T. Belman. Did you know that Avi Maoz, the soon to be new Minister said,
“There are currently 3,000 educational programs written by progressive, far-left NGOs, funded by foreign foundations and the European Union. Are they there to strengthen the Jewish state? Of course not. They want to make Israel a state like all states.
“Who will make sure that Jewish identity programs be written instead of ‘state-of-all-its-citizens’ programs?” That’s my job.
Throughout his career, whether as prime minister or in opposition, Benjamin Netanyahu has disregarded the Education Ministry. He’s now learning that local councils don’t share that indifference
By Anshel Pfeffer, HAARETZ Dec 4,2022
Of all the agreements signed so far between Benjamin Netanyahu and the prospective members of his incoming governing coalition, the news that the new deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Avi Maoz, will also control the Education Ministry department in charge of external programing for public schools has caused the most significant backlash.
In retrospect, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Giving the openly homophobic and ultra-conservative Maoz – a disciple of Rabbi Zvi Thau, the nationalist spiritual leader who believes that a cabal of progressive ideologues is bent on destroying Israel’s Jewish character and subverting family values – the power to decide which educational programs would be offered to secular schools, as well as control over a 2-billion-shekel ($590 million) budget, was bound to become a major scandal.
The Noam party leader demanded that control of the Geffen (a Hebrew acronym for “Pedagogic Managerial Flexibility”) department become part of his new Jewish Identity Directorate in the PM’s office for a reason.
In an interview with the far-right religious weekly “Olam Katan” last week, Maoz railed against “haprogress” and its “consciousness engineering,” and was clear about his intentions.
“There are currently 3,000 educational programs written by progressive, far-left NGOs, funded by foreign foundations and the European Union. Are they there to strengthen the Jewish state? Of course not. They want to make Israel a state like all states. Who will make sure that Jewish identity programs be written instead of ‘state-of-all-its-citizens’ programs? That’s my job.”
Education professionals are under no illusion that Maoz means business, which is why as soon as the news broke of his new powers, some of the most powerful figures in Israeli education – the heads of education departments in local councils – announced that they would not be cooperating with the new directorate and would block any of its new programs from being taught in their schools.
It began with a letter written by the director of Tel Aviv’s education department, with the backing of Mayor Ron Huldai, to all the city’s school principals, and has so far spread to 70 different local councils – over a quarter of Israel’s total. So far, they have been endorsed by outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid and the head of the local councils federation, Modi’in Mayor Haim Bibas, who is a Likud member.
It’s a rare demonstration of independent political power by local government, and one that has rattled Netanyahu.
His response has been two-pronged. Officially, he has hit back, accusing Lapid in a statement of “endangering and harming democracy” by “trying to incite army officers and mayors against the elected government under our leadership.” At the same time, he added a mollifying message to his statement.
“Israel’s government under my leadership will safeguard the rights of all Israel’s citizens and act out of joint national responsibility as all governments under my leadership acted,” he wrote. “And one last point: The government’s policy is led first and foremost by the prime minister. I will lead Israel’s government according to the national and democratic principles that have guided me all my life.”
Lest there be any doubt, on behalf of “sources involved in the coalition negotiations,” his people leaked that “when we granted Maoz the responsibility for external programs in the Education Ministry, we didn’t understand the meaning. It was a mistake. We didn’t understand we were giving Maoz the keys to the heart of educational activity.”
This is a massive self-own, which shows just how worried Netanyahu is about the immediate backlash. And unlike other Netanyahu leaks, this one has the virtue of being true.
Throughout his long political career, he has never shown much interest in education. This was true even in the short period in early 2015 when, after firing the Yesh Atid ministers from his government, he was actually in charge of the Education Ministry as well.
A search through the archives will show some bland statements about grand educational reforms he promised in the periods when he was in opposition. Twenty years ago, he spoke of the need to give school principals greater powers to hire and fire. Thirteen years ago, it was about closing gaps between students from different parts of Israeli society. Just before this election, he brandished the promise of free kindergarten from birth.
