BIRZEIT: On Wednesday, Palestinian students at Birzeit University protested the British Consul General Sir Vincent Fein's visit for a second day, following his departure as students surrounded his car and protested his presence on Tuesday. Some 200 students gathered in the central area of the campus to listen to representatives from the student wings of several Palestinian political parties. Representatives from Fatah, Hamas, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine each spoke to the crowd and urged them to join in protests at the nearby Ofer Military Prison. The Hamas speaker told the crowd that it is “an act of civilization" to reject the British Consul's visit, adding that Britain was largely to blame for the situation of Palestinians beginning with the Balfour Declaration. A Fatah speaker said that Britain should not send representatives to the university after abstaining from the November 2012 UN General Assembly vote to upgrade Palestine to an observer state, which was approved by a landslide. In December, following the Palestinian Authority's upgrade to “observer state" in the UN General Assembly, the British Foreign Office called Israel's plan to settle the E1 area of the West Bank “deplorable," joining a swath of other European governments who summoned their respective Israeli ambassadors in protest. Birzeit University was the first Palestinian higher learning institution and hosts some 8,000 students annually. Its campus has often been the center of political activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. BN
