Student Union
Palestinian Students Recount Feelings of ‘Survivor’s Guilt’
Young Palestinians living and studying abroad say they are tied to social media with a sense of helplessness as they follow the repercussions from the most recent violence back home.
“You kind of get, like, survivor's guilt. You know, like, ‘Why is it not me that that's happening to?’ and ‘What, like, what can I do to help these people?’ ” described Mona Salah, a law student at Bristol University in the United Kingdom.
Protests broke out in early May after the Israeli Supreme Court sanctioned the eviction of Palestinian families from Sheik Jarrah, a historically Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
Settler groups contend that Jews owned the land before the creation of Israel in 1948. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says Sheik Jarrah is on occupied Palestinian territory, making the ruling a violation of international law.
Hamas launched rocket attacks into Israel following subsequent clashes between Palestinians and Israel police outside Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, prompting a strong defensive response by Israeli Defense Forces. The worst fighting in the region since 2014 left 248 people dead in Gaza and 13 in Israel.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the rounds Wednesday in neighboring Jordan — heavily populated by Palestinians whose families came as refugees before 1967 — to buttress a cease-fire brokered last week by the U.S. and Egypt.
University students and young Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank say the latest exchange of hostilities has made already bad conditions worse.
“You know, when you're in survival mode, you're not really so worried about your education, you're worried about living, you're worried about what your next meal is going to be,” said Jude Elrayes, a student at Ryerson University in Canada. During the 11 days of fighting, she said, she checked in with her family in Gaza often, to make sure they got through the day.
“These messages are not easy to read, especially knowing that that could have easily been you. You know, that could have easily been me back there. But I was so lucky and blessed enough to be here, which is something that brings on a lot of survivor's guilt,” Elrayes continued.
Travel blocked
Israeli and Egyptian blockades have prevented thousands of students from leaving Gaza to pursue a higher education — even when they have visas from host countries and support from educational institutions abroad, according to the website Gaza Unlocked, run by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), as well as other human rights organizations.
Economic hardship leading to an inability to pay tuition fees led to a 70% dropout rate for students in graduate programs in the Gaza Strip in 2019, based on a 2020 study by Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza.
Palestinian students who live outside the West Bank and Gaza Strip said they feel fortunate to have passports that permit them to study abroad, often acquired through parents who have long lived abroad. Most Palestinians do not have official passports recognized by other governments.
“I'm lucky to have a Swedish passport, because my dad lived there for like 20 years or something. So we were granted nationality,” Salah said. “And so under that basis, I would be allowed to enter [Israel]. But if I solely had my Jordanian passport, I wouldn't be allowed to enter, especially with the security checks they do.”
Salah said her mother, born in Nazareth, has been stuck at checkpoints and border crossings for up to 18 hours when returning to the West Bank from Amman, Jordan, where they live now.
Glued to social media
Many Palestinians report being tethered to social media to connect with the Palestinian territories and share information with non-Palestinian students.
“That's why so many of us are glued to our phones right now, as Palestinians, because we're trying to do the best that we can,” Elrayes said, reporting that her screen time on Instagram has averaged close to eight hours a day recently.
Elrayes created a video that amassed more than 30,000 views between Instagram and Tik Tok sharing information on the most recent fighting.
Celebrity voices lending support and solidarity are welcomed, they said. Model Bella Hadid shared images of her grandparents’ wedding in Nazareth and of a Los Angeles rally for the Palestinians.
“Palestine’s never had this much attention in Western media and that’s largely due to social media. Western media favors the state’s narrative, and all Palestinians have are our cameras,” said Aya Ghanameh, a student at the Rhode Island School of Design.
However, speaking out may come with costs.
Hadid deleted her pro-Palestinian posts and actor Mark Ruffalo deleted a post that called the occupation a “genocide,” after much blowback.
“I think it is really, really difficult to be pro-Palestine with an audience. Because a lot of people conflate the idea of like, you know, Israel with purely Judaism, and just the establishment of a Jewish state. And they fail to see that being pro-Palestine is not being against that. It's being against that at the expense of our people,” Salah said.
Palestinians studying abroad have turned to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), as well, a Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments and economic sanctions against Israel.
Salah said she believes the boycott can be overwhelming because “Israeli products have infiltrated our lives so much to the point where you literally have to boycott everything to boycott successfully.”
Some Jewish students in the U.S. see the boycott as reverse discrimination.
"We oppose the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement and its efforts to isolate and demonize the only Jewish democratic state in the world," said Nathan Edelman, as a senator with the Illinois Student Government in September 2020.
"Past BDS referendums and resolutions have only increased hate, hostility and mistrust on our campus."
Western universities not always responsive
Palestinians studying outside the West Bank and Gaza said they found it difficult to connect with others about their identity, and their universities' responses to recent events have been sparse.
“Everyone kind of has this experience that the university sends out an email about a current political issue and has mental health awareness and stuff like that, and you know, who to reach out to, if you're troubled by what's going on and stuff like that.” Salah shared.
“But suddenly, because this is such a, you know, controversial topic, we didn't get any of the, for the Palestinian cause, which is really concerning,” she said.
