Hebrew University Student Union: Build Wall between the university and Issawiya

Photo: Masser Israeli apartheid wall in occupied Palestine.

According to the Jerusalem online newspaper Mynet, Hebrew University’s Student Union Chairperson, Ofer Raviv, recently recommended that a Separation Wall between the university’s Mount Scopus campus and the nearby Palestinian village of Issawiya be constructed.

Hebrew University officials suggested that such a wall could be financed by the parking meters located on Mount Scopus and the Jerusalem Municipality has agreed to examine this possibility. If implemented, this would be just one more action in Hebrew University’s long tradition of documented institutional participation in the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, this time at the instigation of its official student body.

In a letter to the youth and student led Hitorerut (Awakening) party in the Jerusalem Municipality, Union Chairperson Ofer Raviv writes that “In conversations with the (Hebrew) University Department of Security and students, the idea came up of a circumferential wall between the campus and Issawiya.” Ostensibly as a means for reducing thefts on campus, the wall would serve as one more level of constriction and separation that is already the reality for the Issawiya villagers. Security arguments have long been used by Israel as a means to intensify the occupation and confiscation of Palestinian land.

For more than the past 20 years, growth in Issawiya has been severely restricted by Israeli municipal policy, land confiscation and construction. The Separation Wall borders the village to its north, the French Hill settlement to its northwest, an Israeli military radio base to its south, a military detention center to its east, and the Hebrew University campus surrounding it from its southern tip and covering its entire western border. Moreover, large tracts of land have been expropriated from the village by the Israeli government in order to build the E-1 settlement bloc, which is intended to connect Jerusalem with the larger settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to the village’s east.

Responding to an AIC inquiry, the Jerusalem Municipality stated that last week a meeting was conducted between representatives of the students, Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Municipality, in which measures were agreed upon concerning participation of each body to promote campus security.

At the time of publication, there was no response from a Hebrew University spokesperson to AIC inquiries in this matter.

The Alternative Information Center (AIC) calls on anti-occupation Palestinian, Israeli and international activists to tell Hebrew University and its Student Union that this proposal is unethical and unacceptable. We particularly call on student unions and associations to denounce the suggestion by an official student union to actively increase the Israeli occupation regime by calling for the construction of another wall of separation and constriction around the Palestinian village of Issawiya.

For an AIC video on the situation in Issawiya, click here

For more on land and housing rights in Issawiya, click here

contact

Spokesperson of Hebrew University, Orit Sulitzeanu, telephone: +972 (0)2 588 2811; fax: +972 (0)2 5880058 or via the Hebrew University website: Email on this webpage

Student Union of Hebrew University: Telephone: +972 (0)2 5813604; fax: +972 (0)2 5816204 or via the online contact form (Hebrew only).