Why is this classroom empty? It's not that school's out at Bethlehem University. Most of Bethlehem's 2,800 Palestinian students are slogging through exams. Some are preparing to graduate. But for BU students trapped in Gaza since last June, the Spring-fed excitement of another year's achievements is as far off as their now-empty classroom.

It was here that a New Zealand-born professor with an almost mythical reputation on campus spent hour upon hour each week teaching occupational therapy to an empty room. Her students, 10 Palestinians who made the mistake of going home to their families last summer, were on the screen pictured here, two hours -- and a world -- away in Gaza.

This involuntary "distance learning" worked for a year -- some of the students even graduated -- but the heroic professor is now gone and the effort, I'm told, was so exhausting and time consuming that it likely won't be repeated next year. A famous line describes Palestinians as studying "like ones possessed." We must reclaim that tradition.

React: samer@helpUPA.com