When international exchange student Jawdat “J.D.” Kasab wrote “Death to America” on a board inside a Niceville High School classroom, he had no inkling of the havoc the phrase would cause...Jawdat, a Muslim, was sent back to his home in Israel on Friday evening after officials in the exchange program he was enrolled in told him he had been dismissed over the incident, which occurred about a month earlier.
“I’m sorry that I did that,” Jawdat said during a phone call Monday from Israel. “I don’t want them to think I’m some kind of terrorist because the people who know me, they know I’m not. I’d like for them to give me another chance to come back and show them that I’m not.”
Jawdat arrived in Niceville four months ago as part of the Youth Exchange and Study Program (YES) through AYUSA Global Youth Exchange. The incident that got him sent home occurred in early November inside an art classroom at the high school.
“We were in class, we had nothing to do; we were joking around and we wanted to do something funny,” Jawdat said. “I didn’t think something would happen.”
...Later the story of him writing the phrase was recounted by another student and brought to the attention of school officials. School officials asked Jawdat what happened; he told them and was suspended for two days, he said.
He thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t. On Nov. 30, AYUSA sent Jawdat the letter informing him he had to leave the country.
“The YES program is one of several grant programs that AYUSA administers on behalf the U.S. Department of State, all of which are subject to strict protocols and procedures,” AYUSA Executive Director Sherry Car-penter said Monday via e-mail. “Following protocol and procedure, the student was dismissed due to an inflammatory statement he wrote on the board at his high school in Florida...
He probably thought he was permitted to do what Israel permits its Arabs to do.
That'll teach him.
But will it teach Israel?
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1 comment:
Thank you for the article, very worthwhile material.
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