Education, Occupation &

Liberation Programme

The Education, Occupation & Liberation programme marks Fobzu’s 40th anniversary and is co-hosted with the University and College Union (UCU).

The series of lectures and seminars brings together Palestinian, UK and international scholars, students and practitioners to explore the challenges facing Palestinian education and its role in creating a free and flourishing Palestine. Speakers consider the struggle of Palestinian students and educators, approaches to liberation education and the contribution of Palestine to decolonising curricula in the UK.

The Education, Occupation & Liberation programme is made possible thanks to the estate of the late Sarah Hayward.

International Women's Day 2023: Women, Education and Empowerment in Palestine

Dr Samia Botmeh, Birzeit University

Dr Rania Jawad, Birzeit University

Chair: Dr Rafeef Ziadah, Kings College

Fobzu celebrated International Women's Day on 8th March, a day recognised by the United Nations since 1977 but with roots in the women’s and labour movements of the early 20th century. Co-hosted with the Department of International Development at King’s College in London, the event featured a panel discussion on Women, Education, and Empowerment, with three prominent Palestinian scholars representing diverse disciplinary backgrounds.

During the event, Samia Botmeh, an assistant professor of Economics at Birzeit University, presented her study on Palestinian women in the labour market and the paradox of their low participation, despite their high educational attainment, which is one of the highest in the Middle East and North Africa. Botmeh showed how the cause of female under-employment could be partly explained by Israeli colonial practices that undermine productive sectors, where women are typically employed.

Rania Jawad, Director of the Institute of Women's Studies at Birzeit, shared her personal experience and reflections of navigating Israel's tightening restrictions on access to Palestine as an educator at Birzeit University. She also discussed her new study on transnational development projects that aim to tackle gender-based violence and how Palestinian artists, employed by international NGOS navigate projects that often frame gender-based violence as a problem culturally specific to the global south and in need of Western intervention.

In her talk, Rafeef Ziadah emphasised the importance of studying labour in Palestine for understanding the impact of Israeli settler colonialism, and explored avenues of solidarity and organising against it. Her recent study on Covid-19, Labour, and Trade Unions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, revealed the devastating impact the pandemic had on Palestinian women workers but also showed signs of a revival of independent trade unionism seeking to overcome the fragmentation of Palestinian politics.

Isolating Palestinian Higher Education:

New restrictions on Palestinian universities under occupation

Professor Beshara Doumani, Birzeit University

Dr Hassan Jabareen, Adalah

Chair: Dr Donna Baillie, Fobzu

In March 2022, Israeli military authorities issued a new directive governing entry and residence in the occupied West Bank. Implementation of the new policy, which represents a major escalation of repressive measures against Palestinian universities, was delayed but came into effect on 20th October.

The new regulations require international students and faculty to demonstrate that they meet other criteria set by Israeli military authorities, breaching both Palestinian sovereign rights, the autonomy of Palestinian universities and undermining Palestinian academic freedom.

The speakers discuss the latest steps taken by the Israeli military authorities to isolate Palestinian higher education and their impact on Palestinian universities.

Professor Beshara Doumani is President of Birzeit University

Dr Hassan Jabareen is the Founding Director of Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel

Dr Donna Baillie is Chair of the Board of Trustees of Fobzu

Back to School Under Siege in Gaza 2021

Nuriya Oswald, Al Mezan International

Dr Nazmi Al Masri, Islamic University of Gaza

Chair: Dr Mark Griffiths, Newcastle University

As Palestinian students and academics in Gaza began the new academic year in the wake of another devastating war against the Strip, participants in this webinar discussed the impact of closure and the war on higher education in Gaza. Speakers shared the experience of students and lecturers studying and teaching as they face these challenges, and the sources of hope they draw upon as they pursue their education.

Nuriya Oswald is Al Mezan’s International Legal and Advocacy Director. She has worked with Al Mezan for more than eight years both in Gaza City and Geneva where Al Mezan has a focused engagement with the UN’s human rights bodies. Nuriya holds an LLM in international humanitarian and human rights law from the Geneva Academy and an MA in human rights from University College London

Dr Nazmi Al Masri is Associate Professor of Education at the Islamic University of Gaza. He received his PhD in education from Manchester University and is currently Co-Investigator on two research projects with UK universities. He has researched and published widely on language and pedagogy, and previously served as the Vice President for Foreign Affairs at the Islamic University.

Dr Mark Griffiths is a political geographer based at Newcastle University. His work in Palestine is focused on political and colonial power at various sites such as checkpoints, bureaucratic mechanisms and house demolitions. You can find Mark's work in journals such as Political Geography, Antipode and Society and Space.

