Six Israeli Arab students at the Hebrew University who had expressed support for the Palestine Liberation Organization, were ordered back to their home villages in Galilee by the military authorities last week. The orders, signed by the general in command of the northern region, were presented to the students individually by local police Thursday night and Friday morning. All have since left the Jerusalem campus.
The orders, amounting to at least a temporary suspension from the university were issued under an emergency regulation dating from the British Mandate period that permits the military to limit personal movements for security reasons without recourse to the courts.
The students were instructed to remain in their villages and to present themselves twice daily at the local police station. The orders are effective for three-months. A search of the youths living quarters on and off the campus yielded a quantity of pro-PLO, anti-Israel literature described as extremist and of an inflammatory nature.
A week ago, the students sent a message of solidarity to the Palestine National Council meeting in Damascus in the name of the Progressive Nationalist Movement, an Arab student organization. Coming at a time of increased terrorist outrages in Jerusalem and other cities, this dismayed many Israelis who believed that Israeli Arabs, having accepted the benefits of citizenship, recognized their obligations to the State.
Some Knesset members were infuriated by the students acts and demanded the ouster of all Arab students from Israeli universities. Foreign, Minister Moshe Dayan referred indirectly to the Hebrew University group when he warned in a speech last week that Israeli Ara ######acted the PLO “will have to pay for it very dearly Education Minister Zevulu### Hammer spoke in a similar vein.
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