Knesset plenum
Knesset plenumReuters

The “Breaking the Silence Law” , initiated by Education Minister Naftali Bennett and MK Shuli Mualem-Refaeli (Jewish Home) was approved by the Knesset overnight Monday in its second and third readings.

The law states that extreme leftist organizations that operate against IDF soldiers and against the goals of state education will not be able to enter school grounds and meet with students.

The law authorizes the Minister of Education to determine the rules that will prevent entry to educational institutions of "external elements who act against the goals of education and against the Israel Defense Forces."

MK Mualem-Refaeli said after the law was approved, "The reality in which Breaking the Silence activists and similar organizations enter schools in order to incite against IDF soldiers and officers and slander the state ended today. The education system is intended to impart values of love for man and the state, and anyone who acts against these founding values, will no longer be entitled to enter the educational institutions in Israel.”

Breaking the Silence blasted the approval of the law and said, “After the religionization comes the silencing: Minister of Education Naftali Bennett is so afraid of Breaking the Silence that he passed a law to silence the occupation. Bennett wants to settle in the classrooms of the state education system and teach his doctrine, as he expressed it in the media: It is justified to shoot at eight-year-old Palestinian children, but it is forbidden to evacuate settlers from their homes.”

“This attempt to shut up Breaking the Silence will not be able to conceal the occupation, but it proves how much Bennett and his friends are afraid of their own ideology. It is time for Bennett and his friends to understand that as long as there is occupation there will also be soldiers who will break their silence to reveal what we have been doing in the territories for 51 years. Want us to shut up? End the occupation," added the organization.