How do you control a population for the long term? You start by deciding who is allowed to stand in front of their children.

The Israeli Knesset just passed a law that effectively bans any new Palestinian teacher educated within the Palestinian system from working in Israeli schools—including schools in occupied East Jerusalem. The measure passed 30 to 10, pushed through by Netanyahu’s Likud party under the excuse of "security" and "demographic necessity."

This isn't about the quality of education. It’s about a "Jewish and democratic" educational system deciding that the "influence" of Palestinian academics is fundamentally "harmful." Education Minister Yoav Kisch made it clear: if you were educated at a Palestinian Authority institution, you are now a threat to the classroom.

The most calculated part of this is how it hits East Jerusalem. By imposing this on an annexed area, Israel is moving to control the narrative taught to Palestinian children in their own neighborhoods. Over 30,000 new teachers have entered the sector in the last decade—now, that door is slammed shut for anyone who hasn't been through an Israeli-vetted curriculum.

Think about the message this sends. It’s not enough to occupy the land; they want to occupy the mind. They want to strip away the cultural identity of a people by making sure they have no say in how their own history is taught. It’s a systemic effort to make Palestinian identity "illegal" in the one place it should be safest: the school.

This is just another aggressive step in making sure the occupation reaches into every corner of life, starting with the person standing at the chalkboard.