The prolonged occupation affects Palestinian’s human rights to many things, especially the right to freedom of movement and simply to leading a normal, productive life. The denial of one right also affects others, fundamentally, the right to education. School children face major difficulties in their daily trip to and fro school and yet they continue with the educational process, despite the intimidation and bag searches that Israeli soldiers subject them to daily, and in spite of having to find alternative and often dangerous routes to get to school. University students are also threatened by the constant obstacles in their way, and yet they plow on.

In Palestine, university life is not the normal, “safe”, existence that most students elsewhere in the world know and experience. It can be equally satisfying, but it is constantly wrought with risks to personal safety. Getting to ones university is a feat, even heroic. Once there, students are exhausted from an arduous journey or shaken by an Israeli soldier’s angry outburst or any number of things that could happen en route, for nothing is beyond expectations.

The educational process in Palestine is severely disrupted for school and university students. Yet it is a basic human right that Palestinian children and young adults must be allowed to exercise. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that everyone has the right to education. The key for a promising independent Palestinian state lies not only in the nation’s political goals and aims, but also in the effective building of a civil society that incorporates a variety of professions and disciplines, thus enabling Palestinian society to blossom competently.

Military checkpoints and the failing economic situation in Palestine are major obstacles to higher educational attainment. University students are thus declining in numbers; enrolment at Bir Zeit University this year was around 1,500 students, according to Helen Murray, the Right to Education Campaign Coordinator at the university, and has been constantly decreasing by about 200 students each year.

Those few that go to university are exercising another form of resistance, which is precisely why Israel has, throughout the occupation, sought to close universities without offering any reasonable justification, as it did in Hebron with Hebron University and the Palestine Polytechnic University in January 2003. They were “allowed” to reopen in August of that year, but just this week the Polytechnic was surrounded by soldiers and student were anxious that their university would be shut again, thankfully it did not; soldiers were only checking identity cards.

Checkpoints are a major form of obstruction. Bir Zeit University students were probably relieved when Surda checkpoint suddenly disappeared last December, after more than two and a half years of blocking their path to learning. Since then, however, there have been flying checkpoints every now and then. Murray said that these arbitrary checkpoints are usually installed just as a new term is starting or at exam times, which is frustrating for students and faculty alike and has detrimental effects on the quality of education. Students like Ahmed Jaradat, a second year engineering student at Bir Zeit University, from a village near Jenin, go to university because “it is an act of defiance and a personal triumph”, he said on Saturday. This comes at a price, though; he does not go home as often as he likes, and when he does, the journey is often long and tiring.

The economic situation is equally discouraging, according to 2004 figures by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 60 per cent of Palestinians live under the poverty line. One consequence of that has been that fewer men are enrolling at universities because job seeking becomes more of a priority for them, according to Murray. Despite the worsening economic conditions in the Palestinian Territories, parents cherish the value of a university degree and insist that their children develop and achieve their potential. It is a sacrifice for the parents and students alike; one young woman at Bethlehem University took a year off so that her freshman sister could attend university instead, as their parents could not afford to pay for both of them.

The announcement from the OPEC Fund for International Development on September 21st, 2004 that they will be giving financial support to Palestinian universities will come as good news for those two sisters and many others like them. OPEC pledged a grant of $2million over the next couple of years to be used specifically to pay tuition fees for needy students.

Any society needs a healthy balance of both professional and vocational men and women, therefore, it is absolutely imperative that Palestinian youth have every opportunity to develop and learn. The success of the political process will not be realized, if the population is ignorant and dependent on handouts. There may be times when people want to give up, when the trauma of having to constantly be wary of what they may encounter on their road, of Israeli soldiers shouting abuse at them, of having to endure the ruthless Palestinian sun and the piercing cold, just to get to university. Many students would have given up a long time ago, but when those students' names are called out on graduation day, the celebration is not just because they succeeded; it is because they went against so many odds and beat them.