A double standard on academic freedom in the Middle East
By George Bisharat
September 17, 2007
Baltimore SunTwo hundred thousand Palestinian children began school in the Gaza Strip this month without a full complement of textbooks. Why? Because Israel, which maintains a stranglehold over this small strip of land along the Mediterranean even after withdrawing its settlers from there in 2005, considers paper, ink and binding materials not to be “fundamental humanitarian needs.”
Israel, attempting to throttle the democratically elected Hamas government, generally permits only food, medicine and fuel to enter Gaza, and allows virtually no Palestinian exports to leave. Lately, it held up delivery of materials needed for printing textbooks. As a result, Gaza students began the year facing a 30 percent shortage of texts.
No full-page advertisements in major American newspapers have publicized Israel’s violations of Palestinian children’s right to an education. No editors, syndicated columnists or presidents of major universities in this country have denounced this callous measure. Our politicians have demanded no remedial action. Instead, they continue, verbally and materially, to support Israel in its near-total blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians, kids and all.
[tarboush tip: IMEU]
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This is a poor decision on Israel’s part. If anything, the smart thing strategically would be to use the blockade to put textbooks in schoolkids’ hands that recognize Israel’s right to exist, putting Hamas in an awkward position.
That said, I put the root blame for this at Hamas’ feet. Hamas stood to gain a major PR coup, as news leaks out about how they’ve restored law and order in Gaza better than Fatah ever has or could. If they’d followed up on this with some bold unilateral action — halting all Qassam rocket attacks, and/or publicly agreeing to put acknowledgment of Israel’s right to exist on the table for negotiations — it would have directly benefited the Palestinian people.
Instead, the Qassam attacks continued, the intractability continued, and now the sanctions are tightening.
Again, a poor strategic move for Israel, but no small part of the moral culpability lies with Hamas.
Posted by Joe | September 19, 2007, 6:32 am