Posts Tagged ‘Jon Donnison’
Unusual scholarship from Oxford University to students in Gaza
Rawan Yaghi is a bookish 19 year old student of literature at Gaza’s Islamic University. She is currently studying English literature, and among other books, George Orwell’s Animal Farm and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.
Her favorite book is Mornings In Jenin by the Palestinian American writer Susan Abul Hawa. The novel follows the story of three generations of a Palestinian family who became refugees after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
Rawan’s life is about to take a different direction: She has just won a scholarship to Oxford University to study linguistics and Italian.
Jon Donnison of BBC New published from Gaza City on April 4, 2013: “Gazan heads to Oxford University on unusual scholarship”
” Rawan arrives to meet me in Gaza with a text tucked under her arm.
It is a well-thumbed copy of Catch 22, Joseph Heller‘s classic satirical novel on the absurdities of war: Rawan spent her entire life amid one of the Middle East’s most intractable conflicts.
Rawan says: “Most people think [Gaza] is like a war zone and that everyone here is really depressed and involved in politics. But it’s not always about war. It’s also about families, friends and love”
Rawan is looking forward to moving from the minarets of Gaza to the city of “dreaming spires”.
“I’m very excited. I can’t wait,” she smiles. “It’s going to be different but it’s going to be fun.”
Few have made such a journey for this Unusual scholarship: all the other students at Oxford’s Jesus College will pay some of the cost of Rawan’s studies.
As part of the recently established Jesus College Junior Members Scholarship most of the other students have each agreed to pay £3.90 ($5.90) per term towards Rawan’s fees.
The scholarship was set up by Oxford graduate Emily Dreyfus after she realized that few people in Gaza had ever had the chance to study at one of Britain’s most prestigious universities.
“They voted for this from the outset. They recognize that this is a very small contribution to make which has a disproportionately positive benefit.”
The student contributions will raise around £6,300 a year towards Rawan’s living costs. This is only a fraction of the estimated £30,000 annual costs needed to complete the four-year course.
And the university has agreed to waive around 60% of the tuition fees.
The rest of the costs are being paid for by three charities: The Hani Qaddumi Scholarship Foundation, the AM Qattan Foundation and the Hoping Foundation, which supports Palestinian refugees around the world.
Rawan still had to apply for and win the place against fierce competition, but she knows the other students at Jesus have given her a rare opportunity.
“I really appreciate that Emily believed in people here and she gave somebody like me a life changing chance,” Rawan says.
Rawan has only once before left the tiny Palestinian territory, when she went on a study trip to the United States.
Israel’s blockade of Gaza and the ongoing conflict with Hamas which governs here make it difficult for Palestinians to leave through Israel.
Before it withdrew from Gaza, Israel had been refusing permission for Palestinian students to leave Gaza in order to carry out studies abroad. Rawan will likely leave Gaza through Egypt in order to travel to Oxford.
Rawan is also a fan of JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books.
“Her style of writing is very subtle. There are little things in her stories that grab your attention.”
Education is highly valued in Gaza. There are no fewer than 7 universities in the territory for a population of 1.7 million people.
But Rawan is expecting a different study experience at Oxford.
“The education system is completely different. I’m going to have my own tutors not like in Gaza where I am among hundreds of students who have the same teacher.”
Cultural differences?
She will also have to get used to mixed education. At the Islamic University, where she studies now, men and women are taught separately.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. The culture there is obviously very different but I’m open to that.”
Rawan also accepts that she is going to miss home.
“Of course I will be homesick. But I have to go through that and get used to it because I have something more important to achieve.”
Emily Dreyfus expects the young Palestinian will be given a warm welcome.
“I’m confident that she’s going to have a wonderful time and I know that there are a lot of people at the college eager to meet her and to welcome her to their community.”
“Most people think it’s like a war zone here and that everyone here is really depressed and involved in politics,” she says.
“But it’s not always about war. It’s also about families, friends and love. It’s not only about the conflict with Israel.”
And despite the chance to broaden her horizons, she is adamant that once she has finished her four years in Oxford, she will return to Gaza.
“I still haven’t thought about what I’ll do after university but I’ll definitely come back here. Although it may seem difficult to live here, it’s still interesting and adventurous at times,” she says with a wry smile.
“There is ugliness in Gaza but you can’t leave it and turn your back on it.”
An anti-tank missile fired by Palestinian fighters wounds four Israeli soldiers driving in a jeep along the Israel-Gaza boundary.
An Israeli artillery shell lands in a soccer field in Gaza killing two children, aged 16 and 17.
One Palestinian civilian is killed and dozens more wounded in Israeli attacks. Four Israeli civilians are also injured as a result of projectiles launched from Gaza, according to the Israeli government.
Palestinian militant factions agree to a truceif Israel ends its attacks.WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14
Israel breaks two days of calm by assassinating Ahmed Jabari, the head of Hamas’ military wing.
A wounded Palestinian boy at a hospital after an Israeli air strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on 15 November 2012.
Today, 3 Israelis were killed as a result of rocket fire from Gaza.
This came after Israel had killed 13 Palestinians, including 3 children and a woman, and injured 115, including 26 children and 25 women since yesterday, 14 November.
This will be presented by Israel – and sympathetic or careless world media – as another justification for Israel’s attacks on Gaza to stop rocket fire. But this narrative is false.
Where there was calm and an effective truce, Israel chose to shatter it, bringing about the current deadly escalation.