Students said it can be challenging to find people they can share their heritage with.
“I'm very proud to be Palestinian. But it's very sad that up until, you know, about a year ago, I wasn't comfortable just being like, ‘Oh, I'm Palestinian,’ because a lot of people prior to these two weeks, didn't even know what Palestine was,” Elrayes explained.
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Reports of visa checks, deportations worry Chinese STEM students in US
Geopolitical tensions and growing competition in tech between the United States and China appear to be spilling over into academia despite commitments from the world’s two biggest economies to boost people-to-people exchanges.
The United States remains the top choice for Chinese students seeking to study abroad with nearly 300,000 studying in American colleges and universities during the 2022-2023 school year. But reports of some cases that students and professors are facing extra scrutiny while passing through immigration and the deportation of others are raising concerns.
For Chen Xiaojin, a doctoral student studying semiconductor materials at a university in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, it has been six years since she returned to her hometown of Beijing.
At first, it was the COVID-19 pandemic that kept her from going home. But over the past two years, she has been deterred by accounts of Chinese students majoring in science and engineering being required to reapply for their visas upon returning to China.
She also says she is worried by reports over the past six months of Chinese students being deported, even at nearby Dulles Airport.
"My current research is relatively sensitive, and my boss [adviser] is getting funds from the U.S. Department of Defense, making it even more sensitive,” she told VOA. "I am afraid that I won't be able to return after I go back [to China]."
Chen says that if she did return to China, she would have to apply for a new visa.
In a report late last month, Bloomberg said it had found at least 20 Chinese students and scholars with valid visas who were deported at U.S. Customs since November and barred from reentry. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency does not release relevant data.
Immigration attorney Dan Berger represented one Chinese student who was deported late last year. He tells VOA Mandarin that the student studied biological sciences at Yale University and was about to complete her doctorate.
She visited her family in China and got a new visa but was deported by customs at Dulles Airport and barred from reentering the country for five years. Berger said he did not see anything suspicious in the transcript of the conversation between the student and the customs officer.
"We have seen what seems like a pattern over the last six months of Chinese PhD students being turned around…. more than I've seen in quite a while," he said.
Matthew Brazil, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said neither country seems willing to explain the situation. However, he believes that in most cases, the United States must have valid reasons for blocking visa holders from entering the country.
In some cases, the student’s background may not match what is written on the visa application. In other cases, customs agents may also find something that the State Department missed, and once they see it, they are responsible for taking action.
"I wish the Chinese side would be specific about their students who were refused entry,” he said. “The fact that both sides are mum on details and that the Chinese side is engaged with the usual angry rhetoric means that each has security concerns. And that says to me that there was good reason for the U.S. to stop these particular applicants."
Brazil also sees a connection between the entry denials and export control regulations issued by the United States in October 2022 that restrict China's ability to obtain advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and manufacture advanced semiconductors.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is one of the law enforcement agencies authorized to investigate violations of export control regulations, he said.
"Beijing's intelligence agencies are known to focus attention on PRC [People's Republic of China] students and scientists headed abroad who study or work on dual-use technologies controlled under the Export Administration Act — compelling Chinese students and scientists to report on what they've learned when they return to China on holiday,” he said. “This has been true for decades."
Bill Drexel, a fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said the U.S. government did find some cases where students tried to steal strategic technology for China.
"I think it would both not be surprising that they found some really questionable or incriminating evidence for some students,” he said. “It would also not be surprising if, in their hunt for really solid evidence, they also may have made some mistakes on other students.”
Drexel adds that “it’s just kind of an unfortunate fact of the time that we live in and the tactics that the CCP uses when it comes to these measures."
In a post on X in early May, U.S. ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tried to dispel concerns about visas and entry to the United States for students and scholars. In the post, he said "99.9% of Chinese students holding visas encounter no issues upon entering the United States.”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Monday, Burns said it is China that is making it impossible to promote people-to-people ties. Burns told the Journal that students attending events sponsored by the United States in China have been interrogated and intimidated.
He also said that since U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping held their summit in San Francisco last year, China’s Ministry of State Security and other agencies had interfered with Chinese citizens’ participation at some 61 events.
At a regular briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed those accusations, saying that they did not “reflect reality" and that went against key understandings reached by both countries’ presidents in San Francisco.
“The United States, under the pretext of 'national security,' unjustifiably harasses, interrogates, and deports Chinese students in the U.S., causing them significant harm and creating a severe chilling effect,” Mao said. “The image of the United States in the minds of the Chinese people fundamentally depends on the actions of the United States itself.”
Drexel said he believes Burns’ comments about visas and students' willingness to study in the U.S. still ring true.
“On balance, it's still the case that American universities are overwhelmingly warm towards Chinese students and want them in large numbers," he said.
However, Berger, the immigration lawyer, is concerned about the chilling effect recent cases involving Chinese students could have.
"In general, we are being more careful about advising Chinese graduate students in STEM fields about traveling and letting them know that there is some small risk,” he said.
Even though the risk is small, it does seem to be real at the moment, he said.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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