Arab students protesting outside the Tel Aviv University campus on the first day of the academic school year. Photo: Screenshot.

With the opening of the academic year at Israel’s institutions of higher learning on Tuesday, Arab student groups held protests near the Tel Aviv University campus, nrg reported.

The Arab students demonstrated against the “Judaization of Jerusalem, and the killing of members of our Palestinian people.”

Waving placards in the air, they chanted in Arabic, “All the people! Jerusalem is crying out, ‘Unite my people!’ Students, join us! The blood of the shaheed [martyr] is calling out to us. The shaheed sacrificed his blood for us.”

They also called for the unity of Muslims, Druze and Christians, presumably against Israeli Jews, “for the sake of Palestine.”

Shlomo Sand, a TAU history professor and well-known critic of Israel, initially came out to support the rally, but quickly reversed course when he realized that it was a religious demonstration on behalf of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

“I came out to emphasize my support for peace between Jews and Arabs,” Sand told nrg. “But I was disappointed” and could not lend a hand to a protest that “centered on religious myths and shaheeds.”