overlap of its tasks and roles between the national struggle and the union struggle in universities.

The research studies the role of the Palestinian student movement with regard to the issue of the occupation of Palestine, where the Palestinian student movement struggles in various places from the USA to China to present the people of the world to the Palestinian cause and mobilize global support for the rights of the Palestinian people and expose what the occupation is doing Terror and repression.

The research includes a historical introduction and reviews the problematic of the research, its objectives and methodology, and the research deals with its role in the academic and economic boycott of the occupation and the difficulties it faces, as well as the Palestinian student movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Historical Introduction:

The student movement appeared in Palestine as an organized framework in the fifties of the last century, and the Palestinian student movement is the result of the tragedy of the occupation of Palestine in 1948, meaning that the emergence of the student movement came as a response to the displacement of Palestinians from their lands and the establishment of the Israeli occupation state in its place, where the students of Palestine assumed their responsibility towards their cause by establishing Student unions and groups in lots of countries.

But the signs of the emergence of the student movement in Palestine goes back to the early years of the last century, specifically in 1913 and 1914. In 1913, Palestinian students founded in Beirut the Nabulsi Youth, also the Green Flag Association was established in Astana It carried nationalist Arab ideas. In 1914, the Association for Resistance to Zionism was established in Al-Azhar Al-Sharif in Egypt.

In 1929, with the outbreak of the Jaffa Revolution against the British Mandate authority and the Zionist threat in Palestine, the Higher Society of Palestine Students appeared and participated in the anti-Zionist demonstrations and the British Mandate, and organized student dialogues and meetings in Palestine and abroad, and called for the convening of the first Palestinian student conference in Acre under the slogan “British Mandate.” Snake head.”

With the beginning of the Great Palestinian Revolution in 1936, the student movement and student committees in Palestine announced their joining the revolution, and held an important conference in Jaffa, during which they called for the continuation of the general strike and to encourage Palestinians to join the ranks of the revolution.

As for the real emergence of the Palestinian student movement, it was in the fifties of the last century, when the General Union of Palestinian Students was established in 1959 in Egypt headed by Yasser Arafat. The General Union of Palestinian Students contributed to uniting Palestine students in their various places of residence and raising the voice of the Palestinian cause.

After the establishment of the Fatah movement, the union asked its members to join the Fatah movement in order to liberate Palestine.

In 1956, a group of Palestinian and Arab students at the American University of Beirut founded the Arab Nationalist Movement, from which emerged in 1967, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Palestinian student movement was born in complex circumstances. Internationally, the Cold War and political alignments and conflict axes began to appear. On the Arab side, the Arab nationalist tide began to dominate the Arab arena as a response to the occupation of Palestine.especially after the emergence of the nationalist Nasserist movement in Egypt. As for the Palestinians, the Palestinian people were wandering on their face after being expelled from their land and living in refugee camps.

In 1973 the student battalion was established in Lebanon, and it included a group of Palestinian, Lebanese and Arab students, it was a student formation affiliated with the Fatah movement. They fought The Zionists in 1978, and in the famous defense of Shaqif Castle in Lebanon in 1982, where all those who were in the castle were martyred and refused to surrender, the most famous of its members are Dalal Al-Maghrabi, and Majed Abu Sharar.

At the end of the seventies, student councils appeared in the occupied territories, and for the first time the Palestinian student movement appeared in its modern form. it was the leadership of the first Palestinian intifada in 1987, and its cadres were arrested, prosecution and murdered back then.
After the signing of the Oslo Agreement in 1993, the student movement in the Palestinian territories began to face unprecedented restrictions, especially in light of the emergence of Hamas in 1987 and the entry of its student arm, the Islamic Bloc, to universities. In the second intifada fighters were members of the student movement, such as Marwan Barghouti, Khader Talib, etc.

After the end of the second intifada and the outbreak of the events of the Palestinian division in 2007, the student movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip began to enter a new direction of struggle. Against the two authorities of division (Hamas and Fatah), and the attempt to unite the Palestinian ranks against the colonialist, And they are struggle until now.