But what all these reforms had in common was that they lacked any real detail or explanation for how they would be funded. And all were forgotten once Netanyahu assumed power.
Of the 15 years he’s served as prime minister, Likud didn’t even control the Education Ministry for three-quarters of that time. He’s always been fine with other parties being in charge of education policy, because it doesn’t interest him. He believes that Israeli schools are bad due to bureaucracy and the powerful teachers’ unions. But instead of trying to change that, he relies on the Israel Defense Forces to train enough recruits for signals intelligence and cyberwarfare units, which will in turn provide sufficient software engineers for the civilian high-tech sector.
Students in Tel Aviv going to Ironi Tet high school last year.Credit: Moti Milrod
He indeed was not aware of the importance of the Geffen department, because he doesn’t regard the entire Education Ministry as being that important. So if a coalition partner wants a piece of it, that’s fine by him.
But that was just his first mistake.
His second was not only to disregard the ministry; he also failed to recognize that there is a potentially much more powerful force invested in the education system. The rich municipalities, which have wide budgetary discretion, invest heavily in their schools from their own funds. This is one of the main sources of those massive gaps in the quality of Israeli education. For example, a 2020 study found that Tel Aviv spent 8,650 shekels annually on each school student in the city. That was nearly three times more than the much poorer Jerusalem, which spent only 3,000 shekels per student.
This makes the more affluent cities like Tel Aviv (which finances a quarter of its entire public spend on education in the city) major players in Israeli education. Mayors, principals, teachers and parents are all heavily invested, and Netanyahu, who has never taken any interest in any of this, blithely disregarded their concerns when he acceded to Maoz’s demands.
It was a major political blunder, one Netanyahu is finding it extremely difficult to extricate himself from. This isn’t just some media scandal. It’s something that many Israeli parents, who aren’t usually that interested in politics, care about deeply.
For the new Netanyahu administration to have any chance of governing calmly, he needs to avoid angering the middle classes as much as possible. This is the Israeli middle class in its widest sense, which also includes many of the less ideological Likud voters: those who in general are right-leaning and usually quite admire Netanyahu, but have little sympathy for his more radical religious partners.
Netanyahu needs to reassure them that their lives won’t be impacted by his new ministers. But giving Maoz the powers to influence what their own children will be hearing in their classrooms achieves the opposite of that.
Netanyahu wants to believe he can ride the tiger. That he can name Itamar Ben-Gvir national security minister and still ensure that massive riots don’t break out in the Arab towns and neighborhoods. That Bezalel Smotrich can be finance minister and not drive Israel’s economy into the ground. That Avi Maoz can be in charge of integral parts of the education system and that this won’t affect what goes on in secular schools.
This is why in statements and interviews (so far only to the U.S. media – not to Israeli journalists who will ask harder questions), he insists that he will be in charge and safeguard Israeli democracy. But even if he believes he can control his partners, a majority of Israelis – including many who voted for him just a month ago – are far less certain.
@peloni
All that stuff you talk about – “democracy”, “the will of the people”, “the power of the people”, “the people choose their own representatives” is nothing but propaganda to keep the power in the hands of mostly worthless and dishonest politicians who fight among themselves for power and money and are experts at “controlling the mob”.
The greatest examples of the so called “democracy”, namely, the US, Britain, Canada, Australia – when did these countries last had a war on their own soil (not counting that almost fake bombing of London in WWII)?
That’s what their “democratic” systems were designed to do – to keep their subjects and the rest of the world fighting each other in order to permit the “people’s servants” of the above mentioned countries to do whatever the hell they want and to avoid a war and a revolution on their own soil.
In reality, as we have seen for the last 2-3 years, these “democracies” and those in Europe are anything but and they don’t hesitate to use brute force on their subjects who stupidly assume they live in a democracy.
They all employ versions of the old British colonial policy and it is not suitable for other countries, especially for a country like Israel.
