Arab and Jewish students clashed at the Hebrew University today, requiring the intervention of university security guards and local police to break up the melee, which they managed to do without the use of force.
The incident developed during a sit-down strike by Arab students to protest the continuing curfew in Hebron, now in its 12th day, and the deportation of three West Bank leaders in the aftermath of the May 2 terrorist ambush killings of six yeshiva students in Hebron. University authorities had given permission for the sit-down on condition that no placards with political slogans were displayed.
The Arab students obeyed that restriction technically. But when the strike began they removed their shirts exposing Palestinian nationalist slogans painted on their chests in Hebrew, English and Arabic. This infuriated a growing crowd of Jewish students. Insults were hurried on both sides and fisticuffs broke out. Guards separated the two groups and the university Rector, Prof. Rafael Meshulam, demanded that both disperse. When the Jewish students refused to leave, the police were summoned and the crowd broke up gradually.
Meshulam announced that the head of the student union and his deputy would be brought before a disciplinary body to explain why they failed to end the demonstration by the Jewish students.
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