Students in NSW schools are watching a genocide in Gaza unfold on their phones, yet their teachers are banned from discussing the story with them. Celebrating students’ cultural backgrounds is encouraged, except if you’re Palestinian. Chris Breen investigates.
The question of Palestine is being silenced in NSW public schools; a silencing that extends to suppression of Palestinian identity itself.
This silencing is part of a wider political backlash that has seen journalist Antoinette Lattouf sacked, academic Randa Abdel-Fattah have her funding frozen, cricket commentator Peter Lalor sacked, artists Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino dumped, and NSW school support officer Sheikh Wesam Charkawi and Queensland private school teacher Kellee Green suspended from their jobs, for entirely reasonable comments supporting Palestine in a private capacity, outside of their school roles.
The backlash is being engineered by politicians like NSW Premier Chris Minns, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, to try to silence criticism of their continuing military trade with Israel and their political defence of the genocide in Gaza. The backlash is being carried out in the media, by employers, and by university and school bosses. As University of Sydney academic Nick Reimer observed “supporting Israel’s genocide is the compulsory admission ticket to social and political power in the West”.
Our rights to freedom of speech are being curtailed to enable the continuation of a world historic crime. Rather than Israel being sanctioned, it is people who oppose genocide in Gaza who are facing sanctions. This is particularly apparent in schools, where top-down political control of education is becoming more widespread.
Teaches and students impacted
Muslim Vote convener and student support office at Granville Boys High School, Sheikh Wesam Charkawi, was ordered to work from home by the NSW Department of Education after he criticised the “selective moral outrage” and Islamophobia behind the response to the video of Sydney nurses who threatened Israeli patients. Charkawi was reinstated after significant community opposition, including two student protests outside Granville Boys High School.
In November last year at Condell Park High School a Year 12 student who wore his keffiyeh (the Palestinian scarf) to his graduation, as is traditional in families of Palestinian origin, was then banned from his Year 12 Formal as punishment He told the SMH “The experience has ruined my high school memories. It’s supposed to be a place where I feel safe, and I’m not judged for who I am, but I was wrong”
Wasim El-Haj, a teacher from a Palestinian background at Sydney Girls High School and Careers Advisor of the Year, was asked in 2023 to wear his keffiyeh to work to celebrate multiculturalism. “I was told to ‘wear that scarf thing you guys wear’.” he told journalist Alex McKinnon. El Haj started wearing it regularly in the first four months of 2024. Then in May in a complete about face El Haj was banned from wearing his keffiyeh, he was told by his supervisor he would face disciplinary action if he continued to wear it. Students at his school launched an open letter that over 300 past and current students signed stating in part that, “At no point did Mr El-Haj’s cultural expression create concern within the student body, nor did we believe it would impede his ability to advise us”. Despite this the NSW Education Department Secretary Murat Dizdar upheld the decision.
According to the Australian National Imam’s Council Wasim El-Haj “faced months of repeated racial discrimination, harassment and bullying by senior officers from the NSW Department of education”. This treatment has had a profound effect on Wasim El-Haj, who has recently resigned his job.
The Australian National Imams’ Council also reported “A Year 6 student was repeatedly instructed to remove a sweatband featuring the colours of the Palestinian flag,and was threatened with removal from the school athletics carnival if she refused to comply”.
Students have been given detention for drawing Palestinian flags or had them ripped up. Students and teachers have been told they are not allowed to talk about “the conflict in the Middle East”. Teachers have been given written warnings not to display anything “promoting Palestine or the Palestinian flag “.
Bans on Harmony Day
Last year on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (“Harmony Day” in schools) when students are encouraged to celebrate diversity, wear cultural dress and display their flags, at least 10 schools banned students from wearing Palestinian colours or cultural dress, or displaying the Palestinian flag. This year several schools simply cancelled the traditional dress up day, leading students at Moorebank High School to petition to bring it back.
Education Minister Prue Car and NSW Education Secretary Murat Dizdar both loudly claim a commitment to anti-racism. Car told the SMH Schools Summit, that “every public school is a place where everyone can belong, no matter where you came from, where your parents or grandparents came from”, but the suppression of Palestinian identity in schools is a calculated political decision that contradicts this.
Australians of Palestinian origin have been subject to relentless racism over the last 18 months. The political defence of Israel, and denial of the genocide in Gaza by Australia’s most senior politicians, has implied that Palestinian lives simply don’t matter. The NSW Department of Education’s attempts to place Palestinians out of sight and out of mind, by suppressing Palestinian identity and symbols of Palestine, compounds the injustice.
Education secretary, Dizdar, told the SMH Schools Summit he wants teachers to “teach controversial issues without fear of aligning with the curriculum”, but regularly reminds teachers of the ‘Controversial Issues in Schools Policy’ that prevents such teaching, particularly over Palestine.
Critical thinking at risk
Principals have told teachers not to talk about Gaza in the classroom. Teachers who have displayed support for Palestine have received warnings. NSW Teachers have witnessed the real consequences of education department policy – the victimisation of Wesam Charkawi and Wasim El-Haj. Without public apologies and an end to silencing, with guarantees that such repression will not recur, teachers will fear the consequences of speaking about Palestine.
Students are hungry to understand the world, but under current NSW Department of Education policy they can go from watching genocide on their phones, to the classroom where they are told they can’t discuss it. Classrooms are spaces of public inquiry and cannot be divorced from global or domestic political events. However current policy leads teachers to second-guess what they can and can’t say without putting their jobs or career prospects at risk; that practice can lead to teachers self-censoring on a range of topics. It diminishes educational opportunities for students, who learn that it is dangerous to voice some opinions, or apply critical thinking skills when it comes to government policy.
Greens MP Alison Boyd said to Murat Dizdar in parliament on the requirement for teachers to be neutral, “Well, we’re not neutral on murder.” Dizdar replied “I think your line of questioning is fair.” and committed to look at the policy again. The word “neutral” was quietly removed from the policy, but in a recent email to all school staff Dizdar said, “schools must remain neutral places for rational discourse”. Nothing fundamental has changed. The Department of Education has taken an anti-Palestinian position, which is not neutral.
Most recently Queensland teacher and musician, Kellee Green, was suspended from her teaching job at a private school, after comments she made at an awards ceremony. The phrase she used “from the river to the sea”, shouldn’t be controversial. It is in the Likud’s (party of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu) founding charter, which states there will be no Palestinian sovereignty from the river to the sea. The chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a call for liberation in response to that, for one state, with equality between all people, in historic Palestine. Israel is currently committing genocide against Palestinians “from the river to the sea”, but it is those calling for Palestinian liberation who are sanctioned.
Push back is possible
The repression of Palestinian identity and Palestinian voices in schools can be resisted. The NSW Education Department does not have a consistent position on staff wearing the keffiyeh, it has bullied individuals over it where it can, but in other schools is afraid of enforcing it, and teachers continue to wear it. Sheikh Wesam Charkawi was reinstated after mass protests by parents and students at his school. Where NSW Teachers Federation union branches have backed teachers’ right to wear the keffiyeh, orders not to wear it have been challenged collectively. Teachers at 40 schools have stood up to intimidation and taken part in actions by Teachers & School Staff for Palestine, taking group photos in schools calling for an end to genocide, and wearing keffiyeh in solidarity.
This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of support for Palestinian human rights, fear prevents more teachers from taking part. The repression is designed to create that fear. It is crucially important to support individuals facing repression, and to collectively continue to protest and speak out against genocide.
Chris Breen is a member of Teachers & School Staff for Palestine, he is writing in a personal capacity