On March 21^st, the UNESCO Chair on Human Rights and Democracy and the Right to Education Campaign at An-Najah University organized a meeting at the Training Room at the New Campus Library with Palestinian female students studying at Israeli universities. A number of students and interested attended the meeting.

During the meeting, the students spoke about the many challenges that Palestinian students face during their study at universities in Israel which include social, academic and political challenges. They also described their own personal experiences they had during their study at Haifa University, Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University.

The students hoped that through this meeting the social gap between students living inside Israel and those living outside it would be bridged and that it would represent a chance to familiarize students in the West Bank with the reality of the students studying inside Israel. It is a good opportunity to for students on both sides to exchange ideas and experiences regarding the challenges that these students face.

Among the issue that the students discussed in the meeting was the racism and discrimination that they face at the Israeli universities. They also spoke about the conditions that students inside Israel face, the activity of the student movement, freedom of speech,  as well as the many practices through which the Israelis try to discriminate between the Israeli and Palestinian students such as the use of Hebrew as the only instruction language at all universities in Israel.

At the end of the meeting, the students called for a legal follow-up on the Israeli discrimination against Palestinian students and to work on documenting these violations through coordinating efforts between students of the Palestinian, Arab and international universities.