As I reported a few days ago, students from the recently-accredited Ariel University in the occupied West Bank are angry they were not invited to attend U.S. President Obama’s speech in Jerusalem this coming Thursday. The U.S. Embassy denies claims Obama is boycotting the students, and stated that it simply invited students from those institutions it has partnerships or programs with. Ariel University students are nonetheless livid, and plan to hold protest what they are calling Obama’s blatant political discrimination.
Ariel University’s Student Union posted a banner on its Facebook page Sunday and requested people make it their Facebook cover page. Here is how it looked originally on Sunday evening:
Screenshot of Ariel University Student Union Facebook banner
Yes, that’s right. It says “No We Cen’t!” Below that in Hebrew it says, “We will not let Obama discriminate against us: A student in Ariel is a student in Israel.”
After I noticed it on my Facebook feed, I had a hard time believing whoever made it really doesn’t know how to spell such a simple word in English – and figured it must be some joke or word game. But sure enough, a few minutes later, I returned to their page and they had corrected it:
Screen Shot of Ariel University Student Union Facebook page
I guess Ariel students should invest a bit more in polishing their English before taking on Obama.
There are already a few memes. Just saying:
Screenshot of meme from Amir Schiby Facebook page (Amir Schiby)
“What if Ariel published a stammering poster, just so that they could then blame Obama for discriminating against those with disabilities?” (Screenshot of meme by John Brown)
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Rauna
Finally they understand the meaning of the word discrimination.
The Trespasser
Yeah, finally. If we won’t be counting events of years 73 CE through 1949.
Haifawi
Nope, we don’t. Unless you want to say that Christians in Rome understand the meaning of being fed to lions.
The Trespasser
Of course they knew.
Google “Martyr”, my ignorant friend.
Haifawi
I’m pretty sure that “look out! we have to band together or else someone is going to feed us to lions” doesn’t get as much traction in Europe as “look out! we need a majority Jewish state or else they’ll put us in cattle cars again.”
The Trespasser
Irrelevant nonsense.
pabelmont
In 1980s, my (late) wife, then 50 and still Palestinian-American, was standing in a long student-registration line at a Boston school. The line contained international students including one young Israeli. The line was moving v*e*r*y slowly. At some point, the Israeli commented angrily that the school was treating the students “like natives”. As if ” natives” should be badly treated, but it should have done better with him? With all the students in line?
Some Israelis have a very high sense of entitlement, always, it seems, but little sense of Palestinian entitlement.
Were Arab students from Issraeli universities invited to Obama’s get-together?
Danny
Speaking from experience, I can personally attest that Israelis don’t really get the idea of equality, especially equality between Jews and non-Jews, and, in a more general sense, between whites and non-whites. They seem to expect that, because they are white Jews, they should be given preferential treatment. For me, that’s zionism in a nutshell, and the prime reason why I am anti-zionist.
The Trespasser
>especially equality between Jews and non-Jews
Strangely, you are not concerned by Muslims, who don’t see non-Muslims as equals, or Japanese, who have a very specific word for everyone who is non-Japanese (with the difference that one can’t possibly became Japanese.)
For me, it is an idiocy in a nutshell, and a prime reason why I am anti-idiot.
JG
Fascist idiots who claim they were anti-idiots. Oxy-morons I’d call them.
The Trespasser
Oxymoron.
Without a hyphen, you moron.
JG
Even if you think the bottom is reached already, the level of your non-smartness widens more and more….
Zephon
A university eh? Could have fooled me. Look at their history and you’ll find yourself getting flashbacks of middle school.
Oscar
How juvenile. So they made a spelling mistake which they quickly corrected. English is not their mother tongue. I know many native English speakers, educated lefties by the way, who occasionally mis-spell words. No one laughs at them only juveniles or haters use such things as a reason to ridicule someone.
Elisabeth
Come on Oscar: English is not our native language, and of course we make mistakes, but UNIVERSITY students should know better than to write CEN’T. That is just ridiculous. It seems Ariel High school was just renamed Ariel ‘University’ for political purposes.
