Saher Ghazawi
In the last week of October 2024, the Israeli Knesset opened its winter session, which will continue until early April next year. At the forefront of its agenda is a new wave of repressive and racist legislation specifically targeting Palestinians. These laws, in the context of ongoing war, aim to criminalize Palestinians and sever their connection to their just cause—one that can only be denied by the ignorant or the hateful, regardless of their ethnicity or language, whether they are Arab or non-Arab, Moroccan or Levantine, or from the Gulf. The Palestinian issue is not merely the cause of one people, but of an entire nation, and it is the cause of every Arab and every Muslim, wherever they may be.
Palestine, both as a people and as a homeland, has a civilization that spans across history and constitutes a just cause that aligns with divine laws and international conventions that guarantee the right of peoples to self-determination and to protect their lands. Despite international consensus on the righteousness of this cause, Israel continues its racist policies against Palestinians, especially within its own borders, by imposing restrictions on their civil and political rights and prosecuting them for expressing their national identity and rejecting colonialist policies. These policies are aimed at erasing Palestinians from their land and history, but they continue to resist and fight for their rights, firmly believing in the justice of their cause despite all challenges.
In its opening session, the Israeli Knesset definitively passed a law banning the activities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, in addition to a law prohibiting communication with the agency. The law was approved by 92 Knesset members, an overwhelming majority. The Knesset also ratified a law allowing for the dismissal of Arab teachers who express political opinions, granting the Minister of Education the authority to prevent funding to schools and allowing the firing of teachers on charges of “aligning with a terrorist organization” without prior notice.
These racist legislations further confirm the Knesset’s role as a key pillar in the Zionist project and fit within a broader framework of discriminatory and colonial laws that have been enacted since the establishment of the state in 1948, all in an attempt to criminalize Palestinians and sever them from their national identity. These laws aim to distract them from their just cause and deepen the isolation of Palestinian society within Israel.
Despite the relative calm exhibited by Palestinian society inside Israel throughout a year of war, this community has not been spared from the policy of intimidation and security persecution. Palestinians inside Israel still face repressive attempts to curtail their right to express solidarity with their people in Gaza, or even to condemn Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.
The policy of intimidation has targeted many Palestinian students and employees, and some have been expelled from schools and workplaces. Additionally, some Knesset members have proposed laws targeting student movements, excluding students from educational institutions on charges of “identifying with terrorism” or with the Palestinian identity.
These laws are part of Israel’s efforts to restrict freedom of expression in the education system and to establish complete control over it. This takes us back to the practices of the military regime in the 1950s and 1960s, when Israeli authorities imposed the appointment of Arab teachers and principals loyal to them and forced students to celebrate the “Independence Day” of the state.
In this context, we are reminded of what Hillel Cohen wrote in his book The Good Arabs under the title “Secrets from the Teachers’ Rooms,” where he mentions a general meeting held in February 1961 to discuss “nationalist tendencies among Arabs.” In this meeting, officials instructed police officers to closely monitor any nationalist statements by Arabs and take punitive measures against them. The goal at the time was to create a new generation of “Israeli Arabs” disconnected from their Palestinian past. Although the military rule ended in 1966, its policies persist, with Israeli security still intervening in the appointment of Arab school principals and working to suppress Palestinian teachers and prevent them from expressing any critical views.
However, just as previous attempts to suppress freedom of expression during the military rule failed, these new laws, which seek to criminalize Palestinian teachers and students under the guise of combating “terrorism,” will not succeed in curbing freedom of expression in the Arab education system. Many Palestinian teachers and students have, in the past and present, demonstrated their ability to resist attempts at repression and maintain their deep connection to their just Palestinian cause.
