Palestinians in Israel forced to study Zionist anthem
A leading Arab educator in Israel has denounced the decision of Gideon Saar, the education minister, to require schools to study the Israeli national anthem.
Officials announced last week that they were sending out special "national anthem kits" to 8,000 schools, including those in the separate Arab education system, in time for the start of the new academic year in September.
The kits have been designed to be suitable for all age groups and for use across the curriculum, from civics and history classes to music and literature lessons.
The anthem, known as Hatikva, or The Hope, has long been unpopular with Israel's Palestinian minority because its lyrics refer only to a Jewish historical connection to the land.
Saar's initiative is widely seen among Israel's 1.3 million Palestinian citizens as a further indication of the rising nationalistic tide sweeping policymakers.
Last week the ministry also announced that textbooks recently issued to Arab schoolchildren would have expunged the word "nakba," or catastrophe, to describe the Palestinians' dispossession at Israel's founding in 1948.
Hala Espanioly, who chairs the education committee of the Arab minority's supreme political body, the Higher Follow-Up Committee, told the Israeli news website Ynet: "If there is an attempt to force the Hatikva anthem on Arab schools and Arab pupils, it will be akin to a kind of attempted rape of their identity."
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