Bar Ilan University, situated near Tel Aviv, warned female Jewish students they will have to share an apartment floor with Palestinian female students, offering them to move, reported (Hebrew) De Marker on Wednesday.
The university recently finished the building of a new dormitories building, and assigned one floor to Palestinian female students. The university sent an email to Jewish students, saying, “Due to the decision of the university, the floor to which you’ve been assigned in Ha’Meah Park Dormitories has been dedicated to housing for women of the Arab sector. We offer you two options: To remain in the flat assigned to you, or move to the upper floors.”
Other universities in Israel, noted De Marker, do not discriminate at all between Jewish and Israeli Palestinians in their dormitories. In Haifa University, for instance, Jewish and Palestinian students sometimes share the same flat.
It should be noted that, aside from residents of East Jerusalem, which has been annexed to Israel, as a rule non-Israeli Palestinians are rarely allowed to study in Israeli universities.
Bar Ilan University is unique among Israeli universities in being an official Jewish Orthodox university, originally dedicated only to former yeshiva students. In the past few decades, the university began accepting secular Jews and non-Jews as students – after which the demand that all students wear a yarmulke was rescinded. Staff, including secular staff, were still required to wear it until 2019. All Jewish students are obliged to take courses in Jewish law and Jewish tradition. The university once required all students to participate in prayer, but as the number of non-Orthodox students increased, this requirement was also cancelled.
The university is considered to be right-wing. Its most notorious alumnus is Yigal Amir, the assassin of Prime Minister Rabin. The university at the time was such a hotbed of right-wing sentiment, Amir used to start his dating practices by asking would-be girlfriends what they thought of Baruch Goldstein, who committed a massacre in the Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994. Following Rabin’s assassination and the massive public outcry following it, the university initiated talk shops between religious and secular students, participation in which grants study points. The university also expelled lecturer Uri Milstein, notorious at the time for vicious attacks on Rabin (after the assassination, Milstein took pride in Amir being his student.)
In response to De Marker’s report, the university replied that, “The new dormitories of the university are open to all: Jews, Arabs, and international students from Europe and Asia. […] Everyone on campus studies together, and we are sorry if anyone was offended by the language [of the email]. Reality is complex, and the dormitories residents have different preferences and wish to live nearby people with a lifestyle similar to theirs.”
“…dormitories [sic] residents have different preferences and wish to live nearby people with a lifestyle similar to theirs.”
Which is, of course, the attitude most illustrative of racism, among all others. Entirely normal and natural, no?
Major kudos to Ms. Hallel Rabin!!
Video: Oct. 26/20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csbo76Vl6oQ&feature=youtu.be
“19-year-old Hallel Rabin refused to join the Israeli Army to protest against its treatment of Palestinians. She has been sentenced to jail for the third time.”
1 of 2
https://www.juancole.com/2020/10/palestinians-israelis-disillusioned.html
“Can Palestinians win over Israelis disillusioned with Right Wing Zionism?” Middle East Monitor, Oct. 28/20, by Hamada Fara’na.
“Amira Hass is a courageous Israeli journalist who defends the Palestinian people relentlessly and without hesitation. She writes about the rights of Palestinians and exposes the actions and racism of Israel’s occupation.
“In Haaretz recently, she wrote about a 19-year-old Israeli woman, Hallel Rabin, who refused to do her military service in the occupied Palestinian territories, which she summarizes as refusing to be involved in ‘killing, violence and destruction’.
“Members of the Israeli army’s ‘conscience committee’ concluded that Rabin ‘opposes Israeli violence directed at the Palestinians’ and this, according to the committee, is not regarded as conscientious objection, but political opposition. As such, the committee decided to imprison her.
“Conscientious objectors in Israel are still limited in number and influence. They are seen as a minor departure from the norm, albeit traitors by most Israelis. Society in the occupation state is still captive to colonial extremism, national and religious racism. The government still refuses to implement UN resolutions that are fair to the Palestinian people.
“Nevertheless, the likes of Hallel Rabin are valued and valuable. They are a youthful light in the face of the occupation’s darkness and oppression; an element of hope that the future could still be better. Rabin stands with the people of Palestine and shows that they have not been forgotten.
“This is the human reality at desperate times. It’s the kind of reality that Maher Al-Akhras believes in as he astonishes his oppressors with his willingness to sacrifice his life in a hunger strike. He believes that even if he dies, his cry for the freedom of Palestine is louder, stronger and more powerful than submission, retreat and the denial of the Palestinians’ right to life on their homeland, which they cannot abandon. Their eternal love for the land and their dignity are irreplaceable. (cont’d)
2 of 2
“Hallel Rabin and other little-known Israelis establish Palestinian-Israeli values, relations and partnerships based on equality and the desire to live without violence, oppression and occupation. They offer an alternative to the state racism that affects so many Israeli citizens as well as the Palestinians in the occupied territories, and are prepared to go to prison in defence of their beliefs.
“When we see what Amira Hass and her fellow journalist Gideon Levy write, and we witness the positions taken by Ofer Cassif and his former colleague in the Knesset Dov Khenin, as well as Hallel Rabin’s stance, we can only conclude that there are definitely people within Israel who want to help the Palestinians. And the Palestinians should play their part in building such relationships and develop access to wider Israeli society so that balanced narratives can be shared in the search for justice.
“Winning over those Israelis who are disillusioned with the way that their government is going ever more to the extreme right can help to tip the balance in the Palestinians’ favor. When that starts to happen, anything is possible.
“Hamada Fara’na is a Palestinian activist and writer. He served as a member of the Jordanian parliament and the National Palestinian Council.”
What would we think of an American university that told white students that they might have to live on the same floor with non-whites? I rest my case.