The Trespasser
What is ridiculous is the hatred of the leftist bunch towards anything non-leftist.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2148707/World-s-worst-typo-University-Texas-students-graduated-department-pubic-affairs.html
Zephon
Yeah and if this had been America I would poke fun of it the same way. In fact, I often mock the education of Americas educational system when it comes to many fields – a lot. You trying to put this ‘university’ in the same category is actually making it worse.
You just basically said that not only is this ‘university’ bad – it’s Bush bad.
Hilarious.
I simply CEN’T find anything that can excuse spelling the word CAN correctly but misspelling the word CAN’T in the same sentence.
Nor can I find ANY excuse that would justify a university staff member reviewing that poster ( they would have had to ) and not finding anything wrong with it before posting it. It just means that many eyes looked at it; and none of those eyes knew what how to spell can’t.
Now THAT is scary or in Japanese Kawai!
But again Bush bad is the excuse here. Which is not an excuse at all. It’s just another whine made by a whiner ‘ Well HE did it too!’ Yeah that doesn’t make your failure any less yours.
It’s hilarious to picture though. Imagine failing a test and saying ‘ he failed his test too!’ …how does that excuse you exactly?
Monkey logic.
The Trespasser
>I simply CEN’T find anything that can excuse spelling the word CAN correctly but misspelling the word CAN’T in the same sentence.
If YOU can’t find something, it does not mean that it does not exist – but rather that you are too dumb/stupid/uneducated.
Ever heard of “dyslexia”?
Oscar
Ok Elisabeth, please spell lo yechol in Hebrew. It is a simple word.
You can’t? Because you don’t speak Hebrew? Ah ok then, why should someone whose native tongue is not English never make spelling mistakes in English?
Ah, but he is University educated you say. And everyone should speak and spell impeccable English you say? But some people don’t. So one must riducule such people?
Very broad minded. Very progressive. But why am I complaining? It seems that today’s so called progressives are only progressive with everyone else except Jews.
Be honest, Elisabeth, if an Arab student would have made such a mistake and I would have ridiculed him/her for it, you would label me a racist before I would even realise what hit me …
Vicky
A few days ago a friend posted on her Facebook how much she is enjoying ‘treveling’. She’s well educated and her spoken English is excellent, but she doesn’t always differentiate between ‘e’ and ‘a’ sounds (the sweetest was when she went to a casino and wrote ruefully that she needs to ‘learn to gemble’). I’ve noticed that a few Israelis seem to have this difficulty and it does feel quite petty to criticise.
This was written by someone who still habitually confuses ‘bgadim’ and ‘bogdim’ in both spoken and written Hebrew, despite all attempts to remember differently; and who once startled the neighbours by informing them in Arabic that she was ‘excited about her sister’s bastard’ (ars) when what she really meant to say was wedding (urs). And I’m a doctoral candidate – what does this say about my education?
Elisabeth
Hello Vicky,
I cen’t agree with you this time. English is THE language of international communication, which people start learning already in high school, and often even earlier. A language that is indispensable for any university-level study because most publications in any field are written in that language. Hebrew and even Arabic are not such languages and I am sure you started studying them a lot later in life.
Oscar
” A language that is indispensable for any university-level study because most publications in any field are written in that language.”
True but someone who occasionally mis-spells something or makes a typo, is still perfectly capable of reading and understanding an English publication.
And my point about the ridicule still stands. It seems some people are deemed to be valid targets for it while it is forbidden to ridicule others.
Elisabeth
I usually do not respond to such nonsense, but here it goes: I never said anything about ‘leftists’ and ‘rightists’, or ‘Arabs’ and… (what? normal people?) and how you can criticize one sort of people and not the other. All of that is just assumptions on your part, and symptomatic of your general obsession with these things. I will simply quote the terms that you use for labeling people in your 2 posts: ‘lefties, ‘Arabs’, ‘progressives’, ‘educated lefties’ (even worse!), ‘haters’, ‘juveniles’. Stop labeling people like this, and above all: Calm down. All of this was not about the survival of the Jewish people.
Oscar
Listen to yourself Elisabeth.
The use of words such as lefties, Arabs, righties is not OK? Describing people’s political leanings and national identities is wrong?
But to ridicule a student for a spelling mistake or typo and to malign an entire university because of what ONE student did it is somehow OK?
You calm down Elisabeth. You lefties can sure dish it out but you cannot take it can you? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to just acknowledge your mistake and move on?