Research problem:

The research in its study of the Palestinian student movement stems from a major problem that is the role of the Palestinian student movement outside Palestine in spreading public awareness towards the issues of the Palestinian people, specifically the issue of the occupation of Palestine that has existed since 1948 until today, as well as exposing the criminal policies of the Israeli occupation from acts of terrorism, killing, persecution, suppression and confiscation. The research also deals with a secondary problem, which is the role played by the student movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the extent of repression and terrorism it faces in its struggle.

Research questions:

The main research question: How does the Palestinian student movement struggle abroad and what is its impact on world public opinion towards the Palestinian cause?
The secondary research question: What is the role of the Palestinian student movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the Palestinian national struggle?

Methodology:

The research discusses the problematic that it addresses by using the historical method in order to understand the nature of the circumstances in which the Palestinian student movement arose and the historical contexts that brought it to what it is today. The Palestinian cause and exposing the practices of the Israeli occupation towards the Palestinian people.

Research aims:

The research aims to study the role of the student movement in spreading the Palestinian cause and the mechanisms used by the student movement in the universities of Europe, USA, and Arab universities, and the extent to which Palestinian students influence on the student movements and the countries they study, and the extent of their ability to work outside the their universities, and the difficulties faced by the student movement, whether from Western governments or Israeli pressure groups in some universities.

The research also deals with the student movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the research aims to address this issue in a secondary way to convey a clear picture of the struggles of Palestinian students in their various places of residence, as well as clarifying the conditions that the student movement is going through such as assassination, repression, prosecution, arrest, etc.

The Palestinian Student Movement Abroad:

The General Union of Palestinian Students:

The General Union of Palestinian Students struggles with all the issues of the oppressed peoples in the world, and believes in the necessity of fighting against imperialism, Zionism and all forms of discrimination between the people. The Palestinian student movement was a member of The international students union , which in its eighth conference of the International Students’ Union, which was held in 1963 in Sofia, the union took a decision to expel the “Israel” student union from the union.

The Union established the International Palestine Symposium, which was held for the first time in Cairo in 1965. The Federation made great efforts to make this symposium, the first of its kind, a success, as participants from 58 different countries attended also various progressive and liberation parties.

The General Union of Palestine Students continued to work in its various branches and in a continuous session, but after the signing of the Oslo Agreement in 1993, the General Conference stopped convening due to the difficult circumstances that the Palestinian cause was going through, and the overlapping of the tasks of the Liberation Organization and the emerging Palestinian Authority, and the general Arab situation.
The eleventh conference was supposed to take place in 2000, but it was not held according to the previously mentioned circumstances. With the return of the PLO to Palestine, it was decided that the union would return with it and establish branches for it in the West Bank, Gaza Strip.

Today, branches of the General Union of Palestinian Students are still active in some countries, such as: Turkey, China, the USA, and many others, but each of them is active separately.

The role of the Palestinian student movement in economic pressure on the occupation:
Palestinian student organizations represent the most organized youth and union body to practice popular struggle and the democratic process. It had a prominent role in all the stages of the Palestinian national struggle, as the Palestinian student movement was not only a union movement, but it also emerged as a political and militant movement concerned with all the affairs of Palestinian society.

Despite everything that happened previously in the General Union of Palestinian Students Abroad, the students of Palestine started creating cultural, social and political movements and clubs and establishing links and organizations in various universities, although these student movements and actions were for a long time unorganized and random or in other cases seasonal or as reactions Despite what affects the situation in Palestine, today it is more organized than it used to be, and it is working with clear goals and a path.

Based on the role of the Palestinian student movement as a national and political movement and not just a union, Palestinian and non-Palestinian students in universities abroad seek to join the boycott movement in their universities, cities and places of residence, and the BDS movement is one of the main methods used by students around the world for solidarity with the students of Palestine. A large number of student unions and councils in North and Latin America, Europe, Africa and the Arab world voted in favor of resolutions supporting the boycott movement, calling on their universities to withdraw investment from the Israeli economy and commit to an academic boycott of Israel. Student movements are growing rapidly in South Africa, Brazil, Chile and around the world. Student organization and solidarity help build significant support for the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and equality among an entire generation of students.

