Ali Muasi, a literature teacher at a high school in Baqa al-Gharbiyye, a large Arab city in northern Israel, was dismissed in February by city authorities after screening the Palestinian movie “Omar,” which was on the 2014 shortlist of Oscar nominees for best foreign language film.

The movie, by Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad, relates the story of Omar, a Palestinian baker who falls in love with Nadia, his best friend’s sister. Omar and Tarek, his love’s brother, carry out a terror attack, murdering an Israeli soldier. When Omar is captured by the Shin Bet, he becomes a collaborator and is forced to choose between betraying his people and his homeland and his love for Nadia. The movie features some scenes with partial nudity.

“Salafist figures in town labeled the movie as pornographic despite the fact that it deals with the oppression of the Israeli occupation while also being critical of social oppression within Palestinian society,” Muasi told Al-Monitor in a special interview.

According to him, his dismissal is part of a political deal between Mursi Abu Moch, Baqa al-Gharbiyye’s mayor and the Salafist movement Hedaya. Its members demanded that the teacher be fired, claiming he had shown an inappropriate film that was not in keeping with the values of a Muslim society. According to Muasi, several nude scenes were cut out from the movie before being shown to the students, but not a brief romantic kiss between the two protagonists that “lasts barely several seconds.”