By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News
The Ministry of Education filed a police complaint on Wednesday against an Arab eastern Jerusalem school that held a “Palestinian Martyrs’ Day” celebration, sparking concerns about children being exposed to anti-Israel incitement.
In late January 2021, students at the Wakf-run Refugees Elementary School were asked to prepare memorial presentations for Palestinian terrorists, referred to as martyrs, including songs and poetry.
A Facebook post from the school showed that Baha Aliyan was one of the terrorists commemorated by the students.
Aliyan perpetrated an October 2015 terror attack on a Jerusalem bus that killed three people. He was killed by security forces during the incident.
After learning about the event, Likud MK Amit Halevi sent an open letter to Education Minister Yoav Galant to shut down the school.
The letter, which was also addressed to Public Security Minister Amir Ohana, Shabak head Nadav Argaman, and Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, said that the school must be closed in order to prevent future terrorist attacks.
“These examples of educating young children to [support] terrorism and subversion against the state must be aggressively [stopped], since they create a dangerous and violent future that we must interrupt at the beginning,” he wrote, adding that he was shocked that anti-Israel incitement “takes place in broad daylight, in the capital of Israel.”
The complaint filed by Education Minister Yoav Galant asks the police to investigate the school’s principals and teachers for incitement.
“We will not allow an educational institution to incite against the State of Israel and encourage violence,” Galant said in a statement.
“The law applies to every institution [in Israel], even those that are not under the responsibility of the Education Ministry, as in the case of the east Jerusalem Refugees Elementary School.”
The move to file the complaint was welcomed by right-wing NGO Your Jerusalem, which focuses on issues of sovereignty and terrorism in the capital.
“I am glad that the Minister of Education, MK Yoav Gallant, has decided to investigate the incitement at the school in east Jerusalem,” Maor Tzemach, chairman of Your Jerusalem, told WIN.
“Israel must respond resolutely to incitement, school principals and teachers promoting incitement must be prosecuted, and schools, where there is incitement, must be closed.”
