SPME Recommended Strategies For Restoring Study Abroad Programs to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank

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With the announcements on 1.15.09 of the US State Department of the Travel Alert to Israel, West Bank and Gaza, a number of colleges and universities have suspended study abroad opportunities for students and faculty. Among them are, to date, Duke, University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers-The State University. Generally these suspensions are in response to university attorneys being concerned with liability issues with respect to any occurances of damages related to any outbreak of hostilities and have nothing to do with institutional decisions to boycott Israel as are being reported by some organizations.

There are effective steps that can and should be taken by all 26,000 of us receiving these mailings.

1) If the university is a state university, such as Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey you and others should write to your Congresspersons and Senators to contact the State Department to lift the travel advisory ban from Israel as there is an absence of conflict at the present time. Go to Congress.org to get contact information for your Representative or Senator. As everyone you know to do this. Pressure on the State Department by members of Congress can be very influential in addressing these issues. To contact your Representative or Senators, go to congress.org for their contact information if you don’t have it. While email is helpful, calling or writing is best. Always ask for a reply about the action taken.

2) In both private and state Universities, faculty, students, alumni and donors should approach the university president and senior administration as community stakeholders, indicating that US State Travel Advisories or not, legal steps can be taken to continue study and research in Israel in other countries if participants hold the universities harmless for any liability as a result of the outbreak of hostilities. Many universities continue their programs without interruption during these times and that such a disruption runs counter to principles of academic freedom and international academic cooperation and may, in fact be disruptive of either a student’s or faculty members academic career in a harmful way. Furthermore, parents of perspective students coming to their institution might change their minds if they see such study abroad programs are vulnerable to these kinds of legal rulings, when there are other schools allowing such programs to continue.

SPME Recommended Strategies For Restoring Study Abroad Programs to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank

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