How Haifa University’s Students’ Union conspired against Palestinians
University of Haifa
Baker Zoubi writes in +972 on 13 September 2024:
On Monday morning, students from various political factions arrived at the University of Haifa’s Students’ Union office. They were there to submit their candidacy for the upcoming campus election, but they hadn’t had long to get themselves organized: usually held in December, this year’s was quietly brought forward by the current administration, which had buried the announcement deep in the union’s website.
After lists of candidates were hastily put together, the in-person registration process itself should have been a quick errand and mere formality. Yet instead, only a handful of students were allowed to register — all of them current union members seeking reelection — after they each spent around 40 to 50 minutes in the office filling out forms. “Shame! Shame!” shouted the crowd of students who were still waiting outside the office to submit their candidacy, after the union’s administration declared the registration window closed three hours later, and slammed the door in their faces.
This is not, however, only the story of a corrupt student election. It also appears to have been a concerted plan to keep Palestinians out — who, despite making up around 50 percent of the University of Haifa’s student body, are not represented in the current union administration at all. Lists aligned with the Palestinian parties Balad and Hadash and the Jewish-Arab socialist movement Standing Together, as well as several independent candidates, were all denied the chance to contest a fair election.