Roads to West Bank universities, says Munther Barakat, a professor from Bir-Zeit University, are virtually non-functional, because of IDF barriers and checkpoints. Often, professors and students trudge home after waiting in vain for hours at checkpoints. (Photo: Nitzan Shorer)

A short time before Israeli soldiers entered Palestinian Authority lands, Bethlehem University geneticist Dr. Moien Kanaan stored cell cultures in a refrigerator at his laboratory at Bethlehem University.

Dr. Kanaan studies genes that cause deafness, and is also involved in research involving gene therapy of cardiac diseases. He collects and researches DNA samples from large Palestinian families in which several members are deaf. The samples have to be stored at a constant temperature; some had to be transferred every few days to new Petri dishes in order to survive.

Dr. Kanaan, who lives in East Jerusalem, was unable to get to his laboratory for a month.

About 10 days ago, when IDF soldiers pulled out of Bethlehem, he finally managed to reach his lab. He spent the first week back at work assessing damage to the samples.

"I knew in advance that we'd have to throw out a portion of the samples," he says. "We still aren't certain about the other ones."

Kanaan works with Tel Aviv University Prof. Karen Avraham, and both say that their research cooperation will continue. Yet even though the closure on Bethlehem has been lifted, Kanaan still has trouble getting to his laboratory. A check-point has been put up on the road that leads to the university, and so "the only options are to go by car and wait an unknown number of hours at the checkpoint, or to go by foot - and walking is tough to do with papers, a briefcase and a computer," Kanaan explains.

On some days, Palestinian scientists have to deal with electricity black-outs, which make it impossible to hook up to computer links that are crucial for their work.

Destruction wrought by Operation Defensive Shield did not bypass educational institutions. At the Al-Quds campus in El-Bireh, for example, equipment and laboratories were destroyed. Also, Tul Karm's College for Agricultural Research, which is affiliated with Nablus' Al-Najah University, is no longer fit for studies.

Bethlehem University is a leading Palestinian institution in biological studies. According to Bethlehem University Rector Manuel Hassassian, a Unesco center for biological research operates on campus; such centers can be found in only four countries in the West.

Eleven universities operate on the West Bank, including an Open University (Al-Quds Open University, which runs nine centers around the West Bank and the Gaza Strip). There are also some 20 colleges on the West Bank. The PA's Statistics Bureau relays that 66,050 were enrolled in the 11 universities in 2000 (the last year when data were compiled). Each university offers master's degree programs; in 2000, more than 2000 students were enrolled in these programs. Al-Najah University offers a PhD program in chemistry.

First-degree fields include biotechnology, agriculture, humanities, physics, computer studies and law. The most popular area of study is education - 15,515 students, 24 percent of the entire university student population, are enrolled in education. Other popular fields are business administration (21 percent of students), and natural sciences and technology (in which 12,000 students, or 18 percent of the total population, are enrolled). Women constitute about 40 percent of student enrollment in the sciences; in life sciences, the ratio of male to female students is about 50-50, yet women are a minority in computer sciences and engineering. Only 3.5 percent of students in the West Bank universities major in Islamic Law.

Apart from Bir-Zeit University, which solidified its academic reputation in the 1960s, "all of these universities are young, and started to operate in the 1970s," explains Palestinian Authority Deputy Higher Education and Research Minister Hisham Kuhail. The large universities - Bir-Zeit, Bethlehem, Al-Najah, and Al-Quds - carry out scientific research. Each of these universities has a hydrology research institute. Medical research is also carried out (epidemiology research is emphasized); and research work goes on in political science and conflict resolution, subjects which for the Palestinians have the added benefit of being a national interest. A few lone researchers do work in other areas. All told, there are a few dozen researchers in PA universities whose work meets international academic standards.

In large part, the picture sketched above reflects progress in Palestinian research notched during the eight years in which the Oslo process remained in effect.

These are young universities which operate on slim budgets, and are under-equipped. The unrest of the past two years has nearly destroyed academic research in the PA. Research conditions in many areas have deteriorated to a state reminiscent of pre-Palestinian Authority days. Scientists face a number of limitations and restrictions on their work; teachers are unable to work on normal classroom schedules.

Most research work relies on grants provided by European and U.S. sources. The conferral of these grants is often conditioned upon Palestinian scientists' availability to collaborate with researchers from the donor countries, or from the region (including Israel). Owing to the continuing closures, the road-blocks, and, recently, the outright warfare, researchers on the West Bank and Gaza Strip have had tremendous difficulty maintaining connections with scientists overseas. Some contact has been kept via the telephone, or electronic mail. Connections with Israeli researchers are problematic in several ways; distance and logistical issues are not necessarily the primary obstacles.