The intensive and strategic campaigns organized by students in different parts of the world led to the development of boycott campaigns at the student level and gained significant support. Solidarity with the Palestinian cause and boycotting the occupation became one of the main issues in a large number of universities in the world, which made "Israel" allocate great resources to confront the growing successes of the boycott in universities.
Among the achievements of the Palestinian student movement in boycotting the occupation in universities:
- “The National Student Union, representing 7 million students, the Black Student Campaign and more than 25 independent student unions in the UK voted to adopt the boycott of Israel and boycott campaigns. These student unions currently refuse to sell Israeli products in student stores, and some have ended contracts with companies targeting them. Boycott movements such as G4S and Eden Springs. The FEF supports the academic boycott of Israeli universities. The Student Union of the National University of Ireland in Galway (NUIG) voted to support a boycott .

- "Student campaigns in the UK have succeeded in putting pressure on universities in London and Southampton, and have led to the termination of contracts with companies targeted by the boycott such as G4S and Veolia. The University of Hampshire has also withdrawn its investments from six foreign companies implicated in Israeli violations of international law ."
- “National and local student unions in South Africa, Brazil, Chile and Qatar have adopted the BDS movement. In May 2015 more than 10,000 South African students participated in a demonstration calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions .”
- "More than 30 student councils in the United States and nine student councils at various Canadian universities have voted to campaign to get their universities to divest from companies implicated in Israeli violations of international law. A number of these votes received significant attention ."

Difficulties facing the work of the Palestinian student movement abroad:

The Palestinian student movement abroad aims to raise the voice of the Palestinian cause and the rights of the Palestinian people. It gathers support from its counterparts from student movements in universities around the world. The struggle of Palestine students has not stops since the occupation in 1948, and they still hold seminars that talk about Palestine and their cause, and they evaluate various activities, specifically the activities of authentic Palestinian heritage and culture, such as Palestinian food exhibitions, Dabkeh and Dahiya shows, and Palestinian dresses, and they attend conferences that deal with all human rights.

The students of Palestine abroad also seek, among other things, to clarify the reality of the events taking place on the land of Palestine from the repeated attempts of oppression, terrorism and arrest by the occupation against the general Palestinian people, especially the student movement in Palestine, in addition to exposing the historical and current practices of the occupation against the rights of the Palestinian people. By the right of international law and conventions, the Palestinian student movement abroad also seeks to put pressure on the occupation by conducting international student campaigns to boycott the occupation.

As a result of these student, political and patriotic activities for Palestinian students abroad, the Zionist lobbies in Europe, Canada and America, as well as their student movements and Zionist associations in various countries of the world, seek to harm the Palestinian student movement and pursue it with intimidation and terrorism at times and by means of protest and sympathy at other times, and they are still seeking to legitimize themselves and terrorize their state against Calculation of the issue of the Palestinian Palestinian people.

As for other difficulties, the situation of the Palestinian people in general abroad was, during the previous years, specifically after the Oslo Accords, shy and weak, due to the concentration of the Liberation Organization and the rest of the Palestinian factions and their leaders at home. The various institutions of the Liberation Organization, including the General Union of Palestine Students, which has weakened and retreated and has become virtually non-existent today.

Moreover, the activities of the Palestinian student movement, whether they are affiliated with Palestinian political organizations abroad such as Fatah, Hamas and the Popular Front, or among the independent students of Palestine, are mostly random, spontaneous and seasonal. Organizational work for some organizations and factions, which were described as terrorism because of their defense of the issues of their nation and people, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Hamas. Therefore, there may be no organizational channels through which the student movement operates in some countries.

So, the Palestinian student movement faces several problems that arise from the private individual to the general college, the student’s daily concerns from managing his life affairs to his studies and the subjects and exams he has to do, the student’s union concerns and his rights from the university administration, all of this until we reach the student’s issue, which his colleagues and all around him, and it is the cause of his people and his land, which the Palestinian bears despite all the difficulties, divisions, Arab normalization, and the international, regional and even local circumstances that are inconsistent with the interests of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian Student Movement Inside:

Student movements at home:

The beginnings of the Palestinian student movement go back to a relatively late period in the life of the Palestinian national struggle. Although the Palestinian student movement in the countries of the region and the world spread and distributed since the end of the fifties, the student movement in Palestine was delayed until the end of the seventies until it appeared for the first time in the universities of Birzeit, An-Najah, Al-Azhar and others, and what The emergence of the student movement except with the emergence of student councils in Palestinian universities and the emergence of the necessity for the emergence of national action within the occupied territories and not limited to outside it.

