Cambridge students in Palestine travel ban
LONDON: Cambridge Arabic students have been banned from studying in the Palestinian Territories as part of their year abroad.
It comes after some students were interrogated by Israeli security while traveling there. As part of their course, students spend eight months in a place where Arabic is the first language.
Most Cambridge students studying in Palestine read Arabic language at Birzeit University in Ramallah. But to get there they need to pass through Israeli security.
One Cambridge student who spoke to Arab News and studied at Birzeit University this year, said that British students found themselves in a Catch-22 situation.
“You cannot admit at the border that you are studying at Birzeit as studying on a tourist visa is not permitted, and yet the Israeli authorities do not issue student visas for universities in the West Bank,” she said.
The student, who did not want to be named, said that when she tried to cross the Allenby Bridge from Jordan into the West Bank earlier this year, she was held by border officials for six hours and interrogated for one hour.
“It was a really scary experience,” she said. “I still think about it quite a lot.”
A spokesperson for the University of Cambridge said: “Whilst we do not ban independent travel to, or study in, the Palestinian territories, students cannot choose to spend their year abroad in the West Bank for the time being due to recent difficulties faced by students in securing visa renewals from the Israeli authorities.
“This is regrettable but our first duty is to ensure that students are able to complete their year abroad in an Arabic-speaking region before commencing their final year of study at the University of Cambridge.”
Cambridge students said that they were saddened by the move but acknowledged that the university had little choice following “extremely distressing interrogations” by Israeli border authorities.
A spokesperson for the Cambridge University Palestine Society, said: “It is incredibly unfortunate that Cambridge students will now be unable to study at one of the leading universities in the Middle East, and denied the chance to see first-hand the effects of the Occupation on the West Bank.”
Five students, four female and one male, faced difficulties when landing at Ben-Gurion International Airport, in Tel Aviv over the last academic year, the UK’s Evening Standard newspaper reported on Sunday.
The Israeli Embassy in London was not immediately available for comment.