Racism issues surfacing. Haifa University
Photo: Avi Levy
Arab students versus ‘racist’ lecturer
Students claim he said: ‘Arabs are stupid and have contributed nothing to mankind'
HAIFA - Dozens of Haifa University students
demonstrated Thursday to
protest a university decision to summon a student to a disciplinary committee hearing for berating a lecturer for allegedly making racist remarks.
According to the students, about a month ago David Bokai said during a political science lecture that “Arabs are about sex and alcohol; they are stupid and have contributed nothing to mankind.”
The students claim Bokai also said, “a gun should be held to the heads of all the wanted (Palestinians), and then photographs should be taken reveling how stupid they are.”
In response to Bokai’s remarks, political science department student Fadi Abu-Yunes confronted the lecturer.
“I could not ignore such racist comments,” Abu-Yunes said. “He expressed to us that crime is part of the Arab nature, and that peace cannot be achieved with them because they are liars; so I approached him and told him, cynically, that ‘I agree Arabs are racist, and seeing as he is of Syrian descent, he too is a racist Arab."
The university has decided to summon Abu-Yunes to a disciplinary committee based on the arguement that he disrupted class and humiliated Bokai.
“Remarks of a racist nature are completely unacceptable to the university," Haifa University said in a statement. "The inquiry (into the incident) found that the comments attributed to Dr. Bokai were not made in the exact manner in which they had been quoted.”
According to the university, Abu-Yunes himself denied Bokai said “A gun should be held to the heads of all the wanted (Palestinians)."
