Learning from the Ali Baher affair

“Last week, to mark the start of the new university year, Israeli President Shimon Peres took a jaunt around the Hebrew University campus. While doing the rounds, as one does on these occasions, he found time for a meet and greet with various students, not all of whom were pleased to see him.

According to Haaretz, Ali Baher, the chairman of the Hebrew University’s Arab student body, refused to shake Peres’ hand. Moreover, he called him a “murderer of children”, presumably a reference to Peres’ role in the Qana deaths of 1996’s Operation Grapes of Wrath, in which 106 civilians were killed in shelling from Israeli artillery.” Read on at the Z-Word Blog.