Israeli press review: Anti-Palestinian racist incidents spike across Israel

Palestinian football fans attacked Maccabi Tel Aviv fans threw stones at a bus carrying supporters of Bnei Sakhnin, a Palestinian-led football club, on Saturday, smashing its windows after a heated match between the teams ended in a goalless draw at Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv. One Bnei Sakhnin supporter was injured by shards of glass from the shattered windows. According to Israeli sports outlet Sport 5, police searched for suspects immediately after the attack but failed to locate them. An investigation has since been opened. Police told Sport 5 that they “view every display of violence in sports venues, and beyond, with seriousness and will act resolutely against those involved in violent incidents, to safeguard public safety and security”. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters On Sunday, Bnei Sakhnin officials wrote to the police, describing the attack by Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters - whose fan base has been accused of racism - as “a serious warning sign of the development of an improper and dangerous phenomenon of deliberate harm to the fans of the club”. “We will not allow violence to sway us from our path,” the letter reportedly said. Erez Halfon, head of the Israeli Professional Football Leagues, condemned the attack, saying that “this violence is not representative of Israeli football”. Saturday’s incident was not the first reported attack on Bnei Sakhnin by supporters of a Jewish-led Israeli club this season. In August, Maccabi Netanya fans attacked Bnei Sakhnin players following a match between the teams. Arabic-speaking woman abused on bus A young Israeli Druze woman was subjected to a racist attack by a group of young Jewish Israelis on a bus in Tel Aviv last August after speaking Arabic on the phone, Israeli media reported on Sunday. According to Daniel Amram, an Israeli independent journalist known for his right-wing views, the attackers shouted at the woman: “Stinky Arab, get off the bus, you have no place in this country.” Months after the incident, the woman’s brother obtained CCTV footage of the attack and vowed to sue those responsible for humiliating his sister. Israeli ministers incite against 'Arabic-speaking' medical staff at Haifa hospital Read More » “A friend of mine called me, and I started talking to him in Arabic, as usual,” the woman told Israel’s Channel 12 News on Sunday. “Suddenly, I felt something hit my head.” “The boys threw their socks at my head around eight times, laughed at me and filmed me,” she said. She added that she later filed a police complaint but had little faith the authorities would act. “I went to file a complaint, but I went to the police station expecting them to do nothing,” she said. The woman told Channel 12 that the attack had left her afraid to use public transport. She also said that not one passenger on the bus offered to help her. A friend of the woman’s family told Channel 13 News that “the bus was full, and not even one person bothered to intervene or silence those boys”. Palestinian teachers not welcome Knesset member Yinon Azulai, from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan 11 on Sunday that he opposed employing Palestinian citizens of Israel as teachers in Jewish schools. Azulai called for the separation of Palestinian and Jewish pupils within the education system based on national identity. “When an Arab teacher in a school teaches a Jewish child, I don’t know what ideas he’s putting into his [the child’s] head based on his [the teacher’s] own background,” Azulai said, adding that he had seen university professors try to push their own agendas. The ultra-Orthodox lawmaker warned that, in the future, “maybe a Christian teacher will come in too, and then he’ll teach Christianity the way he knows it, and the Arab teacher might teach Islam”. 'Arabs will teach in Arab schools, and Jews will teach in Jewish schools' - Yinon Azulai, Israeli lawmaker Azulai proposed what he described as a straightforward solution: “Arabs will teach in Arab schools, and Jews will teach in Jewish schools.” He later added that cases in which Arab teachers teach Jewish pupils “shouldn’t happen”. Shas is a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has served as a loyal coalition partner for much of his time in power over the past three decades. Azulai’s remarks come amid a severe staffing crisis in Israel’s education system, with more than 30,000 teaching positions reportedly unfilled across the country during the current school year. As schools struggle to recruit staff, growing numbers of Palestinian citizens of Israel are teaching in Jewish schools. Official Israeli figures indicate that more than 4,000 Palestinian teachers were working in the Jewish education system in 2025. According to the independent Israeli outlet Local Call, three out of every four teachers subjected to political persecution in Israel are Palestinians. The outlet has also reported on the Education Ministry’s longstanding practice of monitoring teachers’ political statements.