BUZZ
Due to his ‘indictment on corruption charges’ and ‘war crimes’
Over 200 students at a Philadelphia-area high school are demanding the school remove Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the school’s hall of fame.
A native of Tel Aviv, Netanyahu graduated from Cheltenham High School in 1967 after coming to the region as a teen when his father taught at a local college.
Netanyahu missed graduation ceremonies as he had already departed to join the Israeli Defense Forces. He went on to serve as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in the 1980s, became a member of the country’s parliament in 1988, and was elected prime minister for the first time in 1996.
He was inducted into the Cheltenham Hall of Fame in 1999.
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, officials from the school and Cheltenham Alumni Association met Friday to discuss the student petition, but ended up leaving the matter undecided for the nonce.
The petition cites Netanyahu’s “indictment on corruption charges” and his “war crimes” arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.
The number of petition signatories equates to about 14 percent of the school’s student body, according to a New York Times report.
In an email to the Cheltenham Alumni Association, a pair of students who attached the petition wrote “When students see these alumni on the wall of fame as we walk past every day, we understand that these are people we should look up to, and we strive to be like them one day.
“As such, we feel it is not right for him to continue to be recognized in our school.”
Cheltenham Alumni Association Secretary Emily Greenberg “pushed back” on the petition, “questioning [students’] knowledge of Middle East history.”
“It is interesting that the world really doesn’t do much about other dictators who massacre thousands of their population, but Israel is always the one in the hugely negative news,” Greenberg said. “I believe that most people on our board would like to keep Netanyahu up, but maybe with an update in his biography.”
A Cheltenham School District spokesperson said he “did not know if there was a formal process to strip someone of recognition” in the high school’s Hall of Fame.
The accompanying text in a two-day-old Change.org petition is worded similarly to the cited student email, and calls for a “clear policy for reconsidering [Hall of Fame] honorees whose actions directly contradict the school’s values of inclusion, integrity, and public service.”
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IMAGE CAPTION & CREDIT: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu; DowningStreet/Flickr.com
