Adalah says Palestinian students face systematic suppression at Israeli universities over Gaza solidarity and expressions of Palestinian identity [Getty]
Palestinian citizens of Israel studying at Israeli universities are being pushed to self-censor and, in some cases, abandon their studies after being punished for expressions of Palestinian identity and opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a lawyer who represented many of the students has told The New Arab.
Lubna Tuma, an attorney with Palestinian rights group Adalah, said universities had subjected Palestinian students to disciplinary proceedings in which they were effectively treated as supporters of “terrorism” unless they could prove otherwise, while similar restrictions were not imposed on Jewish-Israeli students.
“Freedom of expression is supposed to be a foundational, universal principle of academic life, for all students,” Tuma, who co-authored a new report on the crackdown, told The New Arab.
“In Israeli academia, it plays quite the opposite role: institutions have turned themselves into bodies policing private political expression, deciding which expressions of identity, religion, solidarity, and criticism are legitimate, and which are not.”
Adalah’s report, Apartheid in Israeli Academia: Palestinian Students After 7 October 2023, found that Israeli universities and colleges had effectively established two disciplinary systems based on students’ ethno-national identity, which the rights group says amounts to apartheid within higher education.
The group received 132 inquiries from Palestinian students at around 40 institutions and provided legal representation or advice in 100 cases after universities began taking action over social media posts following the 7 October 2023 attacks and the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
More than 60% of those who approached Adalah were suspended before any determination of wrongdoing, while 20 students were either permanently expelled or suspended for between one and five years. Of 78 disciplinary cases examined, 52 resulted in convictions.
The posts targeted were not limited to statements about the 7 October attacks. Criticism of Israel’s government, military or war on Gaza, prayers and Quranic verses, images of Palestinian identity and expressions of concern about Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe all triggered proceedings.
In some cases, merely “liking” a post, displaying the Palestinian flag or the word “Palestine”, sharing a news report or posting a prayer for Palestinians in Gaza was enough to prompt a complaint.
“What that produces isn’t just individual punishment, it’s a chilling effect across the whole Palestinian student population,” Tuma said.
‘Humiliation by design’
Tuma, who represented many of the students before disciplinary committees, described the hearings as “humiliation by design”, saying students entered them treated as if they were “a traitor or enemy from the outset”.
“These processes carried a deep personal, emotional, and psychological cost,” Tuma said. “The committees’ starting assumption was often that the student supported terrorism and required the student to actively disprove it.”
The report documented cases in which students were not shown the posts behind complaints, universities relied on automatic translations of Arabic prayers and Quranic verses, and students were required to defend themselves against content they had not published.
Adalah said the result was a reversal of the usual burden of proof, with Palestinian students forced to demonstrate that their speech did not amount to support for “terror”. In some cases, university proceedings continued and ended in convictions even when law enforcement authorities found no basis to pursue criminal charges.
Tuma described the proceedings as “sham processes from start to finish”, saying some students chose not to appeal because of the anxiety caused by the process, while others abandoned their studies in Israel and pursued education abroad.
Some universities also reported their own Palestinian students to Israeli police, leading in certain cases to criminal investigations and arrests. Tuma said the University of Haifa was the first to suspend Palestinian students after 7 October and filed a criminal complaint against one student.
The crackdown was encouraged by the Israeli government. Days after the 7 October attacks, the education minister demanded universities suspend students, report them to the Council for Higher Education and police, and expedite disciplinary proceedings. Jewish-Israeli student unions, campus political groups and outside organisations also monitored Palestinian students’ social media posts and reported them to university administrations.
‘A completely different set of rules’
Adalah found a starkly different approach towards Jewish-Israeli students. Universities largely preserved protections for their political expression, including in cases involving extreme speech, while the report said institutions ignored widespread calls for the annihilation and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and racist posts targeting Palestinian citizens and students.
For Palestinian students, by contrast, universities expanded their disciplinary reach beyond campus and into private political expression, according to the report.
“This is why we speak of apartheid. It is a completely different set of rules, applied on the basis of students’ ethno-national identity,” Tuma said.
“This can’t be addressed case by case. Freedom of speech is an absolute precondition of academic life, not a privilege granted to some students and withheld from others.”
Adalah said the crackdown has consequences beyond those formally disciplined, creating a “chilling effect” in which Palestinian students increasingly censor themselves and feel less secure or welcome on Israeli campuses.