MK David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu) reacted to the results of a new survey of Israel’s Arab citizens by calling upon Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar to immediately review the materials being taught in Arab schools.
The annual survey, conducted by Haifa University scholar Prof. Sami Samuha, showed slightly more than 40 percent of the Arab public in Israel believe that the Holocaust never happened.
A similar percentage accepts Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish democratic state – down from 65.6 percent in 2003.
Rotem said that the survey “points to the existence of fervent hatred for the Jewish people by a large part of Israel’s Arabs, which manifests itself in Holocaust denial and refusal to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.”
“60 percent of the Arabs of Israel refuse to see Israel as the state of the Jewish people,” Rotem noted. “This means,” he explained, “that we need to wake up and see reality, and take immediate steps so that whoever is not loyal to the country will not have access to its coffers and to the rights it bestows on its citizens.”
“I call upon the Education Minister to act immediately to look into the Arab educational system and the education it gives to its students,” Rotem said.
The previous Education Minister, Yuli Tamir, was a proponent of letting Arabs teach the “Palestinian narrative of history” in their schools – including presenting the history of the War of Independence as “The Nakba” or “catastrophe.”