An Arab-Israeli student has been dismissed from a foreign exchange program and sent home after allegedly writing “Death to America” on a Florida classroom board.
The Northwest Florida Daily News reports that the 15-year-old returned to Israel on Friday. He apparently wrote the phrase in Arabic during a discussion with classmates about a month ago, and erased it seconds later. Another student translated. The school suspended him for two days. The decision to send him home was made by AYUSA Global Youth Exchange, which could not be reached for comment Saturday.
The student’s father, Khaled Kasab Mahameed, said the phrase was not written threateningly or maliciously. Mahameed made headlines himself a few years ago for opening a Holocaust museum to educate Arabs.