Origins in Solidarity
Friends of Palestinian Universities began in 1978 as The Friends of Birzeit University, founded in response to the escalating crisis facing Palestinian higher education under Israeli occupation. A decade after the 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, Palestinian academics and students faced closures, censorship, arrests, and severe restrictions on academic freedom.
A group of UK and Palestinian scholars, writers, and campaigners – including Eleanor Aitken, Elizabeth Monroe, and Valerie Yorke – came together to act. They were inspired by the belief that education is a form of liberation, and that Palestinian academics and students must know they are not alone in their struggle to teach, learn, and work for a free future.
At an inaugural meeting at Birkbeck College in June 1978, the organisation declared its mission:
To preserve academic freedom and maintain educational standards through international solidarity.
Education Under Occupation
Since its founding, Friends of Palestinian Universities (then Fobzu) has stood with Palestinian universities as they faced relentless attacks on their autonomy and existence. The deportation of Birzeit University’s first president, Dr. Hanna Nasir, in 1974 marked the beginning of decades of repression — closures, arrests, and the systematic targeting of students and faculty.
Despite these challenges, Palestinian universities have endured as vibrant centres of knowledge and national life. Our founders responded through awareness campaigns, academic exchanges, and fundraising for essential teaching materials. UK scholars such as Eric Hobsbawm, Dorothy Hodgkin, and Iris Murdoch lent their support, helping to forge a tradition of international academic solidarity that continues today.
40 + Years of Support
Over the past four decades, we have expanded from a single-university initiative into a network supporting Palestinian higher education across Gaza, the West Bank, and beyond.
Our work has included:
- Scholarship programmes for students in financial need.
- Partnerships and capacity-building projects with Palestinian universities.
- Advocacy and campaigning to defend the right to education and academic freedom.
Friends of Palestinian Universities Today
In recent years, Palestinian higher education has faced its gravest crisis yet. The war on Gaza launched in 2023 has brought the systematic destruction of every university in the Strip — a devastation that UN experts and academics have named a scholasticide, the deliberate erasure of education and intellectual life. Hundreds of students and faculty have been killed, and the very foundations of Gaza’s academic institutions have been reduced to rubble.
In this context, and to reflect both the breadth of our work and the urgency of the present moment, we have changed our name to Friends of Palestinian Universities. The new name embodies our enduring mission: to stand in solidarity with all Palestinian higher education institutions — in Gaza, the West Bank, and in exile — and to help sustain education, research, and academic freedom under conditions of extreme hardship.
Today, Friends of Palestinian Universities continues to build UK and international academic solidarity, partnership, and exchange with Palestinian higher education institutions facing systematic attack. Our commitment remains the same as in 1978: to support Palestinian scholars and students, strengthen educational resilience, and uphold the principles of freedom, equity, and justice for the future of education in Palestine.
