Heil Hitler in Palästina!

Al-Quds University, 6. November 2013.

Al-Quds is a Palestinian university in east Jerusalem. It is often hailed as a “liberal” or “moderate” university by western diplomats and journalists. It was established with the help of Israel in 1984, along with other universities Israel helped set up for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with the aim of increasing the educational level of Palestinians.

Academics and students have received and continue to receive grants from European governments, charities and foundations. Al-Quds University is also currently in partnership with liberal (and largely Jewish) institutions in the U.S., including Brandeis University and Bard College.

I would urge you to take a quick look at these photos. These kinds of scenes can be seen regularly at Palestinian universities and elsewhere in the West Bank but Western news organizations strenuously avoid reporting on them.

As long as the Palestinian Authority encourages such demonstrations and the university authorities tolerate them, it is doubtful there can ever be peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Peace which presumably we all want.

I am sure that the president of Al-Quds University, Sari Nusseibeh, who is a relative moderate, as well as one of the university’s founding trustees Saeb Erekat – who is the chief Palestinian negotiator with the Israelis in the current peace talks – don’t exactly approve of these demonstrations by students. But the fact that they are helpless to stop them doesn’t bode well for the future of Israeli-Palestinian co-existence. Nor does it make it easy on campus for those moderate Palestinian students that actually want to foster peace with Israel. Weiter lesen