The student branch of the far-left communist Hadash party at Hebrew University is facing sharp criticism for publishing a video last week inciting against IDF soldiers and the Hebrew University itself.
The video, published by the group ahead of Nakba Day, in which Arabs around the world mourn their failure to destroy the Jewish state in 1948, and accompanied with subtitles in Arabic, Hebrew and English, begins by depicting a timeline accusing Israel of perpetrating a range of crimes against humanity since 1948 and then takes aim at IDF soldiers studying at Hebrew University.
“The Hebrew University is a partner!” charges the video after displaying a number of close-up photos of students in IDF uniform on the university’s campus.
“72 years of the Palestinian Nakba. And until today…we are confronting and fighting the occupation’s soldiers and policies: on [sic] the checkpoints, in houses and neighborhoods, and in the universities!”
“Is it the Hebrew University, or the Military one?!!” asks the video.
The video continues: “In the library, they sat next to us. At the checkpoints, they humiliated our families! On one hand [sic] they drink coffee with us, on the other hand, they point a rifle at us.”
“The university’s roof became a sniper’s station, to shoot at courageous people in [the nearby Arab neighborhood] Issawiya!”
“The Nakba continues. The Nakba is present every day. We have not forgotten… nor will we forget,” the video concludes.
Yuval Segev, the Jerusalem and police correspondent for IDF Radio, tweeted in response that when you “read the text and see the photos of the soldiers walking on campus. Honestly, I am afraid for my friends who there.”
The Zionist watchdog group Im Tirtzu blasted the video and sent a letter on Monday to Hebrew University’s president and dean of students demanding that they discipline the heads of the Hadash branch.
“This is serious incitement against students at our university, which can deteriorate very quickly into action,” wrote Im Tirtzu’s Hebrew University branch.
“It is inconceivable that an official student branch at the university, which enjoys the services and prestige of the university, shamelessly accuses it of being a criminal and cooperating with the so-called enemy – the State of Israel and IDF soldiers,” the letter said.
Im Tirtzu’s letter concluded: with a call to ” summon the heads of the Hadash branch to a disciplinary hearing and to exercise the full weight of the law in the face of this incitement against IDF soldiers. The university cannot allow this incitement to rear its ugly head.”
The university responded by dismissing the clip as “false statements about the university.”
The Hebrew U enables “freedom of expression for a variety of opinions and views, provided that this is not an activity that is a violation of the law. In this video distributed on social networks, false statements were made about the university.”
“The video does not represent the position of the Hebrew University and its management, but only the position of the Hadash cell” and those who believe the clip is breaking the law should file a complaint with the authorities.