In general, Palestinians fired rockets, or attacked the Israeli army, as a response to Israeli attacks, seeking to avoid escalation and publicly embracing a truce. Take a look at the sequence:
- On 29 October the BBC reported that “Militants in Gaza have fired 26 rockets into Israel, officials say, amid a flare-up in fighting which shattered a brief ceasefire between the two sides. No injuries were reported from the barrage, in the south of the country.”
- The BBC said that, “It came hours after Israeli aircraft hit targets in Gaza, after militants fired rockets following the killing by Israel of a Gazan who Israel said fired mortars at its troops.”
BBC reporter Jon Donnison said, “It is often difficult to pinpoint when a specific escalation in violence started – both sides will always remember what they see as a previous act of aggression by the other which enables them to justify their attacks as retaliation.” But we can do better than that.
QassamCount@QassamCount- On 4 November, Israeli forces shot dead “an unarmed, mentally unfit man” walking near an Israeli-imposed “buffer” area inside the occupied Gaza Strip.
- Yet, after the 28-29 October “flare-up” reported by the BBC, the Israel-based Twitter account @qassamcount, which catalogues projectiles fired from Gaza toward Israel recorded almost no rocket fire. Qassam Count tweeted at 23:56 UTC on 5 Novemberabout just one rocket.
A rocket fired from Gaza hit southern Israel
The killing of Ahmad Abu Daqqa
- On 8 November, Israeli occupation forces made an incursion into the Gaza Strip near al-Qarara villlage northeast of Khan Yunis fatally injuring a child. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR):
They leveled areas of Palestinian land amidst indiscriminate shooting. A few hours later, they moved southwards to ‘Abassan village.
They opened fire indiscriminately and leveled areas of Palestinian land. An Israeli helicopter gunship also opened fire at the area.
At approximately 16:30, as a result of the indiscriminate shooting by IOF [Israeli occupation forces] military vehicles, 13-year-old Ahmed Younis Khader Abu Daqqa was seriously wounded by a bullet to the abdomen.
At the time he was shot, Ahmed had been playing football with his friends in front of his family’s house, located nearly 1,500 meters away from the area where the IOF were present.
Ahmad Abu Daqqa, profiled by The Electronic Intifada’s Rami Almeghari, died of his injuries.
- On 9 November, the day after the killing of Ahmad Abu Daqqa:
2 rockets fired from Gaza hit southern Israel
Palestinians attack Israeli army, Israeli army kills civilians
- On 10 November, Palestinian resistance fighters attacked an Israeli army jeep near the boundary with Gaza, injuring 4 Israeli occupation soldiers.
Following this, Israel attacked civilian neighborhoods in Gaza. In the ensuing 72 hour period, Israeli forced killed 7 Palestinians.
According to PCHR, five of the dead were civilians, including 3 children. Fifty-two others, including 6 women and 12 children were wounded.
“Four of these deaths and 38 of the injuries resulted from an Israeli attack on a football playground in al-Shoja’iya neighborhood east of Gaza City,” PCHR reported.
Not surprisingly, Palestinians fired rockets into Israel, as recorded by “Qassam Count”:
5 more rockets fired from Gaza explode in Israel. 25 rockets today.
Update: 3 more rockets fired from Gaza hit Israel.
Truce talks
Qassam Count records no rockets on 11 November. This can perhaps be explained by the fact that Palestinian factions were in talks over a truce and were keen to see calm restored.
Israel’s Ynet reported on 11 November:
Egyptian Intelligence officials have successfully brokered an end to the current round of escalation in the south, Ynet learned Sunday. No Israeli source has corroborated the report.
The Ynet reported added:
According to senior Egyptian sources, both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have agreed to hold their fire if Israel suspends its airstrike on Gaza. > > Cairo-based sources said that Israel reportedly agreed not to retaliate over sporadic rocket fire from Gaza, as long as it was sans casualties
- Yet on 12 November, two rockets were fired into Israel according to Qassam Count. This came amid two days of air attacks by Israel on the Gaza Strip.
Truce takes hold
Reuters reported on 13 November:
After five days of mounting violence, Israel and the Palestinians stepped back from the brink of a new war in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, sending signals to each other via Egypt that they would hold their fire unless attacked.
The report added:
Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Gaza’s Hamas government, praised the main armed factions in the enclave for agreeing on Monday night to a truce. “They showed a high sense of responsibility by saying they would respect calm should the Israeli occupation also abide by it,” he said.
Israel destroys the truce
Yet Israel was not interested in calm.
- On 14 November Israel carried out the extrajudicial killing of Hamas military chief Ahmad al-Jabari.
Reuters noted that the Israeli attack “appeared to end a 24-hour lull in cross-border violence that surged this week.”
The rest is tragic history, some undoubtedly yet to be written in innocent blood.
An Israeli pattern
Israel’s contempt for truces and ceasefires is nothing new. In November 2008, Israel broke a months-long ceasefire, manufacturing a crisis that it then used to justify its December 2008-January 2009 massacre of 1,400 people in Gaza.
Israel has a long, well-documented history of breaking ceasefire after ceasefire, but you would never know it by watching the news or reading, say, The New York Times.
It is also important to keep in mind the context that Israel and Palestinians in Gaza are not symmetrical “sides.”
Gaza is a small, impoverished enclave, home to 1.6 million people, some 80 percent of whom are refugees. Gaza is under a tight siege and blockade by Israel, the occupying power.
Note: Today Sunday, Israel jets killed 26 Palestinians, among them an entire family of 11 and the kids. The total so far is 70 killed and 600 injured.
