Gil Gertel

Gil Gertel is an educator and a blogger at Local Call.

Recent Articles

Israeli activists from the right-wing Im Tirtzu movement demonstrate next to Arab-Israeli and left-wing activist students during a rally marking the Nakba anniversary at Tel Aviv University, May 13, 2026. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)

On Israeli campuses, Palestinian students are guilty until proven innocent

A new report exposes disciplinary apartheid in Israeli academia: Arab students suspended for social media posts, while calls to annihilate Gaza go unpunished.

By Gil Gertel October 1, 2026

A first grade classroom at an Israeli school in Jerusalem, September 1, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Israel is secretly surveilling its teachers. No prizes for guessing which ones

The Education Ministry is monitoring teachers online, searching not only for ‘incitement’ but mere criticism of the state — and 3 out of 4 targeted are Arab.

By Gil Gertel August 21, 2026

Palestinian students at an UNRWA school in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, Jan. 30, 2024. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)

Israel claims to care about Palestinian students — so it shuts down their schools

The Education Ministry ordered UNRWA-run schools in East Jerusalem to close, citing ‘student welfare.’ 800 may lose their classrooms this month.

By Gil Gertel May 6, 2025

A high school principal arranges her classroom for the reopening of the school in Jerusalem, February 10 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Teachers or terrorists? Far-right MKs want the Shin Bet to police schools

A bill authorizing Israel's security service to hire and fire teachers, a policy long carried out in Arab schools, is so extreme that even the Shin Bet opposes it.

By Gil Gertel July 26, 2023

A teacher-soldier speaks to a student in a classroom in Beit Shemesh, April 4 2011. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

Palestinians as ghosts: How Israel’s education system normalizes occupation

A study finds that while some high school textbooks touch on Israel's control of the West Bank, students are taught little to nothing about its true nature.

By Gil Gertel August 9, 2020