Just because the Education Ministry is not going to be ruled by turns by a slew of worthless politicians, doesn’t mean that democracy is dead or that it is bad for the people or that it is going to be a tyranny.
The reason Israelis voted for this government is the latest wave of Arab terror encouraged and supported by the US and the UN as “the fight of the Palestinians for their freedom from occupation” but the result, so far, seems to be the “winning sectors” imposing THEIR will upon the people in ways that the people never asked for, and I seriously doubt that the “will of the people” will be followed this time also.
You cannot stand the thought of someone making decisions who actually knows what he is talking about and is not working only for himself and his own “sector”, so you call it “tyranny”.
This is because you’ve been brainwashed and you think politics is like sports – we are watching a match and let the best team win by any means, no matter how underhanded.
@Reader
Like Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried..”
@Reader
Wrong. I think that the people are not infants to be controlled by uncontrolled state councils of experts. The people have the rights and obligations of exercising the dignity of their inalienable rights. The policy makers should be chosen thru the act of an expression of the consent of the governed, and you would make these policy makers immune to that consent, simply to eliminate the power of the elected officials. What you call for is tyranny, and not discussing it further will not change this fact.
@peloni
I am not “instigating the tyranny of experts upon the state”, I am not interested in discussing this, you don’t know what you are talking about, especially if you think that a man whose only education was in a yeshiva is qualified to run any educational programs at all for a whole state.
Reminds me of a gynecologist who quite recently served as a German Defense minister.
I mean, a yeshiva bokher is certainly more qualified to deal with country’s education than, let’s say, a movie actor but not by much.
Of course, you think that someone’s political leanings are more important than having a brain, education, or being a patriot rather than a devotee and a servant of his own “sector”.
Citizens of a country don’t only have rights, they also have responsibilities above and beyond the payment of taxes or doing mitzvot.
@Reader
Well, you have raised many issues of which I would not mind discussing, but lets not become sidetracked from your suggestion of instigating the tyranny of experts upon the state, simply because you are displeased with the current system. In fact, what you are suggesting is not unlike the council of experts as is now employed in the Judiciary to choose the judges, only you would have a council of experts to reign their tyranny over the realm of defense, finance and education as well. The committees and reports and feedback will not relinquish the power from the grip of these experts back to the politicians who you distrust, and so their feedback, reports and committees will be toothless to effect the will of the people. It is not just dangerous, it is irresponsible. The public choose their representatives to represent them, not so that they can read reports and accept policy decisions from a council of elites. Doing so would place an unbreachable barrier, in the form of a council of experts, between the policy being selected and the elected officials who are chosen by the public, and thus remove the power of the people from having any impact on the policy chosen by your council of experts. As with a judiciary which is out of control, there would be no remedy for the public to regain control over the govt but to remove the reform which you are calling to be instituted. Should reforms be pursued, I pray that such a tyrannical nightmare as you have in mind is never unleashed upon the people of Israel.
@peloni
Not at all.
The devil is in the details – the ministries will still answer to the government, there will be committees, reports to the Knesset, the feedback from the schools, etc., etc.
Obviously, the system which they have now doesn’t work and needs to be reformed because a country under siege cannot pretend to be a “parliamentary democracy” with a so-called “free market” which never existed anywhere, and the propaganda of unbridled individualism and competitiveness.
The above system is akin to the British colonial policies which were designed to keep the aborigines busy fighting each other in the colonies and other states, and to keep the British subjects fighting each other inside the country so they don’t pay attention at what the PTB are doing.
I am tired of watching the shameful circus taking place in the Knesset while the country is falling apart.
