Tel Aviv college calls off Nakba seminar

A Tel Aviv college on Monday canceled a student seminar entitled “Narratives of Independence: Resurrection or Nakba,” at the last minute, due to what was described as a “misunderstanding.”

The students organizing the event at Kibbutzim College of Education Technology and the Arts claimed they had received authorization from the school’s administration, but an hour before the seminar was to begin the administration called it off. The students ended up holding the event off campus.

A college official said the administration received a request to hold the seminar, but it was never approved.

The organizers of the event were quoted by Army Radio as saying that “a panel for a discussion of the events of 1948 was supposed to take place. Due to a misunderstanding with the college administration, we were forced to hold it outside the college. We understand that the Kibbutzim College does not operate in a vacuum and is under political pressure.”

The college’s decision followed Haifa University’s cancellation of a Nakba Day event in May, hours before it was due to begin.

Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe, is the term widely used by Palestinians to describe the 1948 events surrounding Israel’s independence.