'Apartheid week' exhibit
'Apartheid week' exhibitLion Club

"Israeli Apartheid Week," an annual event of Israel bashing, has occupied university campuses worldwide, but the attacks on Israel have sprung up from within as well. One particularly provocative photo display is spreading anti-Zionism in the halls of... Hebrew University.

Adi Golan, the head of the university's Ta Lavi pro-Likud student group, told Arutz Sheva that Arab students were behind the defamatory exhibit, which is located in a central hallway frequented daily by the university's regents. The Arab students put up photos depicting the IDF negatively with inciteful texts, reports Golan. The texts define IDF soldiers as "hunters of freedom," call Israel "Palestine," and the IDF an "occupying army."

One particularly colorful photo text describes the picture as being of a mother crying for her shahid (martyr) son who was killed by the "occupation army." Sections of the Arab text declare that "Palestine will be liberated."

"The university welcomes political debate and I am for that. I have no complaint against the university, rather against the board of regents which let the exhibit go up without checking the texts attached to the pictures," said Golan. She was told by the Arab students behind the display that the board members asked merely to see the pictures.

Golan voiced surprise that Arab students, who study freely in the Israeli university and enjoy "affirmative action" in being accepted to the school and into work afterwards, dare to cry of "apartheid" and "racism."

Ta Lavi submitted a complaint to the board of regents, which responded by saying that the issue is being looked into.

On Tuesday, members of the club stood in front of the exhibit "to present our side," and showed pictures of soldiers from other lands roughly treating their own citizens. Among the pictures were Syrian and Egyptian soldiers, where the army has been responsible for numerous casualties among its citizens.

The club revealed its intentions to hold a display showing the IDF's efforts to aid the civilian population in Judea and Samaria.

"We want to show the humanitarian and good side of the IDF," said Golan. "Let them see soldiers helping children, elderly people and women, and doing their best to aid the population. Those pictures, the world hides."

"Claims of apartheid are a lie"

A voice uniquely qualified for disproving accusations of apartheid against Israel was sounded last September by Reverend Kenneth Meshoe, a member of the Parliament of South Africa and founder of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP). Meshoe argued that "anyone who knows what apartheid really is and still makes such a claim [about Israel] should be told to their faces that they are lying."

Meshoe noted that in apartheid-era South Africa, basic rights such as voting were denied on the basis of race, whereas Arab citizens enjoy full rights. "Apartheid was very painful," Meshoe recalls. "Anyone who claims Israel is an apartheid state is actually minimizing the pain of apartheid."

The "apartheid week" exhibit at Hebrew University Courtesy of Ta Lavi