Ecumenical Palestine, Colonialism and Education

Professor Ussama Makdisi, Rice University

Chair: Dr Mezna Qato, Cambridge University

Professor Ussama Makdisi's (Rice University) talk on 'Ecumenical Palestine, Colonialism and Education' challenges caricatures of the Arab world as a region dominated by age-old religious and ethnic sectarianism. Drawing from his new book ‘Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World’ (2019, University of California Press), Professor Makdisi uncovers the origins and development of a rich culture of anti-sectarian pluralism in Palestine in the late Ottoman period which came under attack with the arrival of European colonialism. From British colonial education policy designed to train Palestinians solely for agricultural work and curtail their struggle for self-determination, to the Arab educationalists determined to foster an anti-colonial culture of coexistence, Professor Makdisi's talk sheds new light on this critical period of Palestinian and Arab education history.

Ussama Makdisi is Professor of History and the first holder of the Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair of Arab Studies at Rice University.

Mezna Qato (Chair) is the Margaret Anstee Centre Fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge.

Beyond Decolonisation: Liberating the Study of the Arab World from the Gulf to Palestine

Professor Omar H. AlShehabi, Gulf Centre for Development Polices; Gulf University for Science and Technology

Chair: Dr Hicham Safieddene, Kings College London

Leading scholar of Gulf history and political economy Professor Omar H. AlShehabi discusses approaches to decolonising the study of the Arab world. Professor AlShehabi connects a wide range of themes including the British imperial imprint in the Gulf, the anti-colonial movements that emerged, and their linkages to the Palestinian liberation struggle in order to explore how their traditions challenge dominant perspectives of the Arab world and its peoples in the west and beyond.

Omar H. AlShehabi (D.Phil., Oxford University) is the Director of the Gulf Centre for Development Policies, and Associate Professor in Political Economy at the Gulf University for Science and Technology. His latest book in English, Contested Modernity: Sectarianism, Nationalism, and Colonialism in Bahrain, was released in 2019 with Oneworld Publications. Omar also serves as Senior Adviser to Fobzu.

Decolonising the Study of Palestine 71 Years after the Nakba

Professor Abdel Razzaq Takriti, University of Houston

Chair: Professor Karma Nabulsi, Oxford University

Award-winning scholar of modern Palestinian and Arab history, Professor Abdel Razzaq Takriti, provides an overview and critique of some of the influential frameworks that have governed the study of Palestine in the western academy. In this talk he argues instead for a liberationist approach, recognising the structural reality of colonialism while centring the Palestinian people and their collective struggle for self-determination and return.

Abdel Razzaq Takriti (D.Phil., Oxford University) is Associate Professor and the inaugural holder of the Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Arab History at the University of Houston. An expert on anticolonialism, revolutions, and transnational movements in Palestine and the Arab world, he is the author of the award-winning book, Monsoon Revolution: Republicans, Sultans, and Empires in Oman, 1965-1976 (Oxford University Press, 2013; paperback edition 2016), and the co-author and co-editor, with Professor Karma Nabulsi, of The Palestinian Revolution website (Oxford University Department of Politics and International Relations, 2017). Professor Takriti's opinion pieces have appeared in a variety of English and Arabic media outlets including The Guardian, Aljazeera English, Al-Ahram Weekly, Jadaliyya and al-Quds al-Arabi.

Education can be a source of alienation or an instrument of freedom

Dr Samah Jabr, Palestinian Ministry of Health

Chair: Gwyn Daniel, Tavistock Clinic

Samah Jabr, leading Palestinian psychiatrist, writer, and Chair of the Palestinian Mental Health Unit, opened the first event of 2019 in the Education, Occupation & Liberation series with a lecture on the colonial predicament facing the Palestinian people. The event was chaired by Gwyn Daniel, senior psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic.

The lecture, entitled ‘Alienation and Freedom: Education in the Struggle for National Liberation’, presented an examination of multiple dimensions of Palestinian alienation, contextualised within the political structure of colonialism, as experienced by Palestinians under occupation and in exile.

Dr Samah Jabr is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, writer, and Chair of the Mental Health Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health. She has been writing since the late 1990s, and has chronicled the Palestinian daily experience in numerous articles and lectures. Her book 'Derrière les fronts : chroniques d'une psychiatre psychothérapeute palestinienne sous occupation' [Beyond the Frontlines: Columns from a Palestinian Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist under Occupation] was published by PMN Editions in 2018. A documentary film, also entitled 'Derrière les fronts' and produced by Alexandra Dols, was released in 2017.

The Psychosocial Health of Palestinian Youth: Occupation and Resistance

Professor Rita Giacaman, Birzeit University

Chair: Professor Ann Phoenix, UCL

In our fourth EOL presentation Professor Rita Giacaman addresses the impact of prolonged military occupation on the wellbeing of young Palestinians. In exploring this issue, Professor Giacaman also considers the positive steps Palestinian youth take to resist the oppressive conditions they face. Decades of studying Palestinian psychosocial health has altered the ways Palestinian researchers have understood and measured wellbeing and these innovations are also addressed in the talk.

