East Jerusalem school staff in hot water over ‘incitement’

Education Ministry Director General Michal Cohen on Tuesday summoned a principal and a teacher from an elementary school in East Jerusalem for a hearing over suspicions that the two had incited and encouraged violence against IDF soldiers.

According to an Education Ministry press release, in recent days investigators have been looking into complaints that the faculty of the school, in the neighborhood of Beit Hanina, had engaged in illegal political propaganda.

The investigators found that during a recent school play, an IDF soldier was depicted as “violent and murderous, [as] he shoots a Palestinian child.”

Also, some of the students at the school were reported to have sung songs in praise of terrorists and to have waved pictures of the perpetrators of attacks against Jews.

“We’ve talked enough about incitement, it’s time to act,” Education Minister Naftali Bennett said Tuesday.

“The shocking incident at school is the fuel of the terror machine, and the furthest thing from education. I feel sorry for the parents who clap their hands as children depict an execution, but the educators who have authorized this play will be treated without reservations,” he said.

The Education Ministry hearing is set to take place later this week.