Arab MK: Israel's ministry of education seeks to convert schools into military bases

An Arab Member of the Israeli parliament (Knesset) Mohamed Barakah, who heads the parliamentary bloc of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, accused the country’s education minister, Gideon Saar, of playing sinister music that harmonizes with the political atmosphere in the Israeli street and of failing to fulfill his duties as an education minister.

This came in a speech that Baraka gave during a parliamentary hearing on the Israeli education ministry’s omission from the syllabus of an item about the importance of the inclusion of Palestinian poetry in the education curriculum.

Mr Barakah said the mere fact that the item was omitted says everything. He added that Saar seeks to militarize the education system by inserting military concepts into the syllabi.

Barakah also said that Saar’s policies lead students to dance to the tune of the extreme right. “This is the generation that the ministry of education wants to raise,” Barakah said, noting that what the ministry aspires to is “converting schools into military bases.”