The student movements that appeared at that time and are still continuing today, each of them affiliated with a political party or political group, which is its hand and representative in the universities. The Student Youth Movement is the student arm of Fatah, the Islamic Bloc is the student arm of Hamas, and the Progressive Student Action Front It is the student arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Islamic League is the student arm of the Islamic Jihad movement, and the issue applies to the rest of the Palestinian parties.

Student councils appeared in Palestine at the end of the seventies, the period during which the student battalion was defending Beirut. It was the model for a strong student movement inside Palestine that carries arms and defends its people. It is also the natural role of Palestinian students in various stages to be the spearhead in the national struggle. .

The Palestinian student movement was able to combine the political struggle against the occupation with the union struggle against the university administration, while understanding the specifics of each struggle. Thus, it was able, in one way or another, to defend the rights of students in universities and at the same time lead the national action against the occupation in its areas of presence.

The Palestinian student movement went through difficult battles during its work inside Palestine, and it was upon it to lead the Palestinian street, strengthen the popular resistance and its methods, and confront the occupation forces, and it was isolated from what is outside Palestine. The first Palestinian intifada and its involvement from its inception side by side with the various Palestinian people, and following the role played by the student movement in the first intifada, education became an illegal activity on the Palestinians. A month is the best evidence of the extent of the occupation’s suppression of students and their formation of a strong and solid student movement that challenges and continues, as Birzeit University students continued their education in secret and continued their national work in leading and fueling the uprising.

With the signing of the Oslo Agreement and the end of the first intifada with the return of the Liberation Organization to the land of Palestine and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the student movement began to decline and weaken according to its (somewhat) dedication to student and trade union work and the existence of a political solution in the current period, which pulled the rug of popular resistance from under the student movement, and the pressure The political and the arrests of many cadres of the student movement, particularly those affiliated with Hamas and the Popular Front, weakened the role of these movements in favor of Fatah and its student body in universities.

At the time when the second Palestinian Intifada began in 2000, many cadres of the student movement, former and contemporaries of the intifada, had pulled out their guns and raised their banners. Many of them portrayed the Palestinian national struggle side by side with the workers, peasants and all the Palestinian people's fighters.

With the end of the Intifada and after the Palestinian division between Hamas and Fatah, the student movement faced a new challenge that was added to the challenges it faced and the responsibilities it had to bear. This is nothing but an attempt to bridge the rift between the two sides of the division, or at least between their representatives in universities.

In 2015, with the launch of the Jerusalem gift, the student movement in Palestine returned to the fore again, and as usual it was at the forefront of the confrontation and the activities of the popular resistance, as were the universities of Birzeit, Khadoorie, Abu Dis and other universities. The student movement provided martyrs, prisoners and wounded in the confrontations, not to mention the storming of universities and shooting The neighborhood, tear gas bombs, and the arrest of students from inside the university campus, as happened with the head of Birzeit University Student Council Omar al-Kiswani, who was arrested by an undercover squad of the occupation forces in front of the student council inside Birzeit University.

The student movement continues to offer many martyrs, prisoners, wounded and sacrifices in order to defend the Palestinian cause and resist the Israeli occupation in Palestine.

The difficulties facing the student movement in Palestine:

The student movement in Palestine is going through difficult and complex conditions, and the condition of the student movement in the Gaza Strip differs from its counterpart in the universities of the West Bank. Without going into details.
In the Gaza Strip, the student movement faces more complex conditions than its counterparts in various countries of the world. The Gaza Strip is a large prison almost completely isolated from the outside, and the war in it with the occupation is renewed approximately every year or two, and therefore the people of the Strip live under a heavy Israeli siege. This affects the nature of the work of the student movement, which becomes more difficult on the demand side and the union in particular, due to the crises that affect the entire sector and in which universities are certainly affected like other sectors, and therefore the state of poverty, unemployment and high prices shift the student movement from inside the university to the streets outside it. To demand the most basic human rights, which is life.

