There has been a bit of a brouhaha lately over the decision of Israeli security officials to ban students from the Palestinian territories from Israeli universities. The Israeli government has been criticized by Israeli university presidents for this decision, as well as by various international bodies, including the AAUP. The decision strikes me as unwise, but then again, I don’t have the same information as the security officials.
Unfortunately, Israeli leftists (not unlike some of their American counterparts) like to brand as “racist” anything they disagree with. Thus, an Israeli professor (visiting at an American university) accused some of his American Jewish colleagues on an email list to which I subscribe of defending the Israeli government’s “racist” policy, racist because it “profiles” all Palestinian students as potential terrorists.
I responded (in an email the moderator chose not to publish) that while Israel’s decision may be unwise, improvident, or whatnot, it is by no means racist to bar students from an enemy entity from one’s universities. I added Hamas that is the governing authority of the P.A. Hamas is clearly in a state of war with Israel. Even with regard to Fatah, the opposition party, several component groups (e.g., Al Asqa Martyrs Brigade) are at war with Israel. The idea that Israel is “profiling” all Palestinians as terrorists is ludicrous. It’s like saying that banning all German student applicants to American universities during WWII because of fear that some might be Nazi saboteurs was “racist” profiling (all German and Italian students present in the U.S. during WWII were either deported or interned for the duration of the War). Wouldn’t it be plausible that even someone who generally had very warm feelings towards Germans might conclude that (a) some German students might be susceptible to being recruited for sabotage and (b) the German government might send some saboteurs to the U.S. under the guise of students? It’s actually a more dramatic situation with regard to the Palestinians, because, as I understand it, they are seeking to “commute” from the enemy terroritory to Israel daily, which means that even if they are cleared as a security risk at first, there would still be the danger of their ideological or other circumstances changing thereafter.
Clearly, there are Palestinian terrorists, many of them are young, and terrorist groups would have no compunctions about using “students” to further their aims, just like they sent a woman with medical issues a few months ago to the Israeli border with Gaza to try to perpetrate a terrorist act at a hospital (a woman who, btw, had previously received Israeli medical aid at the very same hospital). It could be that the Israeli security officials are overreacting, and that it would be better to consider things on a case-by-case basis. But it also needs to be considered that having to vet students case-by-case requires resources that could be spent on other security matters, and is inherently far from foolproof. To reduce this to an issue of “racism” is simply puerile and insulting to those who disagree with the professor who made the accusation.
Again, I’m in favor of allowing Palestinian students (remember, we are not talking about Israeli citizens, but essentially nationals of an enemy foreign entity) to study in Israel, if it could be done in a way that would not jeopardize security. But to assume that anyone who defends giving the security agencies the discretion to implement a ban based on their conclusion that security can’t be guaranteed, at least at an acceptable price, is defending racism, is simply uncalled for.
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