Posted on 05/15/24
| News Source: Arutz-7
Dozens of protesters, including Knesset member Almog Cohen, demonstrated on Wednesday against students from the Hadash cell at Tel Aviv University, who were celebrating the Nakba Day.
The students who marked the Nakba day wore kaffias and dozens of protesters demonstrated opposite them. The police separated the two groups.
MK Cohen was attacked and called a “nothing.” He responded by saying: "While you were busy shopping on October 7, I was fighting."
MK Cohen condemned: "While hundreds of Tel Aviv University students are fighting on all fronts as reservists, and the nation is still tormented by the pain of October 7, the president of Tel Aviv University feels comfortable allowing this disgrace to take place right here."
The organizer of the demonstration, Major Shai Rosengarten, a student at Tel Aviv University and vice chairman of Im Tirtzu, said: "This is not Columbia University. We are in the State of Israel! We are unable to remain silent about the humiliation of our murdered brothers and sisters. Whoever calls this war a war of annihilation is welcome to go and demonstrate in Gaza."
He added: "Freedom of expression is not freedom of incitement. Those who deny the existence of the State of Israel do not deserve the support of the university president to demonstrate at the entrance to the campus! This is a great disgrace to academy in Israel, a great disgrace to the president of the university, who only several months ago compared Hamas to Israel’s biblical enemy Amalek."
Response from Tel Aviv University: "According to the law of the state of Israel, all citizens, Jews and Arabs, left and right, have the right to demonstrate. Last week students from the Hadash party on campus filed a request to the police, asking for a permit to hold a quiet demonstration outside the campus gates, as they do every year. The police approved their request, subject to restrictions needed to preserve public order, including abstaining from waving any flags. At the same time, it must be emphasized that we are in the midst of a war, in which the TAU community has lost dozens of its members. We call upon protestors on all sides to show responsibility and restraint, and respect the restrictions and rules set by the police."