The politics of silence: Palestinian faculty and the struggle for voice in Israeli academia in times of war*

Abstract

This study examines the experiences of Palestinian faculty in Israeli academic institutions during the war on Gaza followed the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023. Drawing on Critical Race Theory and postcolonial theory, it explores the mechanisms that regulate academic discourse, reconstruct domination and their implications for minority faculties during periods of intense national conflict. Based on interviews with 27 Palestinian faculty members, the study offers insights into their experiences as a national minority, and the way they challenge the hegemonic state narrative imbedded into higher education. The findings reveal covert regulatory mechanisms that align with existing power systems to uphold Jewish supremacy and reinforce dominant narrative. These forces construct hierarchies of “speakable” and “unspeakable” discourses and discipline identities through demands for loyalty, condemnation, and acknowledgment of Jewish pain, often met with self-silencing. Collectively, the study shows how wartime intensifies surveillance, deepening marginality while also producing spaces of resistance.