Israel’s new education law, passed by the Knesset on November 4, 2024, empowers the director general of the Ministry of Education to fire teachers who “publicly identify with a terrorist organization or act of terrorism and/or support them” based on the administration’s assessment of their alleged support and sympathy for “terror organizations and acts.” It also authorizes the minister of education to revoke funding for schools if the minister believes that “expressions of solidarity with an act of terrorism or with a terrorist organization, or support for them, exist within the institution, and that the management of the school knew or should have known of their existence.”1
Both debate in the Knesset about this bill as well as Explanatory Notes attached to it stress that Palestinians of East Jerusalem and their institutions are the primary intended target of the bill.2
To learn more about the new bill and explore its potential ramifications, on November 14, 2024, we spoke with Palestinian advocate Hassan Jabareen.