Tel Aviv, MINA – The Israeli extremist government is preparing a bill to expel Israeli Arab students from raising the Palestinian flag or expressing their support for Palestine in universities.
As quoted from the Middle East Monitor on Sunday, an Israeli member of parliament from the right-wing Otzma Yehudit Party is preparing a bill that is already in its final stages.
If an Arab student is accused of raising the Palestinian flag or supporting the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation, according to the bill, he will be expelled from the university.
In addition, the bill calls on academic institutions to prevent the existence of student bodies that violate the bill.
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According to the Israel Hayom daily, heads of Israeli universities strongly criticized the bill, stressing: “It is problematic and dangerous.”
Israeli university heads expressed their hope that the education minister would weaken the law proposals in the Knesset Legislative Committee.
They suggested such a bill aims to turn universities into weapons for the Israeli police and intelligence services as they would be ordered to monitor thousands of students and punish them for issues protected under freedom of expression laws.
At the same time, university leadership indicated, such a bill would have ramifications for academic relations and the status between their Israeli and international universities.
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Moreover, it would cause a wave of wide-scale academic boycotts of Israeli universities.
Tel Aviv University head Ariel Porat responded to the bill proposal: “The Palestinian Authority is not a hostile state or a terrorist organization. Flying its flag is protected by freedom of expression laws.”
Porat added: “If we implement this law, we will most likely be obliged to expel a large number of our students from universities. They will not endure this persecution and will not hesitate to raise the PA flag.”
The current Israeli government is the most extremist in Israel’s history. Since its creation last year, it has introduced several apartheid laws that affect Arabs in Israel and Palestine and encourage illegal settlements. (T/RE1)
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