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.
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.