“I attended the Technion (in Haifa, my city) between 2004 and 2011. During this time Israel carried out three wars: 2006 war on Lebanon, 2008/9 war on Gaza, and 2010….
“I attended the Technion (in Haifa, my city) between 2004 and 2011. During this time Israel carried out three wars: 2006 war on Lebanon, 2008/9 war on Gaza, and 2010 attack on the flotilla headed for Gaza. During the wars, I participated at many protests at the university’s gates. We were usually about 150 students, chanting support for Gaza and condemnations of Israeli aggression. Every single time across the street there was a 10x bigger protest: huge Israeli flags, enraged Zionists jumping up and down yelling “DEATH TO ARABS! DEATH TO ARABS!”
Our chants were 100% drowned.
The blind hatred in their eyes could have probably powered the campus.
These weren’t just random people. These were my Physical Chemistry professor, for example. He used to show up to lectures in full settler regalia. Imagine a US professor showing up to class in Proud Boys or KKK regalia.
It was that shy, tall, bespectacled student from year 2 who’d asked me for tips (having recently finished the bachelor’s program) only a few weeks prior. He was also there chanting “DEATH TO ARABS!” Oh, yes, he knew I was Palestinian.
We then had to go back to the lecture halls and literally sit with people who chanted for our death.
Disciplinary action, you suggest? Hahahaha
Not to mention that, a few weeks after the aggression which started our protests, those Israeli students who were recruited as reserve army would come back to university. We were sitting next to snipers and pilots who killed people, our people, in Gaza and Lebanon.
At Technion we were “lucky” it didn’t go further. Other campuses are much more active politically, and Palestinian students are routinely harassed, attacked, arrested, expelled for simply raising a flag, or expressing their Palestinians.
This is what your fancy collaborators with an Israeli university looks like, under the surface. This is the grim reality of Israeli academia. Yes, it has top-notch education and great researchers. But it is severely lacking in basic humanity towards even us, Palestinians.”