Knesset bars PA-trained teachers from Israeli schools

Lawmakers say the measure is needed to prevent future anti-Israel radicalization.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A law barring teachers trained at Palestinian Authority (PA) institutions from teaching or leading schools in Israel passed its final readings Wednesday in the Knesset.

The bill’s explanatory notes state that academic training in the PA “takes place in an environment that fosters incitement against the State of Israel” and is incompatible with the values underpinning Israel’s education system.

Allowing such educators into Israeli schools, the law warns, “could have a harmful impact on students.”

One of the bill’s co-authors, Likud MK Amit Halevi, spoke more bluntly on the subject.

“The situation before the law was passed was a real disaster,” he said. “With our own hands, the Israeli education system [was] nurturing a generation of terrorists.”

He argued that Arab Israeli students are already exposed to anti-Israel messaging through media, social networks, social organizations and mosques, and that PA-trained teachers were reinforcing this indoctrination inside Israeli classrooms.

Co-author MK Avihai Boaron cited figures showing that roughly 4,000 of the approximately 6,700 teachers in eastern Jerusalem graduated from PA institutions, which he described as “the same authority that funds terrorism, educates for terrorism, and encourages terrorism.”

“This is a ticking time bomb that, thank God, we are dismantling today,” he added. “This law is crucial to prevent the next October 7, and this is not an exaggeration.”

The amendment to the State Education Law stipulates that a bachelor’s degree earned at a PA institution will no longer meet the academic requirements for teaching in Israel.

However, the law is not retroactive, and teachers and principals already employed by the Education Ministry will not be dismissed.

In addition, those in the middle of their degrees in the PA, as well as graduates, may still enter the Israeli school system if they complete an Israeli teacher-training certificate within two years.

According to the Knesset Research and Information Center, 30,339 new teachers have entered the Arab Israeli educational system over the past decade.

About 11% hold academic degrees from PA institutions, a figure the center said is rising.

While the majority teach in the capital, 29% teach Bedouin in the Negev, and the remaining 9% are in the Galilee and other districts.

Those who objected to the bill during discussions in the Knesset Education Committee prior to its second and third readings included Youssef Atauna (Hadash-Ta’al), who condemned it as “racist and offensive legislation,” arguing that it violates freedom of occupation and has little to do with educational standards.

Halevi rejected that criticism, saying, “Freedom of occupation has nothing to do with this law, which deals solely with suitability.”