A 13-year-old girl was suspended from school last week after she expressed concern for Palestinian children in Gaza during a class discussion on Hamas’s October 7 massacre, according to Hebrew media reports.
According to Channel 12 News, when it was her turn to speak, the girl, a member of the Arab Bedouin community, mentioned that innocent children were killed in Gaza. “There are hungry children in Gaza, there are children without a home,” she reportedly said during the discussion.
Following a heated incident after the class in which dozens of other students cursed the girl and threw things at her, she was suspended for three days.
She also said that since October 7, students have repeatedly asked her if she supports the Hamas terror group because she wears a hijab headscarf.
“The students started telling me: ‘Our soldiers are not murderers,’ even though I didn’t say that… and others cursed me,” the girl told Haaretz. “They asked me if I supported Palestine, and I said no and that I only support the small children in Gaza returning to their homes.”
…
Ibn Bari charged that the school’s decision to suspend the girl was “extreme and even illegal,” adding that the other students had chanted, “May your village burn,” and accused her of disrespecting Israel Defense Force troops serving in Gaza after she expressed concern for Palestinian children.
Zionists are pallet swapped Nazis.
It’s probably for her own “protection”. People who speak up for justice under genocidal fascism are in extreme danger.
The many faces of racism.
Gaza isn’t a race, it’s a country. And the girl seems to be Muslim, which is again a religion rather than a race. But it is indeed all discrimination.
Gaza isn’t a race, but Palestinian is definitely an ethnicity.
Those kids don’t know the difference. They only feel hate toward others.
A group of people doesn’t have to be a race to be hated by racists. And “race” has no agreed upon definition anyway.
You know how bad it is by (aside from the incident as a whole of course) the fact that they used “do you support Palestine” as a shibboleth. They consider anything less than “Palestinians are inhuman pigs who deserve to be exterminated and have their land taken” as unacceptable, which is… disappointing but not surprising.
They asked: “do you support Hamas?”
“They asked me if I supported Palestine, and I said no and that I only support the small children in Gaza returning to their homes.”
???
I wonder if this girl considers herself Palestinian. It describes her as a Bedouin, but it’s really unclear to me whether Israeli Bedouins see themselves as Palestinians or not.
I think that historically, the Bedouins were a distinct cultural group from the non-Bedouin Palestinians, but it’s also really complicated to get any ethnographic information for me as an American, because Israeli media and middle east scholarship has traditionally erased Palestinian identities, instead calling Palestinian Israelis “Arab Israelis”. Do people like her family actually see themselves as apart from Palestinians? Or do they recognize themselves within this term, but keep their mouths shut because of how dangerous it is to say such a thing out loud? I do notice that in the article there is a screenshot from a tiktok of people celebrating her suspension, and the screenshot calls her “The Palestinian girl”. Is this because she is one? Or is that just them applying it as a slur? I’m very curious.
Either way, as you say, it’s wild that “Supporting Palestine” is such hostile accusation to be levied at her. It’s just crazy. I feel so terrible for her, and also angry at what Israel has become. I think it’s always been bad, but naked hostility and racism is so, so, SO much worse in this generation than it was even 30 years ago.
Historically, bedouin have been seen as a distinct ethnic/cultural group, separate from the surrounding ones. Basically, they’re similar to the Roma of Europe and my understanding is that they’re treated and viewed by local communities very similarly as to what the Roma go/have gone through.
Why are you linking to Times of Israel when the story is originally from Haaretz? That’s sorta like choosing the NY ComPost coverage of an Intercept story…
I originally found it on Al Jazeera’s live coverage, which is difficult to link to. I only later found a second source, which I used. I never came across Haaretz’s coverage. I probably would have still chosen Times of Israel because “Israeli evil” coverage is less common from them than from Haaretz; I would imagine more Zionists read Times of Israel than Haaretz or they’d already care about Palestinian lives.
I probably would have still chosen Times of Israel because “Israeli evil” coverage is less common from them than from Haaretz; I would imagine more Zionists read Times of Israel than Haaretz or they’d already care about Palestinian lives.
So you’re choosing the Netanyahu fanzine to increase the chance that Zionists don’t dismiss the story out of hand?
Makes sense in general, but Zionists are not exactly known to be receptive to reason when it comes to the many atrocities of the fascist apartheid regime…
So you’re choosing the Netanyahu fanzine to increase the chance that Zionists don’t dismiss the story out of hand?
Yes. My powers are limited, so I do what little I can.
Fair. Keep on fighting the good fight ✊
For some time now it’s become logical that the way to maintain sanity among Israelis would be to maintain a comfortable fiction instead of facing reality. It follows that anyone attempting to poke holes in the fiction would be ostracised in order to maintain it. The alternative would be too painful. It would mean they have unequivocally failed to refrain from doing to others what was done unto them. Of course not everyone is in with the program so there would likely be a growing rift between those that want to keep living in the fantasy and those that don’t.
I guess somewhat unsurprisingly a rift might open up between Israeli Arabs and Jews:
Israeli Arabs are much more likely than Jews to say the country’s military response has gone too far (74% vs. 4%).
Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/05/30/israeli-views-of-the-israel-hamas-war/
I would like to point here that the vast majority identify as Palestinian with Israeli passport rather than „Israeli Arab“ which is another Zionist term that seeks to eradicate people’s Palestinian identity. Apart from thar I fully agree with your post.
Not that your claim was hard to believe, but because I like being well-sourced, I looked it up and you’re correct:
Most prefer to be identified as Palestinian citizens of Israel.[8][9][10] International media outlets often use the term “Arab-Israeli” or “Israeli-Arab” to distinguish Israel’s Arab citizens from the Palestinian Arabs residing in the Israeli-occupied territories.[11]
Seems like international media should find a better label for them.
Thanks! I should have provided the source in the first place to maintain a good discussion culture.
Seems like international media should find a better label for them.
They’re doing what they’re doing on purpose. They’re complicit in helping to erase a national identity during a genocide.
They should make every child in that school recite the first 14 fucking pages of dead baby names in the recent death report. Every single name and hell at this point show them the fucking pictures. Overhead image of each one in front of the class until their all puking in the courtyard.
They’re taking boat tours to watch Gaza get bombed. The video I saw showed a toddler boy expressing joy over the destruction.
That’s cause it’s just buildings and rubble. They need to see smashed faces, crushed bodies, dismembered heads and body parts. Full on Texas chainsaw massacre in real life right in front of them. Not just buildings and non descript places.
Sure. And Israel will never allow this.
