University of Haifa

The University of Haifa awarded an honorary doctorate to UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova [video], in recognition of her leadership and vision in heading the organization, for her contribution to strengthening Israel’s ties with UNESCO and for her support for the establishment of UNESCO Chairs at the University of Haifa - in Bioethics, Intercultural Dialog, and Cultural Diversity. “This is a great honor for me. This degree has been entrusted not only to me but to UNESCO as a whole,” Bokova said upon receiving the degree. Continue Reading »

May 27, 2011  Arutz Sheva

Professor Arnon Sofer of Haifa University told Arutz Sheva Israel is already at 1967 lines in practice. “There is no dispute between Netanyahu and Obama on going back to the ‘67 borders,” Sofer, a geographer, said. “If you check the map of the green line, especially comparing it to the separation fence that we are building, there is no dispute.”

Read article

May 25, 2011  The Jerusalem Post

University of Haifa Prof. Dan Schueftan’s timing could hardly be better. Only a few months after the beginning of the Arab Spring, weeks before this year’s Nakba Day - when hundreds of Palestinians from Syria and Lebanon charged Israel’s northern border, bringing the right-ofreturn issue to the forefront of the conflict - and with the Palestinians set to declare statehood unilaterally at the UN in September, Schueftan released Palestinians in Israel - The Arab Minority’s Struggle Against the Jewish State. The 844-page tome, he asserts, is the most authoritative and well-researched book on the subject of Arab citizens of Israel to date.

Read article

May 18, 2011  Arutz Sheva (INN)

Two thirds of Israeli Arabs say they are opposed to Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish and Zionist state, a special poll commissioned by Haifa University released this week said. The poll also shows, among other things, that nearly 30% would like to see Israel disappear altogether, and that 38% do not believe that there was a Holocaust.

Read article

May 22, 2011  AFP

The number of Arab Israelis who deny Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and Zionist state rose to 66.4 percent in 2010 while 29.5 percent opposed its existence under any terms, a poll said. The survey of 1,411 Jewish and Arab Israeli adults conducted by Haifa University professor Sammy Smooha and published on Sunday said the respective numbers in 2003 were 61.4 percent and 11.2 percent.

Read article

May 22, 2011  Arutz Sheva

Forty-two percent of Israel’s Arab citizens are unhappy about the fact that they are citizens of Israel, according to the latest survey on Jewish-Arab relations conducted by Professor Sami Samouha. The latest data, from 2010, was presented Sunday at Haifa University. Samouha found that more than 62% of Israeli Arabs think Arab rioters in October 2000 acted appropriately, and 14.5% believe violence is a legitimate means to express protest.

Read article

May 21, 2011  IBA News

Chances for a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians are slim to none at this point. This, according to Dr. Dan Schueftan - director of the National Security Studies Center at Haifa University. Schueftan proposes a completely different approach to the conflict, which involves Israel’’s unilateral withdrawal from areas in the West Bank.

Listen to interview

May 18, 2011   Xinhua

Benny Miller of the University of Haifa said that it might be even more important for Netanyahu to sell his ideas to the U.S. than to the Palestinians. “There are differences, but the Americans will see it as a starting point for negotiations,” Miller believes. As well, he said, Netanyahu’s speech was very vague, and left plenty of room for changes. Obama is going to call on Israel to halt all settlement construction in the West Bank and return to the border before the 1967 War, when the Jewish state captured the West Bank and Gaza.

Read article

May 19, 2011  The Jerusalem Post

Over 62 percent of the Arab citizens of Israel believe Jews are a foreign imprint on the Middle East and are destined to be replaced by Palestinians, and a similar proportion believe that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state…The 2010 Arab Jewish Relations Survey, compiled by Prof. Sami Smoocha in collaboration with the Jewish-Arab Center at the University of Haifa, presents what its authors describe as a worrying decline in relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel over the past decade.

Read article

May 20, 2011   The Jerusalem Post

Alawites “believe in reincarnation, regard the Pillars of Islam as purely symbolic, do not fast during Ramadan or make pilgrimage to Mecca, have no mosques or indeed any public worship, celebrate Christmas, Easter and Epiphany, and traditionally wear crosses like Christians,” according to University of Haifa linguist John Myhill.

Read article