Israel’s Justice Ministry has raised legal objections to a draft Education Ministry regulation that would let schools bar outside groups accused of encouraging civil disobedience or insulting the Israel Defense Forces, according to a report aired Tuesday on Channel 14. The debate centers on whether organizations such as Brothers in Arms can continue entering schools to speak with students.
The ministry had spent about six months drafting rules intended to draw clear red lines around groups seen as undermining the military or security forces. But the attorney general’s office says two key provisions do not pass legal muster, effectively preventing the regulations from being approved as written.
One disputed clause, section 7, would have banned any organization that called for the intentional failure to carry out a commander’s order. The attorney general’s position, as quoted in the report, was that “a call not to obey a specific order is not within the authority.” A second clause, section 9, would have allowed schools to block material whose sole purpose is to denigrate the IDF and security forces. Legal advisers rejected that too, calling it “vague and overly broad” and saying it was unclear what “denigration” means.
The result leaves the Education Ministry without a solid legal basis to keep such groups out of schools. Ministry sources complained that the attorney general’s demands strip the draft of real content and would force them to give a platform inside classrooms to organizations whose activity, they say, harms the IDF and state education values. The issue has become more prominent in recent months after political groups, including Brothers in Arms, took part in discussions with students. The ministry began drafting the regulations after civil disobedience calls by some of these groups during last year’s protests. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara had not commented at the time of the report.
