chairman of the Arab Student Committee at Hebrew University, br

presented his views to Maariv, Israel’s largest newspaper (Janu- br

ary 20, 1978): “We, the Arab students in the university, con- br

stitute an indivisible part of the Palestinian Arab nation, and we br

struggle in its service and in order to achieve its goals.

“As for me and my personal lot, I am first and foremost a br

Palestinian, resident of Lydda. My Israeli citizenship was forced br

upon me. I do not recognize it and do not see myself as belong- br

ing to the State of Israel. The law requires me to carry an Israeli br

identity card and passport. As a Palestinian I would prefer br

Palestinian ones.

“With the final solution common to the Arabs of Palestine br

and Judea, Lydda will be in the sovereign boundaries of the br

democratic state. What will that state be called? Palestine, br

naturally. . . .

“We do not recognize the right which you call ‘historic’ of the Jewish br

people in this land—this is our fundamental principle. In this land only the br

Palestinian Arab people have the historic right.”

Muhareb is a member of the PNM, one of the two major br

forces among Arab students in Israel. It is instructive that the br

other force, the “moderate” one, is Rakah, the Israeli Com- br

munist Party, which led the bloody Land Day riots against the br

government in 1976. But there is no essential difference between br

the ultimate hope of any Arab student in Israel: Arab sovereign- br

ty in every part of “Palestine” that is freed from the “con- br

queror.”

There is nothing new or startling about this. The signs of br

Arab intellectual hatred of Israel and deep desire for its dis- br

mantlement were obvious to all who wished to see. The day the br

Egyptian army crossed the Suez Canal during the Yom Kippur br

War saw the surreptitious circulation of a flier that read: “With br

blood and spirit we shall liberate the Galilee.” On the terrible br

night of the massacre of more than twenty Jewish high school br

students by Arab terrorists in the Galilee town of Ma’alot, in br

1974, the nation mourned. But not all. The Arab students at br

Hebrew University held a noisy, joyous party in their Mount br

Scopus dormitories, built by funds from naive Western Jews br

who wanted to help the “Jewish state.”

The next morning a Jewish student who had lost her br

brother during the “war of attrition” in 1970 complained bitter- br