We were shocked by the shameful hearing in the US Congress, in which three presidents of leading US universities were asked to address manifestations of anti-Semitism on their campuses. As a result of this performance, two of the three presidents resigned. The president of the University of Pennsylvania and the president of Harvard University paid a personal price for the denial, stuttering and contempt for an issue so unequivocal: anti-Semitism.
It is worth checking what is happening in our institutions of higher education in Israel. Here, too, the issue is unequivocal: terrorism and support for terrorism.
After October 7, as mothers searched hospitals for their sons and relatives begged for a sign of life from loved ones at the party, a wave of cheers of solidarity and joy reverberated from students at various institutions. Normative, educated students who study alongside Jews – but support slaughter and murder. This was the case at Bezalel, the Kibbutzim Seminar, Haifa University, Ben-Gurion University and other institutions.
The universities, in the atmosphere of crisis, acted harshly. They suspended the jubilant, terror-supporting students and issued belligerent messages. "The students were suspended for publishing expressions of clear support for Hamas terrorism and the murder of innocents. The suspension letters were issued to pro-Hamas students, pro-enemy students in wartime," Haifa University said, for example. This was during the semester break, so the suspension had no practical meaning, only symbolic.
And now, belatedly, the academic year began – and the academy forgot. The University of Haifa lifted the suspension of students who supported the massacre. They started the school year as usual. At Ben-Gurion University, too, memory and anger seem to have blurred a bit. A student who praised Hamas' actions and claimed that Israel had invented the events of October 7 was returned to school, reprimanded and punished with 40 hours of volunteering in the community. It was the institution's disciplinary committee that decided to accept the terrorist supporter, and it was the university administration that appealed the ridiculous punishment.
The kibbutzim seminary decided to permanently expel a student, not a supporter of terrorism, but rather someone who complained that the institution does not take a harsh stance against students who support and glorify terrorism. He was expelled from school, while some supporters of terrorism study as usual. At Tel Aviv University, a senior official called to avoid coming with the discs of the abductees in order to "minimize distraction," and at the Hebrew University as well, lecturers are beginning to hear lecturers talking about inclusion, stressing that "there are students in reserve duty and fighting, and there are Arab students who have relatives in Gaza."
The kibbutzim seminary decided to permanently expel a student, not a supporter of terrorism, but rather someone who complained that the institution does not take a harsh stance against students who support and glorify terrorism. He was expelled from school, while some supporters of terrorism study as usual
At Bezalel, Israel's elite artistic institution, more than 30 reports were collected about students posting support for terrorism on social media, all of which were forwarded to the institution's administration. This, in turn, and in the atmosphere of October 7, promised that it would act. Bezalel's administration temporarily expelled the terror-supporting students, and since then, in a trickle, they have returned to their routine studies at the prestigious institution. Bezalel students arrived on the first day of classes and were surprised to meet those terror supporters; Reservists say they have become the target of hate speech. The reservists are harassed, called "murderers" or photographed and mocked on social media by students who study alongside them. Bezalel's management forgot, or perhaps hoped that the anger would pass and quiet would return. The management also issued a new protest code, or, to put it less artistically, a gag code. They try to silence external or internal criticism, dismiss the feelings of students who complain of fear and injustice that cries out to the sky, casually dismiss complaints from reservists, and respond to complaints with obtuseness and dismissiveness.
All this is happening here, in the hands of those who purport to be the source of education and progress, on an unequivocal and uncontroversial issue. One can be shocked by what is happening overseas, but here in the house of hypocrisy and oblivion cry out.
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