Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Fri, 07/25/2014 - 13:10
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A Palestinian child wounded in an Israeli strike on a UN-run school in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, receives treatment at Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, 24 July.
(Ali Jadallah / APA images)
Two leading Israeli academic institutions are offering strong support for Israel’s ongoingmassacre in Gaza.
Tel Aviv University is giving students who serve in the attack on Gaza one year of free tuition.
“Tel Aviv University embraces and supports all the security forces who are working to restore quiet and security to Israel, including its students and employees called up to reserve duty,” the institution says in 24 July statement on its official website.
The context for the university’s declaration “is that there a witch hunt against Palestinian students [who are citizens of Israel] and others who are posting in social media against the Israeli occupation forces attack on Gaza,” Nadim Nashif, director of Baladna – the Association for Arab Youth, told The Electronic Intifada.
The university “wouldn’t say directly” that their statement is aimed at such dissenters, Nashif added, “but for people here it clear.”
The university statement continues:
Tel Aviv University absolutely condemns and denounces the hurtful and extreme statements being circulated nowadays over social media – statements that have no place in the public discourse. The university will take action in accordance with its disciplinary regulations, which are applicable to students and employees, in the any event of any infraction.
It is signed “In hope for quieter days.”
Meanwhile, Tel Aviv University announced that it would be providing students called up to serve in Gaza one year’s free tuition and the scholarships would be funded by “private donors” and “friends of the university.”
Tel Aviv university president Joseph Klafter expressed his “appreciation” for students who went to serve in the army and said “Tel Aviv University has contributed and still contributes greatly to national security.”
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Tel Aviv University waves the flag for the massacre in Gaza
Israeli attacks killed at least 26 Palestinians since midnight, Friday, including 45-year-old Salah Ahmad Abu Hasanin and his three sons Abd al-Aziz, 15, Hadi, 12, and nine-year-old Abd al-Hadi, Ma’an News Agency reported.
Israel’s latest killings brought to at least 825 the number of Palestinians killed in 18 consecutive days of Israeli bombardment.
At least 170 of the dead are childen.
More than 5,240 people have been injured and nearly 150,000 are desperately seeking shelter.
On Thursday, at least 17 people died when Israel shelled a UN-run school in Beit Hanoun in the north of the Gaza Strip where hundreds of diplaced persons were sheltering.
Collecting goods for the troops
Meanwhile, a notice circulated at Hebrew University announces a collection for goods including hygiene products, snacks and cigarettes “for the soldiers at the front according to the demand reported by the IDF [Israeli army] units.”
The notice, signed by the university along with its academic staff committee and the official student union, says “we have opened collection centers on all four campuses.”
A copy of the notice was posted to Facebook by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).
These are examples of the kind of brazen complicity in Israel’s violence against Palestinians that has led Palestinians to call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
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