Ireland’s university leaders must step up where the Irish government has failed

For many in Ireland the refrain of being the most pro-Palestine supporting country in Europe is a badge of honour (although perhaps the Spanish would have something to say about that). However, those of us who have been at this work for a long time know that rhetoric and reality rarely match up. As an educator and someone who has been involved in strengthening partnerships between the Palestinian and Irish academy for over a decade, the news that another group of Palestinian students seeking to take up their positions at Irish universities have had their visa applications rejected is particularly galling.

Education, as Nelson Mandela once opined, is “the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” In 2015, and again in 2020, I worked at the Al Quds University in occupied Palestine teaching students from across the West Bank and saw first hand the determination and resolve to complete degree programmes against the backdrop of incessant Israeli army incursions and daily struggles to get to class.

Whilst attacks on the Palestinian education sector is not a new phenomenon (during the First Intifada, many Universities across Palestine were shuttered and educators forced into exile) the outbreak of the Genocide in Gaza has seen attacks on a totally different scale.

Dubbed ‘scholasticide’, every university in Gaza has been destroyed, with schools deliberately targeted, and our colleagues – teachers, professors, admin staff – and of course countless numbers of students, killed.

Despite this, and against all odds, many students and their remarkable teachers have persevered, finishing university courses online in makeshift tents, charging laptops whenever limited electricity has become available.

In 2016, the Irish government launched a scheme to support Palestinian students wishing to travel to Ireland to pursue further education. What started as a fledgling pilot programme has become much bigger and more embedded with students travelling to Ireland from across the West Bank and Gaza to take up university places across a broad and diverse range of disciplines. Many of the students I taught at Al Quds University have subsequently obtained Masters degrees at the Human Rights Centre in Galway and at Trinity College Dublin, with others completing fully funded PhD positions at Maynooth and UCD. Their determination and drive to succeed, in my experience, is unmatched.

Many of those who completed their studies in Ireland have returned to Palestine to take up positions in the NGO sector or in local government, highlighting a deep commitment to Palestine and their communities.

This partnership is a source of immense pride and should be the area that Ireland continues to step up.

And yet, at this most crucial of moments the Irish government has turned its back on those who are most in need.

As of the 28th July, as reported by Rte, ‘upwards of 20 Gazan students, who have all been accepted onto fully funded scholarships for third-level courses, have had their visa applications turned down by Irish immigration authorities’. Only yesterday, information was trickling through from Gaza that a further 15 students with fully funded positions at Irish universities have had their applications refused. Alongside aerial bombardment, enforced starvation, multiple instances of forced displacement, and losing swathes of family members, the inflexibility and absurdity of the Irish visa process has added to the unimaginable and unspeakable horror of the past 3 years of Genocide. Quite the act of ‘solidarity’ from the allegedly most pro-Palestine country in Europe.

Reasons given for rejection have included ‘insufficient evidence’ of banking documents (hard to obtain when all the banks have been blown up) and ‘unaccounted for gaps’ in the students’ education (I wonder what could account for the disruption?) Recourse for appeal is granted, naturally, provided the applicant can furnish further documents and send them as a matter of urgency by post (I’m pretty sure the latest Gaza ‘Peace Plan’ didn’t prioritise the rebuilding of local Post Offices). Perhaps most egregious of all, applicants have been asked to provide proof that they intend to return to their homes following completion of their studies. I wonder how those who have been displaced on multiple occasions provide evidence of a fixed abode?

The entire debacle has left students I have spoken to in Gaza devastated, fearful for the future, and at a loss as to what more they must go through in order to simply live a normal life.

The visa rejections are a stain on this Irish government. But are we really surprised? We must shirk the illusion of fake notions of shared anti-colonial camaraderie, particularly when it comes from a government that has time and time again demonstrated its strong commitment to doing all it can to not rock the boat when it comes to holding the Israeli government (and its American sponsor) to account. Now is not the time to wait for this government to step up and do the right thing. We have to organise.

I call on those in positions of responsibility across the Irish university sector on this island, those who work in institutions who have made these offers, who have reviewed the applications and who have prepared for the students to take up these positions, to demonstrate real leadership. There must be a collective call, a shared position, to demand that these applicants be granted safe passage to Ireland to continue their educational journey.

If solidarity means anything, it is sticking your neck above the parapet and speaking truth to power, particularly when the power in question is going wholly against the grain of the demands of the Irish public.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.