Middle East Monitor / May 27, 2023
The extremist Israeli government is preparing a law to dismiss Israeli Arab students who raise the Palestine flag or express their support for Palestinian resistance inside universities, Israel Hayom revealed on Thursday.
An extremist Israeli Mk from the far-right Otzma Yehudit Party is preparing the law, the Israeli newspaper disclosed, pointing out that the draft law is currently in its final stages.
If an Arab student is charged with raising the Palestine flag or supporting the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation, according to the law, they would be dismissed from their university.
Meanwhile, the law calls for academic institutions to prevent the existence of student bodies that violate Israeli laws.
According to the Israeli daily, heads of Israeli universities strongly criticized the law, stressing: “It is problematic and dangerous.”
Heads of Israeli universities expressed their hope that the education minister would undermine the law proposal at the Knesset’s Legislative Committee.
They suggested that such a law aims to turn universities into arms for the Israeli police and intelligence services as they would be ordered to monitor thousands of students and punish them over issues protected under the freedom of expression laws.
At the same time, the university heads indicated that such a law has consequences for the academic ties and status between Israeli universities and their international counterparts.
In addition, it would lead to a wide-scale wave of academic boycotts of Israeli universities.
Head of Tel Aviv University Ariel Porat responded to the law proposal: “The Palestinian Authority is not a hostile state or a terrorist organization. Raising its flag is protected under the freedom of expression law.”
Porat added: “If we applied this law, we would be likely obliged to have a large number of our students away from the university. They would not bear this suppression and would not hesitate to raise the PA flag.”
The current Israeli government is the most extremist ever in Israel’s history. Since its formation last year, it has introduced several apartheid laws affecting Arabs in Israel and the Palestinians and encouraged illegal settlement.
