How Haifa University's Students' Union shut out Palestinians

On Monday morning, students from various political factions arrived at the University of Haifa’s Students’ Union office. They were there to submit their candidacy for the upcoming campus election, but they hadn’t had long to get themselves organized: usually held in December, this year’s was quietly brought forward by the current administration, which had buried the announcement deep in the union’s website.

This is not, however, only the story of a corrupt student election. It also appears to have been a concerted plan to keep Palestinians out — who, despite making up around 50 percent of the University of Haifa’s student body, are not represented in the current union administration at all. Lists aligned with the Palestinian parties Balad and Hadash and the Jewish-Arab socialist movement Standing Together, as well as several independent candidates, were all denied the chance to contest a fair election.

“The announcement that the window was open for submitting lists was published at the bottom of the union’s website — we learned about it only five days before the deadline,” Udi Ghanayem, head of the Hadash student group at the university, told Local Call and +972. “We managed to assemble a list of candidates from all departments and on Monday morning we arrived at the office to register. They were surprised to see us and wouldn’t let us in.

“There were three other students in front of us, each of whom spent around an hour registering inside, even though registration shouldn’t take more than a few minutes,” he continued. “Then they told us registration was closed, despite the fact that we were already there. In every election in the world, if you arrive before the deadline, you have the right to vote or participate. Here, they refused to let us register, and brought security personnel to remove us from the building.