2 Who Joined Siege Must Reapply to UC

Two University of California students who entered Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity during the recent siege have been dropped from their overseas studies program and must apply to re-enroll at the university in the fall, officials said Wednesday.

UC officials said the two student activists, who are being held in an Israeli prison, were dropped because they violated the university’s rules for students studying abroad when they rushed past Israeli soldiers on May 2 and joined Palestinians inside the besieged church. Specifically, their risky behavior violated safety standards that students agree to follow when enrolling in the program, the officials said.

The standoff at the church ended May 10, but five Americans, including UC Riverside student Nauman Zaidi and UC Berkeley student Robert O’Neill, remained in Israeli custody Wednesday, according to Israeli and U.S. officials.

The officials said the group, made up of activists with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement, is fighting Israel’s plans to deport them. In addition, a State Department spokesman said the Americans are still being held because they have insisted that, if deported, they be allowed to return to Israel.

“They want a guarantee that they will be able to return and Israel is not going to concede that. If they agreed, they could leave tomorrow,” said the spokesman, who asked not to be identified, citing State Department protocol.

But an Israeli attorney representing the group said Wednesday that they are willing to leave Israel.

“Politically and philosophically, they oppose being deported, but they are not going to physically resist being put on a plane,” attorney Allegra Pacheco said in a telephone interview. “It’s an absurd situation that they’re still being held.”

Pacheco accused American officials in Israel of not pushing hard enough to gain the group’s release. U.S. officials in Israel could not be reached for comment.

Zaidi, 26, from Rancho Cucamonga, and O’Neill, 21, of Claremont, have been studying this year at the American University of Cairo under the University of California’s education abroad program. The two spent their spring break working as volunteers with the solidarity group, a West Bank-based organization that says it works to raise awareness of the Palestinian cause.

UC officials said Wednesday that the two have been dropped from the overseas studies program but that they have not been expelled from the university. They will have to reapply at their respective schools, but are likely to be readmitted, the officials said.

“They have not been withdrawn from the university,” said John Marcum, director of UC’s education abroad program. “They are still UC students, but they have, in effect, violated the rules of the game” for the overseas programs.

Zaidi’s father said the university’s decision has only added to his worries about his son.

Nasim Zaidi said he had been told by officials with the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv that Nauman has been moved into a more restrictive part of the prison and no longer has access to a telephone.

The elder Zaidi said the family had spoken to Nauman every few days since his imprisonment, but never for more than a moment or two. But “we have not been able to talk to him for four days and we are so worried,” he said.

“We want him back as soon as possible,” Zaidi said of his son, who is a biological sciences major at the Riverside campus.

Now, if he could, he said, he would urge Nauman to give up any challenge to the Israeli government.

“I would tell him he’s wasting his time. He is not achieving anything by sitting in prison. He has a future to take care of and now he’s been dropped by the educational program,” Zaidi said. “He has to come home.”

O’Neill’s father, Richard, said university officials had been sympathetic to his son’s plight but felt they had to drop him from the overseas program for liability reasons.

The university doesn’t “embrace the idea of these kids being in harm’s way,” the elder O’Neill said.

O’Neill said he spoke to his son Wednesday by telephone, finding him “disillusioned, dispirited, angry, but determined that his [pro-Palestinian] cause is the correct one.”

Robert O’Neill is a Middle Eastern studies and anthropology major a few courses from graduation, his father said.

Marcum said Zaidi and O’Neill had misled university officials by saying they were spending spring break in Egypt and then further violated university and State Department guidelines by traveling to the West Bank, crossing Israel’s military lines and entering the besieged church. The university rules provide, among other things, that they not endanger themselves or others.

He said the university’s decision was prompted in part by a desire to keep future students from taking similar risks.

“If we lay down a whole set of regulations and indicate that there are certain things these students must not do, who’s going to believe us if we don’t follow through when they don’t?” Marcum said.

Nonetheless, he said, “It’s not exactly capital punishment.”

The students, who may continue their classes in Cairo as independent students--once they are released from jail--will have to arrange to transfer those credits back to UC, Marcum said.

He said that the university, through its action, was not making a judgment on Zaidi’s or O’Neill’s political views. “They can be as fervent about these issues as they want to be,” he said. “But by breaking the rules, they endanger themselves, each other and our programs.”