Israeli university bans Jewish-Arab Group after it displayed images of dead Gazan children

Standing Together Organization members demonstrating in honor of killed Gazan children, April 2025

Noa Limone reports in Haaretz on 28 April 2025:

The University of Haifa barred the campus branch of Standing Together from holding public events on campus until the end of the current semester on Monday.

The move came after some 30 students from the Jewish-Arab group gathered last week to display images of Gazan children killed in the war.

Ariel Dukelski, a member of the group, said campus security guards moved quickly to stop them. “The minute we arrived, we saw that campus security was hot on us,” she said, saying they prevented the students from demonstrating with no advance warning, and asked them to show their student IDs. “Within 10 minutes, we dispersed,” she said.

On Monday, the university administration wrote a letter to Ilya Levine, the campus head of Standing Together, stating that the group’s right to hold public events had been suspended. It cited two protests the group held without authorization, the first being last month when members protested against the suspension of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev lecturer Sebastian Ben Daniel.  “Regardless of the content of the activities, accepting such conduct will ultimately cause anarchy on campus, and this must not be allowed,” the letter said.

In the case of the protest in support of Ben Daniel, said Dukelski, “we left when security arrived,” and no response was received from the university about the activity. She said the students hadn’t sought permission for last week’s gathering because they believed that they weren’t holding a demonstration: “This is a group of students who can no longer tolerate what’s happening in Gaza.”

She added that the students didn’t ask for permission because they knew their request would be turned down. “Bureaucracy is a tool for silencing, and the university only uses it when it comes to our side. Right-wing activities and initiatives are always approved,” she said.  Dukelski said that there was a “vocal minority” of students from right-wing groups on campus that bully her and other members of Standing Together, both on WhatsApp and in person.

On Monday, far-right activists attacked demonstrators from the Standing Together organization, who were honoring children killed during the war in the Gaza Strip. According to one of the organizers of the demonstration, which was held in coordination with the police at the Teachers’ Center in Be’er Sheva, the activists harassed the demonstrators and tore pictures of the killed children, placing stickers on them with the words “Kahana was right.”

“The police were not properly prepared,” the organizer said, adding that the police did not create enough distance between the demonstrators and the right-wing activists. “In the end, we had to have the police follow us from behind while the right-wing protesters were trying to get to us.”The organizer of the demonstration also said that the known right-wing activist Shai Glick was present at the scene.

Earlier this month, after pressure from right-wing activists, Haifa University refused to approve a screening of the Oscar-winning film “No Other Land” organized by Standing Together, on the grounds that it had not received approval from the Film Censorship Board. However, the board’s approval is not required for non-commercial screenings, and after Haaretz reported on the ban, the university reversed its decision.

Standing Together claims that the university has repeatedly succumbed to pressure from extreme right-wing organizations.

“Holding pictures of children from Gaza who were killed in the war in a quiet manner that does not disturb public order is not a violation of the law, and is a mirror image of the current situation in the State of Israel,” the organization even said in response to the university’s letter. “After the Israeli police tried to silence our display with pictures of those killed in Gaza last week, the University of Haifa is trying it now, and it will fail. The repeated attempts of the far-right to use the university to harm our struggle to stop the war will not succeed. The Standing Together’ branch at Haifa University, like that at all universities, will continue to fight to stop the war in Gaza and return the hostages.”

The university said that “following repeated violations of regulations of public activities on campus, it was decided not to approve requests from the student branch of Standing Together to hold public activities until the end of the current semester. The regulations state that public activities may not be held on campus without prior approval. Although previous requests by the group were approved, the group held two events without a permit. The university also said its administration takes the violation of regulations “seriously, and emphasizes that it is committed to maintaining public order on campus.”

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