#Israel / The Knesset is mulling new legislation targeting Palestinian educators
The new bill proposed by MKs Amit Halevi [Likud] and Zvika Fogel (of fascist Otzma Yehudit] seeks to expand the definition of terrorism and make it easier to fire and defund teachers accused of "supporting terrorism".
The proposed bill seem to mark educators, especially Palestinian Israelis, as suspects without cause. But it is also unnecessary since existing laws already allow disciplining teachers supporting terrorism, and there are barely any cases requiring intervention. Security officials confirm Israeli educators [Palestinian or Jewish] don't need additional oversight.
The article's author, Oshrat Elmaliakh, believes the bill's real goal is intimidating Palestinian Israeli teachers, and restricting their free speech, but in fact threatens the whole education system. It will weaken educators and increases distrust and fear in society... or maybe that's its purpose?
Here's a full translation of the article.
[...] The bill, initiated by MKs Amit Halevi (Likud) and Zvika Fogel (Jewish Power), seeks to expand the definition of an act of terror in order to allow budgets to be withheld from educational institutions. Additionally, it aims to change the accepted procedure for firing, in a way that violates existing employment agreements of teachers. Such procedures, which previously required the approval of the Attorney General or were discussed in a Labor Court, become in the proposal "to the satisfaction" of the Director General of the Ministry of Education.
This is an unambiguous two-faced step, in which the elected parliament in the country marks an entire population of educators as suspected of supporting and inciting terror. In recent months, we have seen how social media posts were taken out of context and led to accusations of supporting terror. We saw persecution and incitement against educators that were found to be baseless - for example, in the case of teacher Meir Baruchin. If the new bill passes, we can expect to see more such cases.
Moreover, this is a completely unnecessary bill. All professional entities, including the Shin Bet, have emphasized over and over in discussions on the proposal that the education workforce does not require monitoring and scrutiny on suspicion of terror and incitement, and that only isolated cases were dealt with in the past year. And in any case, the existing law already provides a response that allows supervision, suspension and even dismissal of an educator convicted of supporting terror and incitement.
On its face, the proposal is supposed to apply to the entire population, and was also promoted that way. But it is enough to look at the examples presented by the legislator in the discussions and read the explanatory notes of the proposal to understand the legislator's intent: it marks Arab education workers, and fans the phenomenon of persecution and incitement against them.
So if there is already a legal solution to the problem presented, and in any case there are almost no such cases that require treatment, why are MKs insisting on promoting the bill? It appears that it serves one purpose: to intimidate education workers in general, and Arabs in particular, in a way that threatens their freedom of expression - and poses a danger to the entire education system and students.
Instead of continuing to fuel hatred and divide, the Education Committee could promote educational discourse on the role of educators in this complex and ongoing crisis. It can provide tools for dialogue, strengthening solidarity and social resilience, and it can promote a program to integrate Arab teachers in Jewish schools, which will help reduce unemployment among this population, meet the dire shortage of teachers and also significantly contribute to familiarity between Jews and Arabs in Israel. Familiarity is the basis for dispelling fears and alienation. This is the first and necessary step towards creating a shared society for Arabs and Jews, to a situation where we can hear each other without a sense of threat or anxiety, and an opportunity to raise a generation that will not be afraid of each other.
Instead, the Knesset chooses to promote legislation that weakens educators and enhances distrust, fear and estrangement in society. This is a populist bill that will cause real damage. The education system needs strengthening and rehabilitation, not unnecessary political bludgeoning.