Education Minister Saar offered a politically correct response to critics of his plan to remove reference to the Naqba from Israeli curricula. Saar noted that teaching the Palestinian “catastrophe” strengthens Islamic radicals and precludes coexistence.
Which is nonsense. Jews don’t want Naqba lessons in our schools because we’re happy about the Palestinian “catastrophe.” Their catastrophe is our independence, their loss of the country is our statehood, and their defeat is our victory.
MK Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli citizen who had been close to Arafat, lashed out against Saar. Tibi is right on this: refusing to teach Naqba in schools would not remove it from Israeli reality. Rather, the expulsion of Israeli Arabs would change the situation.
It is a testimony to the warped state of Israeli affairs that the establishment cannot remove Naqba from the curriculum for more than a year.
