A group of Arab students at Tel Aviv University is demanding that Israel Defense Forces soldiers not be allowed to carry weapons on campus while they pursue their education, Israel National News reported on Tuesday.
The university hosts the uniformed soldiers to study there as part of the Erez program, which trains cadets to become officers in the army.
“We will not agree to weapons in the university. This year, the university opened its Erez program, in which 80 soldiers who are learning to be officers are studying. The campus is everyone’s home—male and female students, Palestinians and Jews, who are forced to swallow the pill of cooperation between the university and the army; the soldiers wander around the university in their uniforms. However, it was clear to us, and we will insist on this, that the soldiers not walk around with weapons on the university campus,” the Arab students said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, today we discovered that this agreement was not honored and many long-barreled weapons wandered around between our feet... We will not agree, not to the harm to the safe space of the university, and not to the additional militarization of the area. We will oppose this; we will first turn to the university’s management, in the hopes that the story will end there. The campus is everyone’s home, everyone’s safe space, and we will keep it that way,” the statement continued.
In response, human-rights organization B’Tsalmo Director General Shay Glick said that “weapons save lives. This is an audacious and infuriating demand. Every civilian or soldier has the right to wander around anywhere and at any time with a weapon and uniform. I demand that Tel Aviv University clarify in an unambiguous fashion that any civilian or student may wander around with a weapon and uniform, in the university and anywhere.”
According to the TAU’s Spokesperson’s Office, the matter is currently under review.
“According to the law, any civilian or soldier with a firearm license is permitted to carry their weapon on campus grounds. Regarding the soldiers in the ‘Erez Program,’ an arrangement was pre-coordinated between the university and the program directors to ensure that these soldiers would not carry weapons on campus (in part to relieve them of the ‘burden’ of carrying a weapon during academic studies and to facilitate their integration into campus life). The university is currently reviewing the matter with the Erez Program administration, which has committed to resolving the issue as soon as possible,” the office said.