@Reader
By rendering these vital areas of governance to the ‘experts’ you remove all accountability from those ‘experts’ who are making choices for your child’s education, the nation’s security and public finance. Setting aside that no govt could act without having the control over its budget, the issues which you are segregating from the control of the politicians is eliminating any voice by the public in how these areas of governance are administered. The tyranny of the ‘experts’ is actually how the Covid scam came about. Furthermore, the lack of accountability for the Covid policy’s failures is why the vaccines, which failed to be vaccinating with the first shot, are now supposedly being employed to be vaccinating while used as a fifth shot, even as the experts are disregarding the significant safety issues associated with the shots on a per dose basis. The education choices of the children should be kept as close to the parents as possible, while the authority over defense and finance are basic responsibilities of the governing politicians chosen thru the election process. No govt could function without the control over these basic areas of authority, and it would be ill advised to leave these matters to ‘experts’ who have no accountability to the real authority in the country, which should be the voters, not the experts.
@Ted Belman
They certainly do but not at the expense of the interests and security of the country in which they reside.
They certainly do, in the flawed system of so-called “parliamentary democracy” which is designed to split the population and the government into inimical factions which fight each other instead of promoting the well being of the country and the people and doing something constructive (like building up the country, making it as sovereign and independent as possible, reducing the cost of living, developing the periphery, the Jewish settlement of Judea and Samaria, promoting aliyah, eliminating the Arab terrorism) – now ask yourself whose interests does that splitting the people into factions serve?
In terms of dividing the people and having them fight each other – there is no difference other than that different or opposing sectors get to force their views and the way of life on the rest of the population.
I agree that Jewish history should be taught in all the schools (forcing Chumash on the secular may not be such a good idea), I think English should be a choice among other language courses (it is not THE language of the Earth despite of the heavy promotion it is given by the Anglo countries).
Make it illegal for all the schools to receive state funding unless they follow the “federal” curriculum.
If they wish to follow their own curriculum – they must obtain their own private financing.
To make the same level of education accessible to everyone, prohibit local municipal or private financing of the state schools and send the standard free textbooks for the next school year at the end of the current school year.
Remove all the state funding from the religious schools and let them do whatever they want on their own.
Only those religious schools which agree to follow the “federal” curriculum (in addition to their own) will get the same state funding as all the other schools.
I mean that the Education Ministry should be independent and should be run not by politicians but by experts (with a lot of experience in teaching children of various ages) in different school subjects.
Personally, I think that the Finance Ministry and the Defense Ministry should work the same way without being dependent on the “left”, “right”, “center”, foreign colonial powers, and everyone’s whims.
@Reader
Everyone has the right to form a faction with l;ike minded people to advance their interest, be it unions or religious group. And all such factions have the right to ask for and demand the ministries that most interest them,. What is the difference between the left controlling our educational system through a faction or through bureaucrats or having a religious party in charge? I want Jewish history and Chumash to be taught to everyone and English and math to be taught in all religious schools. Do you agree? How do you suggest we achieve that? How do we dictate to the religious schools if they demand control of the curriculum?
What do you mean by “federal control”. How do you isolate that from a particular Ministry?
Education must be under “federal” control ONLY and not traded as a bribe to someone’s coalition partners.
There should be a law prohibiting either sectoral, local, or foreign involvement in education making it a criminal offence.
Those who want to have special schools will have to finance them themselves. i.e., these schools will have to be private schools.
There should be no government financing of any religion nor should there exist religious or ethnic parties.
The loss of control over the education of our youth to foreign anti-Zionist elements, which are disposed to undermine our national identity, is a tragedy which can really have no comparison. The result can be seen in the US and elsewhere and its effects are more permanent then temporary among far too many members of the successive generations.
With this being stated, the recovery of control over this vital resource, the minds of our children and the perspective of our future generations, should be seen as an equally incomparable victory to champion. The rewards of this govt are already taking shape, and this one reward, the return of Jewish values to be taught to Jewish children, will be one of the most enduring victories as it will act as a force multiplier to repel the incendiary foreign views as our own. Well done MK Maoz!!
I am shocked to learn how Israel gave over education to far left and European influences.. . Israel has also allowed Europe to dictate what happens in area C.
NO MORE. I am thrilled.