Professor Rita Giacaman is founder and Director of the Institute of Community and Public Health (ICPH) at Birzeit University in occupied Palestine. During her four decades of scholarship, she has become one of the leading authorities on Palestinian psychosocial wellbeing and public health. Her influential engagement as a researcher and practitioner in the Palestinian social action movement has led to the development of the Palestinian primary health care model. Since 2000, Professor Giacaman has focused on understanding the impact of chronic war-like conditions and excessive exposure to violence on the health and well-being of Palestinians, especially their psychosocial health under occupation; and ways in which interventions can generate active resilience and resistance, especially among youth. She has published her research widely in international journals and scholarly publications.

Palestinian universities under occupation and academic freedom

Dr Mezna Qato, Cambridge University

Professor Roger Heacock, Birzeit University

Dr Adam Hanieh, SOAS

In the third event of the Education, Occupation & Liberation series, Dr Mezna Qato, Professor Roger Heacock and Dr Adam Hanieh examine the continuity and change in structures of control imposed on Palestinian education over the past century and how this has been resisted by Palestinian students and teachers. The event takes place in the context of deteriorating conditions of access for Palestinian higher education under occupation, including

a recent wave of visa denials to foreign passport-holding faculty teaching at Palestinian universities. The speakers analyse these restrictions and locate them within the changing dynamics of the evolving colonial rule faced by the Palestinian people. This video includes the talks given by the first two panellists.

Dr Mezna Qato is a Junior Research Fellow at Kings College, Cambridge. She is writing a book on the history of education for Palestinians and is a trustee of Friends of Birzeit University (Fobzu).

Professor Roger Heacock taught European history at Birzeit University for over 35 years until the renewal of his visa was refused this summer. At Birzeit, he is a member of the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies and co-coordinates the Birzeit University Digital Palestinian Archive.

Dr Adam Hanieh is a Reader in Development Studies, at SOAS, University of London, who lived and worked in Ramallah, Palestine between 1997 and 2003. His most recent book is Money, Markets and Monarchies: The Gulf Cooperation Council and the Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Traditions of Liberation Education

Professor Karma Nabulsi, Oxford University

Chair: Professor Hugh Starkey, UCL

In this second lecture in Fobzu's Education, Occupation & Liberation series, Professor Karma Nabulsi addresses the theme of decolonising education. Examining central questions on the requirements of a decolonisation process, Professor Nabulsi locates answers in the vast repository of anti-colonial struggles: the words, ideas, and practices of those who fought for liberation and equality, and against imperialism and colonialism. When looking at their endeavours, it is clear they succeeded by relying on common principles, building an internationalist solidarity with all who faced a common predicament, while possessing a language and a form of struggle that was remarkably creative in dealing with empire. In this lecture, Karma explores one of these remarkable struggles – that of the Palestinian revolution.

Professor Karma Nabulsi is Fellow in Politics at St Edmund Hall, and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Department of Politics and IR (DPIR) at the University of Oxford. Her research and publications cover 18th and 19th C political thought, the laws of war, and the politics of Palestinian refugees and representation. In 2017 she completed the Palestinian Revolution, a bilingual Arabic/ English digital research and teaching resource on the Palestinian revolution from the 1950s to 1970s, which she directed and co-edited. Sponsored by the British Academy, and hosted at Oxford’s DPIR, the open access digital humanities resource was a collaborative initiative with museums, universities, research institutes, and scholars from across the global south. Last year Karma won the Guardian Higher Education Network’s ‘Inspiring Leader’ Award; she is UCU Equalities Officer at the university.

Access to Education and Dignity for Palestinian Refugees

Christopher Gunness & Caroline Pontefract (UNRWA)

Chair: Dr Joanna de Groot, UCU President (2017-2018)

In the first of Fobzu’s Education, Occupation & Liberation events, UNRWA Chief Spokesperson Christopher Gunness, and Director of Education Dr Caroline Pontefract talk about UNRWA's role in upholding the rights and dignity of 5 million Palestine refugees through the prism of the young people the agency serves in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

UNRWA was established in 1949 by the UN General Assembly to serve the Palestine refugees displaced during the Nakba of 1948. The agency's mandate has been renewed repeatedly by the General Assembly pending a just and durable solution to the plight of the Palestine refugees. In January 2018 the US, UNRWA's largest donor, announced major cuts to its funding of the agency throwing it into 'existential crisis'. On 31st August the Trump administration officially announced an end to all US funding of UNRWA.

UNRWA's vital role in upholding the rights and dignity of over 5 million Palestinian refugees, including its provision of education to over half a million children, is now imperilled by the US initiative.

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