‘’We really fear that what is happening in Columbia will happen here,” Gad Deshayes, co-president of the Union of Jewish students in Belgium (UEJB) said as a conference ON Friday at Brussels ULB university is featuring Salah Hamouri, a French-Palestinian convicted of terrorism in Israel.
UEJB denounced Hamouri’s presence on campus, which they say fosters tension between communities. “There are attempts in certain university circles to import the conflict,’’ said Deshayes.
Israel exoulsed Hamouri in January 2023, accusing him of being an activist with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that it, the United States and the European Union have labeled a terrorist organization. He has worked as a lawyer for Adameer, a rights group that assists Palestinian prisoners that Israel has banned for alleged ties to the PFLP.
He spent seven years in prison after being convicted in an alleged plot to kill a prominent rabbi, but was released in a 2011 prisoner swap with Hamas.
“Salah Hamouri is a lawyer and human rights defender whose testimony is invaluable in raising awareness of the reality of Israeli apartheid”, said the Ambassadeurs association, the co-organizer of the ULB conference.
Brussels University declared : “Faithful to the tradition of free examination and anxious not to fuel extreme positions, the University authorities have instead chosen to organize, on June 3, debates bringing together a panel of Middle East experts, in a balanced and reasonable perspective, aiming to encourage dialogue rather than tense positions.”
On the ULB campus, several personalities have signed a letter sent to the university’s management, denouncing an upsurge in anti-Semitic acts and calling on the authorities to ensure the protection of the physical integrity of Jewish students.