Student Activism in Israel: The End of a Naive Dream?

Abstract

I order to understand a nation’s higher education sys tem, one must understand the ideology underlying it. There is a basic consensus that the universities are best equipped to help the country deal with its main challenges. The first two universities were created even before the state of Israel was created. In 1948, when the state of Israel became independent, these two universities had an enrollment of 1,600 students. Forty-five years later there were over 90,000 students in over 20 institutions of higher education, and during the last five years, the number has almost doubled to almost 180,000 students. During the 1990s, a number of new institutions have been accredited. There have been enormous pressures for greater access to higher education. Many applicants have been unable to gain admission in spite of having good educational backgrounds because of the intense competition for available seats. Some foreign universities, mainly in the United States and the United Kingdom, took advantage of the green light that was tacitly given to the expansion of the higher education system and have opened branches in Israel. At these branch universities, the prerequisites are lower and the tuition is more than twice that at the public universities, which are subsidized by the government. Traditionally, Israeli students have differed in a number of ways from European or American students. Because in Israel military service is compulsory for men and women, Israeli students are older—rarely starting college before the age of 22. They are more mature and more pragmatic, and very often already have families to support. Students enjoy public sympathy. The shift in attitude in other countries toward higher education as a private rather than public good has fortunately not taken place in Israel. Until now, Israeli students have paid little attention to issues involving student life and student rights. Thus, it was quite surprising and encouraging that this year students from all the public universities and colleges decided to go on strike and asked for a 50 percent reduction in the tuition fees in return for community work. Students stated that their goal was not only to win a lowering of tuition rates, but also to challenge the priorities in budget allocations. They called s decrease in funding of nonproductive sectors of society, which enjoy public funding for political reasons; this was a reference to the ultraorthodox population that does not work but nevertheless receives money for studying. The students were acting as “the conscience of their generation, speaking for significant segments of the population” (Altbach 1994). The striking students represent all walks of Israeli life: Jews and Arabs, secular and moderate religious groups, poor and rich, men and women, left and right, from the center or the periphery, from different countries of origin, Israeli-born and new immigrants, etc. During the strike, campuses were closed, and the students started street demonstrations, framing the debate, making use of the media to focus public attention on issues and attempting to work with other social groups. The professors expressed their sympathy for the students, but for the most part did not go out of their way to support the students in a more tangible manner. Some even questioned whether the students intended to start a genuine revolution, suggesting that regardless of the militant rhetoric all they really cared about was tuition rates. In order to break the unity among the students, the treasury tried to portray the leaders as being politically oriented against the present government. The police reacted from the beginning with excessive force, arresting hundreds of students during the demonstrations.