Elementary in Israel

The levels students attain also complicate the higher education scene in the PA. During the first intifada, elementary and secondary schools in the territories were closed for protracted periods. Students in many areas continued to learn in private homes. "However, since schools didn't operate," says a senior professor at one of the large universities, "students who came to us had a lot less knowledge and skills than we expect of pupils, and so we had to adjust our academic program in order to bring them up to university standards."

Logistical obstacles have harmed studies during the current intifada. Roads which lead to West Bank universities, says Munther Barakat, a civil engineering professor from Bir-Zeit University, are virtually non-functional, because of barriers put-up by the IDF, and checkpoints. Thousands of students and faculty members are forced to get to classrooms and labs via bypass roads. Often, the professors and students trudge home in frustration after waiting in vain for hours at checkpoints.

"Things which seem natural and elementary to Israeli researchers, such as leaving the country and taking part in international conferences ... are impossible here," says Barakat.

The universities' economic plight has worsened in recent years. Many lecturers are paid only 40 - 60 percent of their salaries. Before the Gulf War, PA education officials explain, Persian Gulf universities allocated funds to Palestinian institutions of higher education. But after the war, these universities cut off the allocations.

Starting in 1994, the European Union partially funded Palestinian universities in an assistance program, and ended after five years.

The fact that 60 percent of the universities' budgets stems from tuition fees (tuition represents just 15 percent of the universities' budgets in Israel) attests to the dire economic plight of higher education in the PA. And the tuition revenues are far from guaranteed today. With more than 50 percent of the work force unemployed, it remains to be seen whether students will be able to keep up with their tuition fees, says Prof. Hassassian. He adds the Bethlehem University's situation is relatively secure, since as a Catholic institution, it receives budget allocations from the Vatican.

Data compiled in 1998 by the PA Higher Education Ministry show that 9 percent of universities' budgets comes from PA allocations, and that the universities raised 8 percent of the budgets via donations. "Recently money that was budgeted for the universities never reached them, due to the PA's cash-flow problems," says Deputy Education Minister Kohil.

`Don't say `collaboration'

Few collaborative Israeli-Palestinian research projects have been undertaken during the past two years. Some such projects were completed, but failed to produce continued collaboration. Others sputtered and failed because Israeli researchers were afraid to go to the territories, and their Palestinian peers were unable to work in Israel. According to Professor Barakat, many of his Palestinian colleagues are "unwilling to continue to cooperate [with Israeli scientists]. They saw so many horrendous things done by the army here; and the atmosphere isn't conducive to cooperation." Barakat points out that some collaborative Israeli-Palestinian research projects were involuntary; they were done in compliance with requirements stipulated by American and European grant organizations.

"I became aware of a number of sensitive points during the work," says one Israeli biologist who has carried out collaborative research for years with Palestinians. "For instance, I learned that it's wrong to use the word `collaboration' - that sounds very bad to them, when it applies to Israelis. You have to use the word `cooperation.'

The fragile character of such cooperation is illustrated by the following case. During Operation Defensive Shield, the Secretary-General of the Palestinian Academy for Science and Technology (the Palestinian counterpart to Israel's National Academy of Sciences), Dr. Imad Katib, received a report from an acquaintance who lives near the Academy's offices in Ramallah. The acquaintance reported that the IDF had blown up the offices' entrance, and had gone in and destroyed equipment. Dr. Katib lives in East Jerusalem; due to the closure on Ramallah, he was unable to reach the Academy offices, and assess the damage with his own eyes. He decided to notify the International Human Rights Network of Academies, an organization which protects the rights of academics and researchers across the globe; both Israel's and the PA's science academies belong to it. The International Human Rights Network's director, Carol Corillon, sent Katib's message to her colleagues, and asked to be updated about developments. Israel's Academy was furious. "How could they disseminate such a message straight away, without first asking us whether the report was accurate," asked Prof. Yaakov

Ziv, president of the Israel National Academy of Science.

The Israel academy decided to check the PA report. A certain measure of cooperation prevails among the two, Palestinian and Israeli, academies; but in this instance members of Israel's academy did not go to their Palestinian peers with questions. The Israeli "clarification" went nor farther than the sending of a letter to the IDF Spokesman; the Spokesman has yet to respond. For their part, members of the Palestinian academy formulated a detailed report about the damage to their offices, providing evidence of computers, printers, Xerox machines, books and other materials which were thrown on the floor, and of shattered windows and bullet-pierced walls.

Some members of the Palestinian academy criticized their counterparts in Israel's academy, claiming that the Israelis did nothing about the destruction wrought in the Ramallah offices. If the Israelis weren't prepared to denounce the IDF's acts, they wrote, they should have at least expressed empathy regarding their peers' suffering, and the damage caused to their work.