Question: Hi, I am an Arab student who pays 400 NIS dues to the student union at the start of every year and I want to ask you something:
Why does the student union hold its biggest event, Student Day, on Jerusalem Liberation Day when it is really Jerusalem Occupation Day?
How come the union ignores the Arabs who make up a significant percentage of the student body at the Hebrew University campus, and prevents them from enjoying the event, knowing that they cannot take part in the most lavish and grandiose celebration held all year, one that should be open to all students, one that every student should be able to attend without hesitation?
Response:
Ya sahabi – My friend -
Student Day is celebrated intentionally and purposefully on the day of Jerusalem's liberation from Muslim occupation – and if there is anyone who should be celebrating on that day, it is you and your fellow Arab students at the university. Let me explain why, briefly:
Had you not been liberated from the Jordanian Occupation, it is more than probable that you would have found yourself persecuted, downtrodden, poverty stricken, uneducated and perhaps even decapitated ISIS-al Qaeda-style. You may not like hearing this, but dear fellow student, your life under Israeli "occupation" is much better than it would be under any other Middle Eastern regime.
In Syria – you would be slaughtered on the battlefield, killed during a bombing or murdered by gassing
In Lebanon – you would be drafted to Hezbollah's ranks, killed in service or murdered in a civil war
In Iraq – your head would be sundered from your neck forthwith
In Yemen – you would risk being shot in the street
In Egypt – You would be eliminated in a violent police action or one carried out by Salafist organizations and the Muslim Brotherhood.
It seems that even if you lived in Jordan (because, of course, you would never live in the other countries mentioned above) you would be poor, ignorant, lacking academic education, perhaps dwelling in an Egyptian cemetery or a clay house in northern Jordan, perhaps in a delapidated refugee camp outside Damascus.
Your honor would be stepped on and your rights trampled underfoot, but there is no question that you would be "independent" and not "occupied". How lucky you are! After all, in any of those countries, who would care if someone beheads you, humiliates your wife, steals your money, forces you to live in a certain way- the main thing would be that you live under an independent Arab regime and, heaven forfend, not under the authority of those yahuds.
And that is why Jerusalem Liberation Day is first and foremost your holiday, ya habibi. It is the Nakba and the Taksa that enable you to read and write, use the internet, and be a consumer like those in Western countries, expressing your opinions in public without fear of being arrested or killed, choosing to be religious or not without repercussions.
You can study whatever your heart desires at the university – at the state's expense, enjoy the services on the National Insurance administration, have the use of running water and reliable electricity – and a feeling of real personal security. You do not have to worry that some government bureaucrat will burst into your house and demand a bribe. And even if you commit a crime – no one will cut off your hands, stone you or hang you.
This is really your holiday, ya habibi, and the university celebrates Student Day on this day especially for you.
As for us, we celebrate the return to our historic homeland on this day – a national holiday, true, but for you? You celebrate a personal hoiday along with the general one.
You have achieved a better life in the Jewish State, instead of drowning in the thick, bubbling bloodbath in which the rest of the Middle East is up to its neck.
Ya Salame – hey, man - Mazel tov!
:
Translated from Hebrew by Rochel Sylvetsky