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Israeli students fume over pro-BDS rappers’ performance at university

Students at Ben-Gurion University expressed outrage over a musical performance on campus by virulently anti-Israel hip hop group, DAM, scheduled to take place on Monday.

By World Israel News Staff

The Israeli-Arab hip-hop group DAM is scheduled to perform at Ben Gurion University on Monday evening for an event organized by the university’s student union.

Students from the Zionist organization Im Tirtzu are protesting the concert based on the controversial band’s promotion of anti-Israel rhetoric, which makes up the subject matter of many of its songs.

In addition to supporting BDS, DAM equates Israel with Nazi Germany and calls Zionism “racism” and “terrorism.”

As a result, Im Tirtzu sent a letter to Ben-Gurion University president, Rivka Carmi, and started a petition demanding that the university cancel the event.

“Rather than promoting reconciliation, coexistence and understanding,” explained Im Tirtzu’s letter, “you chose to invite a group to campus that promotes hatred, incitement, calls to refuse IDF enlistment, called the State of Israel ‘Nazis,’ and supports the BDS movement.”

The letter also drew attention to the fact the student union, which organized the concert, operates using public funds.

“If David Ben-Gurion were alive to see this radical performance occurring in the university named after him, he would not stand idly by,” commented Yuval Varsulker, coordinator of Im Tirtzu’s Ben-Gurion University branch.

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“It’s a disgrace,” said Dov Trachtman, a masters students from Sderot, an Israeli community that frequently comes under fire from rockets launched by the Palestinian terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

“As a resident of Sderot that has been suffering from incessant rocket fire and incendiary bombs, it is a disgrace that the university is hosting a band that encourages Gaza ‘freedom fighters,'” said Trachtman.

“And this is all occurring at an institution that is funded by public funds,” added Trachtman.

In response, Ben-Gurion University issued the following statement: “The principle of academic and artistic freedom of expression stands at the base of every academic institution, provided that it does not harm state security and operates according to law. The performance of said band is within the framework of an event by Arab students on campus, and was duly approved by the relevant bodies within the framework of the institution’s accepted practices.”