Nationalist activist Baruch Marzel succeeded in entering a Tel Aviv University conference on "influences of the occupation" on Israeli society this Thursday. As Professor Daniel Bar-Tal waxed on about "war crimes" of moving populations from "occupied territory," Marzel spoke out about the "real occupation."
"You're on an Arab mosque, here is the occupation. You're in the occupation, you profit off of the occupation," leveled Marzel at the professors, pointing to the hypocrisy of the university which was founded on what was previously the Arab village of Sheikh Mounis.
"You live the occupation, there's a mosque under this building that they destroyed, and expelled the people to Hevron where I live," continued Marzel.
After members of the conference tried to silence Marzel by accusing him of not being used to academic guidelines of debate, Marzel fired back "I'm used to the truth."
Marzel was on the list of Otzma Leyisrael in the last Knesset elections; the party, headed by former MKs Aryeh Eldad and Michael Ben-Ari, was just under the threshold.
Ben-Ari reported on Facebook this Thursday that he and Marzel had arrived at the conference, where they were prevented from entering the lecture in a fine showing of academic freedom. Ben-Ari is himself a teacher at Ariel University and other institutions, holding a doctorate in Land of Israel Studies.
On his Facebook page, Marzel presented the interchange, paraphrasing his words to the professors as "much respect to you, the real occupiers. While you're sitting on 'occupied' Arab land (Sheikh Mounis), I'm just living in Hevron on Jewish land."