Bennett Promotes Bill to Ban Anti- Occupation Group from Schools

Far-right Education Minister Naphtali Bennett is ratcheting up his fight against the anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence. Bennett is now promoting a bill that will forbid inviting representatives of the group, which collects and publishes critical testimonies from soldiers about serving in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, following the ignoring by three high school principals of the minister’s guidelines to prohibit the organization from speaking to students. The law’s backers expect it to receive approval from the cabinet in the coming weeks, allowing it to progress though the legislative process in the Knesset.

A Breaking the Silence event in Tel-Aviv

A Breaking the Silence event in Tel-Aviv (Photo: Activestills)

The bill, which has been officially submitted by members of Bennett’s HaBayit HaYehudi (The Jewish Home) party, is also getting support from the coalition member parties Kulanu and Likud as well as MKs from the opposition party Yesh Atid. Yair Lapid, chairman of Yesh Atid, has spoken out against Breaking the Silence in the past, and is now defending his decision to support the bill saying that “there is no opposition and no coalition” when it comes to protecting our soldiers” Lapid said in a statement. “These groups harm our soldiers,” he continued, “make them vulnerable to being put on trial and cause damage to the State of Israel in the international arena by spreading blatant lies… Now they want to also spread their false teachings among our children.”

Founded in 2004 by a group of veteran Israeli army combatants, officers and regular conscripts, Breaking the Silence publishes reports about abuses by Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian Territories. Responding to the bill’s proposal, Breaking the Silence said that Bennett was trying to create “an educational system of occupation” and would fail this time as he has before. Referring to the Jewish Home’s recent efforts to pass a law to retroactively authorize construction in West Bank settlements, the group released a statement in which it said:  “Those who are harming IDF soldiers are the ones who are transforming the army from one that protects Israel to one that protects settlements.”

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