We cannot talk about the student movement in Gaza much, but its activities are intensifying inside the universities as a specifically union and demand work, and this is the essence of the work of the student movement, but at the time of the movements for freedom and life, the student movement cadres find the first participants, whether in the “We want to live” movement against The Gaza government or its participation in the "return marches" on the border against the Israeli occupation.

As for the West Bank, the conditions and complexities of the student movement are mixed, and this is due to the presence of direct interaction with the occupation in the West Bank. The Gaza Strip, despite being besieged, the occupation forces cannot enter it, and we can consider it a liberated Palestinian land free from the occupation and its settlers. As for the West Bank, the situation is different. Its lands are full of colonies, and its cities, villages and camps are open to arrests, assassinations, and persecutions, and military checkpoints are spread between one region and another. We do not exclude the presence of the Palestinian Authority, as it often carries out the occupation’s work, from arrest, persecution, and even assassination, as happened with activist Nizar Banat. Therefore, the composition of the West Bank and its political and social structure is more complex. from the Gaza Strip.

One of the peculiarities of the student movement in the West Bank is also the specificity of the circumstances of each university from the other. For example, Birzeit University is a center for the active student movement in order to provide its administration with a democratic atmosphere for the various student movements, and its elections are held every year without interruption (except for compelling circumstances such as the Corona virus, for example). At An-Najah University, student elections are held only every four years if they are held at all. There is a restriction on the work of student movements opposed to the Fatah youth, and the security services and the authority control the university, whether through appointments and employment in the administrative and academic staff or in security personnel The university affiliated with the Fatah movement or the Palestinian security services prevents student movements from working freely within the university walls, which is reflected in one way or another on the performance of the student movement outside the university walls in voluntary work, participation in popular resistance, confronting settlements and other duties of the national student movement.

Since its inception, the Palestinian student movement has faced attempts to liquidate its national project and its liberation alignments, whether through assassination, arrest, exile or persecution of its cadres, but in recent years, specifically after 2019, the repression and arrest operations have increased dramatically, for example, in 2020, more than 80 student cadres were arrested The student movement in Birzeit University alone (it is mentioned that the researcher was among them) and the arrests were based on their student and union work inside the university and their national activities outside it. Therefore, the student movement entered a difficult juncture and still has not recovered from it until now, because the arrests are continuing and to a large extent, where more were arrested From 200 students from the student movement cadres in 2021, these numbers necessarily reflect the student movement’s role and importance in the Palestinian national struggle. from the yoke of Israeli colonialism.
The Palestinian Authority and the security services also play their role in suppressing the student movement (affiliated with the opposition organizations), including the arrest of many cadres of the Islamic bloc affiliated with Hamas in various universities and their pursuit in their homes and student housing, as well as the cadres of the Labor Front and the student pole affiliated with the Popular Front. It is not justified by the decisions of the student youth movement, which is trying to get out of the mantle of power, but it is completely under its control, including the dismissal of the coordinator of the student youth movement at Birzeit University in 2016 because of his criticism of a position taken by President Mahmoud Abbas.

Conclusion:

Returning to the research problem and the research questions raised, it can be said that the Palestinian student movement outside Palestine experienced periods of strength during the seventies and had a very important role in the work of the Palestinian liberation movement in general, and it was also one of the main pillars of Palestinian political organizations. The Palestinian student movement abroad is largely due to several factors that were clarified in the research, but in the current period, the Palestinian student movement is working to restore its national spirit, especially after it got out of the Palestinian Authority camp and started working with the aim of strengthening the Palestinian presence in various student forums in the world in addition to campaigns A different student movement led by the Palestinian student movement.

On the inside, the Palestinian conflict and division between Fatah and Hamas is evident and affects the work of the student movement, whose leadership and national role has significantly declined, except for Birzeit University, for example, which maintained a unitary democratic character inside it, Perhaps the role of the occupation, which still pursues the student movement’s cadres and turns them into a martyr, a prisoner or a wounded person, is pivotal in determining the ability of the student movement in Palestine to withstand and confront.

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