Just before Israel heads to the polls, the Netanyahu–Ben Gvir government is racing to complete legislation that, officially, is intended to circumvent a ruling by Israel’s Supreme Court and establish gender-segregated academic programs, with women and men studying separately.Although the legislation is presented as a way to integrate ultra-Orthodox Jews into universities and, ultimately, the workforce, gender segregation is a Trojan horse that could pave the way for racial segregation, with profound implications for Israel’s Arab minority. Today, about 21% of university students in Israel are Arabs who study alongside Jewish students.The Bill’s sponsor, Knesset member Limor Son Har-Melech, said during a December 4, 2024, parliamentary debate in which the proposal passed its preliminary reading:The proposal is not directed at any particular sector but is open to anyone interested for reasons of religion, culture or personal preference. True equality is not achieved by forcing everyone into a single mould, but by creating a variety of options that respect the differences within society … They tell you that this law is taking us towards Iran, but gender-segregated education is not unique to Israel. It is common practice in many countries around the world, including Western countries such as Australia.Yet Har-Melech herself evokes anything but equality, pluralism and respect for others. Instead, she is associated with her membership in the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit [Jewish Power] party and a social media post showing her in the Palestinian village of Huwara while hundreds of far-right activists were setting fire to homes and vehicles. The accompanying caption said she had come there “to support the justified outcry of the hundreds of Samaria residents who came out to protest”.Har-Melech also chairs the Knesset lobby “For Religious and Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] Women” that spearheaded the gender-segregation Bill. One of its leaders is Anat Gopstein, the wife of Bentzi Gopstein, a leading Otzma Yehudit activist, founder of the Lehava organisation, who was convicted last year of incitement to terrorism.In a video interview with Channel 7 published on December 8, 2024, Anat Gopstein explained that “the law is good news because it allows everyone to study in gender-segregated settings […] The people frightened and disturbed by such a move are those who tell me how to live my life. If I want to study separately, I have that right, and they will not define what is right for me. These are people who place themselves above us and want to educate us, and I am not prepared to accept that. We have the right to do what we believe in.”Her husband, Bentzi Gopstein, shared the interview on his Telegram channel, titled “Bentzi Gopstein – Kahane Was Right!” where he regularly posts inflammatory quotations by Rabbi Meir Kahane. In November 2023, he also used the channel to urge his supporters to attend an event calling for the removal of Arab students from university dormitories.Anat and Bentzi Gopstein are not only spouses but also ideological and political partners. After exit polls from the November 1, 2022, election showed major gains for Otzma Yehudit, Anat told reporters, “Lehava has returned to power.” The organisation’s website also features an interview with her under the headline, “Anat Gopstein: The Woman Behind Lehava.”In February 2024, Channel 7 published a video interview identifying her as the “head of the treatment division of the Lehava organisation, which deals with assimilation”. On December 19, 2024, she shared a post featuring an illustration of “Eyal, 26,” described as “a reserve commander in Gaza” who was allegedly rejected from medical school, alongside “Ahmad, 20”, who was allegedly accepted to medical school despite “not serving in the IDF, supporting the October 7 massacre” and receiving a lower score on Israel’s national psychometric entrance exam than “Eyal”.Lehava is the modern-day, more sophisticated successor to the Kach and Kahane Chai movements, which Israel designated as terrorist organisations in 1994 following the massacre at the Cave of the Patriarchs. It promotes an agenda of complete racial segregation. Lehava activists have been convicted of setting fire to Jerusalem’s bilingual school, and the organisation periodically stages marches during which its members verbally and physically assault passersby they identify as non-Jews.In 2024, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada placed both Lehava and Bentzi Gopstein under sanctions, citing Lehava as Israel’s largest far-right organisation, whose activists are involved in violence against Palestinians, particularly in the West Bank.Against this backdrop, it is hardly a coincidence that the legislation is being led by both an Otzma Yehudit lawmaker and one of Lehava’s leaders.From gender segregation to a legal right to separateThe proposal is drafted in exceptionally broad terms. For the first time, it would enshrine every person’s right to study separately for “religious reasons,” while also recognising the authority of higher education institutions to offer such arrangements. In other words, segregation would no longer be an exceptional measure permitted only under the restrictive conditions established by the Supreme Court.Although the proposal is currently presented as a response to the needs of ultra-Orthodox and religious Jews seeking gender-segregated education, it would not be surprising if the law were later interpreted to encompass racial segregation as well. In that scenario, not only would Jewish men and women study separately, but Arabs and Jews would also be separated on the grounds of “religious reasons”. If such an interpretation were considered too far-reaching, the law could easily be amended once the barrier against recognising a legal right to segregation on the basis of “religious reasons” had already been breached.Here lies a profound divide in how different segments of Israeli society view the issue. What much of the public regards as straightforward racism – the separation of Jews and Arabs in academia – is viewed by followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane in Otzma Yehudit and Lehava as rooted in “religious reasons”.The Kahanist vision behind the BillFor example, in 1984, Knesset member Rabbi Meir Kahane introduced legislation stating that “claims advocating distinction, separation or differences between peoples shall not be considered racism.” Conversely, it proposed criminal penalties of two or three years’ imprisonment for “anyone who insults or harms the Jewish religion or Judaism by accusing them of racism,” or “defines any part of the Jewish religion or Judaism as racist”.During a Knesset debate on November 13, 1985, Rabbi Kahane responded to a newspaper article titled “Segregation Is Racism,” declaring: “I am proud of it. There is a difference between a Jew and a gentile. Is that racism? If that is racism, then religious and traditional Jews have a problem.”Rabbi Kahane called for the expulsion of Arabs and for complete physical separation between Jews and those Arabs who remained in Israel, including in schools and institutions of higher education. He also viewed the very presence of Arab students at universities as a threat to the country’s future, not only because of fears of “assimilation.” As he said during a Knesset debate on November 27, 1984:I see today’s universities as the principal focal point of danger to the future of the Jewish state. The university cultivates and produces the single most essential ingredient for the Arab revolution and for the destruction of the Jewish state – namely, leaders […] Do we not understand that precisely Israel’s educated Arabs will become the most extreme and the most dangerous, the future leaders of the nationalist revolution? What has happened to us?Those in Israel who accept gender segregation in academia as a price for integrating the ultra-Orthodox should remember that Israel is governed by a coalition that includes Kahanists. They risk helping introduce a Trojan horse for racial segregation into Israeli academia – a development that should alert the international community to internal processes within Israel that could lead to apartheid, not only in the occupied Palestinian territories.Eitay Mack is an Israeli lawyer and human rights activist.