Haifa University prevents Nakba commemoration

The Israeli University of Haifa has frozen the political and social activities of two Arab student organisations after they insisted on commemorating the Palestinian Nakba on campus.

The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality and the Sons of the Country Movement planned to carry out an activity inside the university, but they were prevented under the pretext of unlawful participation of former political prisoner Mohamed Kana’na.

Hundreds of Arab students, alongside a number of liberal Jews, insisted on carrying out their activity to commemorate the Nakba anyway in one of the spaces inside the university.

Meanwhile, a number of extremist Jews protested against the activity and attempted to prevent the Arab students from carrying on with it.

In a biased response, the university administration has already ordered a block on the activities of the two Arab student organisations until the end of the year. It also summoned five leaders of the student movements for testimony ahead of issuing “strict punishment” against them.

Last week, the university blocked the activities of another student organisation called the National Democratic Assembly for six months after the Assembly’s Secretary General Awad Abdul-Fattah entered the university to meet with the students without the permission of the university.

Arab students described these steps as proof of the strict measures taken by the university against them. Meanwhile, they said the university turns a blind eye to the “extremist Jewish gangs” that always carry out anti-Arab activities on campus without getting permission.

Source: Barhoum Gracie, Al-Ghad newspaper