Last November, The Knesset Education Committee convened to discuss civics studies in the wake of a report by the Institute for Zionist Strategies, which warned that the curriculum emphasizes democracy at the expense of stressing that Israel is a Jewish nation-state.
By Avirama Golan
Something very strange has happened to the Knesset Education Committee headed by MK Zevulun Orlev (Habayit Hayehudi ). From a committee that is supposed to oversee the government's activities in education, it is turning into a tribunal that summons everyone whose opinions and activities it does not like and brands them with moral turpitude. Apparently chairman Orlev enjoys using the committee to develop an agenda and a new role for himself: the national alarmist.
Zevulun Orlev
The following are just some of many examples. Last November, Orlev convened the committee to discuss civics studies in the wake of a report by the (rightist ) Institute for Zionist Strategies, on the grounds that the curriculum emphasizes democracy and does not stress that Israel is a Jewish nation-state. "Israeli children," said Orlev in his summation of the discussion, "are being educated in an inappropriate way … in democracy studies …. There is a leftist, liberal and universalist bias in civics studies."
In February this year, Orlev adopted the Im Tirtzu organization's "inquiry" into the New Israel Fund – and this time he was even more extreme. The left, he said, referring to Meretz, has become a body that "apart from concern for human rights hardly deals at all with Zionism and values. Worse than that, according to the inquiry, they seek the elimination of the State of Israel. They are defaming the country, just as the spies in the Book of Joshua did."
Since then, apparently Im Tirtzu's heads have become the main academic-educational referents for the Knesset Education Committee, whose members convene frequently and urgently for discussions about betrayal of the homeland. In this spirit the committee's MKs have considered firing "leftist" school principals and have lashed out at university lecturers who, according to an Im Tirtzu report, "are maintaining a reign of leftist terror in academia." They have also rebuked lecturers and stoked a witch hunt against them.
In this context they reprimanded the Holon municipality for "a street exhibition that shows Israel Defense Forces soldiers harming Palestinian children." The transcript of this discussion, from January this year, should be taught in the new Jewish civics lesson. Municipality representatives tried to explain that the picture in question was an advertising poster for an exhibition marking the anniversary of the Geneva Convention, that the photograph expressed the opinion of the photographer and that the right to consider what to show in exhibitions was reserved for the municipality.
However, Im Tirtzu's heads determined that this was "cynical exploitation of freedom of speech with the aim of promoting a campaign of slander and lies against IDF soldiers and Israel … We contacted the interior minister, and he reacted with contempt and said there is no scope for funding exhibitions by the local authorities … If you want to disseminate your lies, do it with funding from the European Union."
For his part, Orlev asked whether the picture in question wasn't anti-Semitic incitement against Israeli soldiers. When he did not get a satisfactory answer he concluded that while it is necessary to praise Holon for its cultural contribution, the committee protests against the showing of the exhibition and there will be a further discussion. He also castigated the IDF, which preferred to remain outside the debate, and promised that "the committee will insist that an IDF representative take part in the next discussion."
It seems Orlev, who until a few years ago came across as the moderate representative of the national religious camp, has realized that if he wants a political life his positions have to change with the spirit of the times. In light of the takeover of his community by the ultra-Orthodox national religious (hardali ) spirit, this should come as no surprise. The "values" of violence the hardalis are perpetrating in the national religious education system and all the branches of the religious establishment is sending moderates scuttling into deep cover so nothing bad will happen to them and their families. It is forcing women to cover their entire bodies and compelling children to lie about the way of life in their homes.
Ostensibly, this an internal religious matter. In fact, it is seeping into Israeli society in its entirety and corrupting it. Orlev's McCarthyist energy is a way for him to survive at the head of Habayit Hayehudi. But it means that the Knesset committee is not dealing with matters of education but rather is branding enemies of the people.
In this process it is making no distinctions between trends and views, but rather is adopting the deceptive dichotomy of the Im Tirtzu people and their ilk between "loyal" and "traitor," and between "Zionist" and "anti-Zionist." In this way they have made Orlev, who speaks pleasantly in the name of national unity, and his colleagues on the Knesset Education Committee into the vanguard leading the crushing of Israeli democracy.