#Israel [Dr. Meir Baruchin] / Because of criticism of the occupation I was suspected of intending to betray Israel

Dr. Baruchin is a civics and history teacher at a high school

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In 1915, the American journalist Walter Lippmann wrote:“Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”

For 35 years, I have been teaching civics and history in high schools. The pillar of my work is the conversation I have with my students. Many studies have been written about the importance of conversation in social life. Cicero, for example, wrote about “the good conversation.” Human life is characterized, among other things, by a series of conversations that take place in institutions, places and circumstances and different contexts.

A democratic regime is one that allows for conversation between people who agree with each other or disagree in their views. Democratic discourse is one in which every participant feels that they can express themselves freely. No participant dominates the conversation, and there is no undermining of the legitimacy of any participant in the conversation because their arguments are not pleasing to the other participants.

An interesting conversation requires at least two opposing positions. Sometimes opposing positions arise from the direction of the students, but in many cases they share one position. Regarding the relationship between Jews and Palestinians, most students are used to hearing only one voice. They hear this voice at home, at school and in most media outlets. They do not know another voice. When I take upon myself the task of making the other voice heard (the Palestinian voice), there are students who initially feel uncomfortable because they are not used to hearing the other voice, but as time goes on they discover interest and curiosity. A debate develops that sharpens thought. Things are said that accompany the students for many years. By making the other voice heard, I seek to help students develop a broad perspective as they mature, form a perspective, and deal with complex situations.

The difficulty of conducting a democratic discourse in Israeli society did not arise on October 7, 2023, but it has strengthened significantly since then. With the outbreak of the war, I began posting on my Facebook page posts in which I criticized the harm to innocents in Gaza, especially children and women. Needless to say, the atrocities committed by Hamas people on Saturday, October 7, shook me deeply and still hurt me today. I explicitly expressed this in a post I uploaded on October 11.

Nevertheless, I received thousands of Nazi messages wishing me and my children death and disease, and I was portrayed as a terror supporter identifying with the horrors committed by Hamas members. On October 18 I was summoned for a hearing by my employer, the Petach Tikva Municipality, the city where I have been teaching since 2007. The next day I received a letter of dismissal. A few days later, the Ministry of Education suspended my teaching license, thus effectively preventing me from teaching in other schools.

Immediately afterward, I began the process of filing an injunction in the Labor Court against the Petach Tikva Municipality and the Ministry of Education. This process was halted on November 9. On that day, I was asked by phone to come in for questioning at the Jerusalem police station, on suspicion of incitement. In hindsight, it turned out that in order to investigate an Israeli citizen on suspicion of incitement, the police needed the approval of the prosecution. The police did request approval, but their request was denied.

Instead, it was decided to investigate me on two other counts: intent to betray the State of Israel (an offense punishable by up to ten years in prison), and intent to disrupt public order.

The moment I entered the police station, handcuffs and leg cuffs were placed on me, and my mobile phone was confiscated. Five detectives drove me to my home and for about two hours they turned the house upside down from top to bottom looking for inciting material. In addition to the mobile phone, two laptops and six USB drives were also confiscated. I was then taken back to the police station for the first interrogation, which lasted about four hours, and was divided into two parts:

In the first part, 14 posts I had uploaded to my Facebook page were presented to me, most of which were uploaded long before October 7, and were mainly critical of the occupation. For example, in November 2019, a shack in Gaza was bombed. The result was nine dead from the Al-Sawarkha family, including: Ramzi (45), his wives Maram (35) and Yosra (39), and their children: Waseem (13), Mohannad (12), Muaz (7) , Salim (3) and Firas (2). In the post I wrote at the time, I called the act - murder.

In another post, from May 2023, I simply recounted the story of Mohammed Khalil Daoud, a Gaza resident whose only son, Tamim Mohammed Daoud, was born in 2018. The day before, Tamim Mohammed went into stress due to an air strike. His heart could not withstand it and stopped beating. He died of heart failure. In the investigation I was asked what I meant in the posts, what I wanted to achieve, and how the content of the posts could be interpreted by readers. The second part of the investigation was not based on questions. But on rhetoric. The desired answers were planted in the body of the questions, so I was not given the opportunity to choose the answers I wanted.

At the end of the interrogation, I was taken to the “Russian Compound” detention center. I was defined as a “security detainee.” I stayed in an isolated cell with no windows. Even my wristwatch was taken from me. The next day, Friday, November 10, a hearing was held in court. The hearing lasted a few minutes, and at the end the judge decided to extend my detention until Monday, November 13, at 12:00 noon.

Time crawled slowly. I was not given the option to bring a book into the detention cell. I wore the same clothes for four days. To keep myself busy, I did physical training every two hours. Detention center staff were prohibited from talking to me.

On Sunday, November 12, I was taken for a second interrogation, which also lasted about four hours. In this interrogation, too, an attempt was made to put words in my mouth. At one point, the interrogator accused me that my posts were like “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” When I asked her if she ever got around to reading the protocols, she did not respond. The next day, a hearing was held in court, at the end of which I was released.

After I was released, I continued the process of filing an injunction in the Labor Court. At the hearing it turned out that my employer, the Petach Tikva Municipality, did not even have a single record on which they could base the allegations against me. Both at the hearing and in the ruling, which ordered my reinstatement and compensation, the judge noted the high professional level I maintain as a teacher, as evidenced by many letters of praise and thanks from students, parents and principals.

My dismissal and arrest were part of a political persecution of anyone expressing compassion for Palestinians in general and innocent Gaza residents in particular. On December 3, the police returned my confiscated belongings to me. When I turned on my mobile phone I found thousands of messages from the time period when the phone was not in my possession. One message in particular caught my attention. I read it many times. It was written by a former student who graduated 12th grade last summer.

Here is what she wrote:

"Hi Meir, I hope you remember me. I heard you were arrested. I really hope you’re okay overall, and you continue to stay strong. It can’t be easy. If it helps, I thought this would be a good time to tell you that in the few lessons I experienced with you in 12th grade… you were very meaningful to me.

"I want to thank you for what you taught me. I never had the chance to say it. Thank you for fighting for justice and equality. I think you are very brave, that you are loyal to your values and principles, no matter what. I’m trying to adopt this approach to my life, and it’s not easy.

“Even when I didn’t always agree with you, it was fascinating to hear you. You are an amazing teacher, and especially at a time like this the lessons I remember with you occupy me a lot… Just so you know, there is at least one student of yours who admires and appreciates you.”

Hebrew https://archive.is/gvix5

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