The civil administration on the West Bank has threatened to oust 15 foreign lecturers at Arab universities unless they sign a document dissociating themselves from any terrorist organization, specifically the Palestine Liberation Organization. A spokesman for the lecturers said they refused to sign because “Singling out the PLO was purely political and on political and ethical grounds this was unacceptable to them.”
The civil administration has already forced 19 lecturers to leave the territory because they refused to sign such a document. They included a British lecturer at Bethlehem University and 18 Jordanian nationals, among them the president of Najah University in Nablus.
Two Americans and a Jordanian who teach at Beir Zeit University near Pamallah have been ordered to leave by next Monday. The spokesman warned that “If the deportations continue, the entire academic educational system in the territories will collapse.”
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