Haaretz reported that an Arab (Palestinian) student in the city of Beersheba was suspended from school because she expressed sympathy for the children of Gaza in the war that Israel is waging on the Strip.
The Israeli newspaper explained that dozens of students at the Zilberman Comprehensive School in Beersheba, southwest of occupied Jerusalem, gathered around the 12-year-old seventh-grade student, singing, “Your village must burn.”
This happened last week during a discussion at school, where the student – whose name Haaretz did not mention – dared to express her sympathy for the children of Gaza.
In its editorial published on Wednesday, the newspaper reported that the school had suspended her, and the Ministry of Education had supported the suspension decision. Meanwhile, parents of other Israeli students demanded – in a WhatsApp group – that she be removed from school, and the city’s deputy mayor even suggested stripping her family of their Israeli citizenship.
The girl told Haaretz that she said in a classroom discussion that children were starving and dying in Gaza. When the lesson ended, other students in the class began attacking her, accusing her of supporting the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and cursing her while singing, “Your village must burn.”
Commenting on what happened, the newspaper stressed in its editorial that this “mob culture” is deeply rooted in Israeli society, and this was evident in the videos posted on social media from the school, and the violence-inciting reactions completed the rest and served their intended purpose.
Haaretz: This “mob culture” is deeply entrenched in Israeli society, as evidenced by videos posted on social media from the school.
The Palestinian student’s father told the newspaper how the students quickly gathered around his daughter, “and the teacher just walked away and left her alone to defend herself, until another teacher came and saw the situation and took her to the principal.” The principal alerted the father and informed him that his daughter would be suspended from school for several days “to understand what happened” and to protect his daughter from the attack and harassment she was being subjected to.
The father decided to keep his second daughter at home for fear of her being harassed, and said that other Arab (Palestinian) students at the school did the same. The Ministry of Education said that it was decided to remove the girl from school due to her behavior, until the matter was fully clarified, and to avoid friction between her and other students.
Haaretz considered the incident that took place at the Zilberman Comprehensive School to be additional evidence of the “disturbing” developments that Israel is witnessing, which the war is contributing to fueling at a rapid pace.
She said that the school had failed miserably in defending the girl and in the decision to suspend her from school, and in doing so it was in fact supporting the mob and the collective bullying behaviour displayed by the other students, and instilling in them values that support political oppression, marginalisation and Jewish superiority, where Jewish children are allowed to say anything about Arabs (Palestinians) while Arabs are forbidden from expressing themselves politically.
Haaretz concluded that any properly run country would have asked the education minister to correct this mistake. “In Israel, this minister, Yoav Kish, is a political monster who has proven his involvement in murders and is part of a racist, nationalist government.”
At the end of its editorial, the newspaper expressed hope that someone in the Ministry of Education, the municipality, or the school would come to their senses and protect this student.