Blog
Meet Birzeit University’s Dream Team
We are Duha Abdallah, Hadeel Salameh, Habsa Awawdeh, Samera albalawi, and Daived Habash, the Dream Team. We are a group of marketing students whose dreams went beyond the requirements of the Public Relations course that banded us together.
The Public Relations course, MKET231, requires a group of five students to present an Important Final Project, so we decided to improve society in a way that cannot be forgotten. We came up with a remarkable idea to help students at Birzeit University make a name for themselves.
The idea, named BZU’s Got Talent, will create massive buzz once it...
A Student in the Late Sixties
I studied at Birzeit College between 1968 and 1970. In 1968, there were about 168 students total (freshmen and sophomores, arts and sciences), and in 1969, about 196.
So it was like an extended family, and in fact it was the first setup when we could experience the multiplicity of Palestinians in terms of geography and class. We had students from Gaza and Nablus, it was a coeducational school, which added to the flavor of the place, and it focused on lots of cultural activities.
Gabi Baramki and Tania Nasir organized the production of Gilbert and Sullivan musicals like “Trial by Jury”...
Joint Friends of Birzeit University and student union officers' statement in support of the Right to Education for Palestinians
Following the storming of the university and abduction of the President of the Student Council,
Birzeit University, the Right to Education in Palestine and Palestinian students have called for the support of students and academic communities worldwide to stand up in defence of their right to education.
Please join us in showing your solidarity at this critical moment.
On Wednesday 7th March in the mid-afternoon, armed IDF units in civilian clothing forced their way onto Birzeit University campus. One unit detained university security guards, confiscated their weapons and began firing...
Education, and Decolonization: On Not Reading Ibn Khaldun in Palestine
Western hegemony, colonization, imperial and neocolonial domination over the Third World has been sustained through knowledge production that has become hegemonic on a global scale since the rise of western modernity.
I argue that settler colonialism in Palestine took place and has been maintained through that structure. Formal independence of previously colonized countries has not led to real decolonization, not only because these countries continued to be economically and otherwise dependent on Western powers, but also importantly if not more so, due to dependency on knowledge produced...
Social Suffering, The Painful Wounds Inside
As I write these lines, I think about the survivors of war in Aleppo, Syria, enduring desperate conditions. What is it like to witness the destruction of homes, the world, history, and identity, and become refugees or displaced persons? How does this social suffering caused by war manifest itself in health and well-being?
My colleagues and I at Birzeit University, supported by discussions with Lebanese, Syrian, and Iraqi academics from the Faculty of Health Sciences at the American University of Beirut, have developed an understanding of the effects of war on health, grounded on the...
The Two-State Solution’s Silver Bullet
If the international community cannot come to recognize the State of Palestine before Trump takes office, the State of Palestine may ultimately be reconstituted from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.
By Sam Bahour
If the international community, led by the U.S., is serious about preserving the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the upcoming French-hosted international peace conference is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reframe the way forward. Recognizing the State of Palestine would politically contribute to ending Israel’s nearly 50-year...
Education as a Political Practice Towards Gender Equality and Social Justice
Women activists neither pause nor wait nor neglect available opportunities or openings for change. They use them, expand them, or create alternative spaces through their daily coping and resistance strategies. Women’s struggles against colonialism, patriarchal domination, discrimination, violence, and exploitation extend from home to work, passing through economic, social, legal, and political systems of discrimination, confronting structural as well as cultural obstacles, by opening new boundaries that make opportunities for positive change a reality for all.
As a founding member and...
Palestinians enter a new challenging era
It is no longer possible to ignore the impact of three important developments that have ushered the Palestinian cause into a new, more challenging and less suitable political environment - one that requires a radical review of the mechanisms of Palestinian political action.
The first is the uncertainty in or the collapse of the Arab political system; the second are recent radical transformations in Israel; and the third is the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.
The crippling changes in the Arab world have made it immeasurably less capable of providing support for...
SYRIAN AND IRAQI REFUGEES: A PALESTINIAN PERSPECTIVE
It is heart wrenching to see images of Syrian and Iraqi refugees, including Palestinian refugees of the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) who became refugees for the second or third time, desperately searching for safety from the nightmare befalling them. Although the welcoming support of ordinary Europeans who could not tolerate seeing these distressing images (especially the image of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi found dead on a Turkish beach) is heartwarming, the contrast with xenophobic reactions of some groups, governments, and border closures are inhumane and outrageous. Many in our region point...
The Palestinian Authority: Unsettling Status Quo Scenarios
Key Points
Though the Palestinian Authority (PA) appears to be at the center of Palestinian politics, it has brought few real changes to the way the West Bank is governed over its 22 years of existence.
In part due to the Palestinian Authority’s weakness, the two-state solution has failed. The only alternative, however, is not the one-state solution, but variations on the current status quo – all of which lead to a more intensified condition of apartheid.
In time, with a more amenable regional and international atmosphere, a different scenario – revolutionary in nature – may become...
