TEL AVIV, February 16, 2011 (WAFA) – Israeli Minister of Education Gideon Saar said on Wednesday that he will initiate a new educational program urging Israeli students to visit the Ibrahimi Mosque (Cave of the Patriarchs) in
Saar visited on Tuesday Jewish settlements in
The Israeli mayor of the settlement of‘Kiryat Arba, built in
Israeli leftist movements strongly opposed the minister plans, saying the program will damage the peace process and harm Palestinians living near the mosque.
'Gideon Saar ceased to be the minister of education, and turned into Israel's minister of propaganda, with the purpose of instilling an extreme right-wing ideology into the Israeli education system,' said former Knesset member and Gush Shalom activist Uri Avnery.
'Israel's education system is in the process of collapse, international tests revealing the low level of our pupils, but the minister in charge is engaged in bigotry, wasting the education budget on visits to the stronghold of the most violent, racists settlers,' he said.
'Every year we hear the heart rendering stories of pupils whose parents can't afford the fee required, and therefore can't participate in the school trips with their classmates, and feel ashamed and humiliated. Instead of helping these cases, Minister Saar opens wide the public treasury to finance 'trips' which are nothing but a political provocation in the service of the settlers,' he said.
'Israel's education system is in the process of collapse, international tests revealing the low level of our pupils, but the minister in charge is engaged in bigotry, wasting the education budget on visits to the stronghold of the most violent, racists settlers,' he said.
'Every year we hear the heart rendering stories of pupils whose parents can't afford the fee required, and therefore can't participate in the school trips with their classmates, and feel ashamed and humiliated. Instead of helping these cases, Minister Saar opens wide the public treasury to finance 'trips' which are nothing but a political provocation in the service of the settlers,' he said.
R.S./M.A.
