NOVANEWS
1 Haaretz Monday, March 11, 2013
At education, let’s give Yesh Atid a chance
Likud’s Gideon Sa’ar is maybe the most anti-education Education Minister. This should be a good enough reason to transfer the ministry to Yesh Atid.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/at-education-let-s-give-yesh-atid-a-chance.premium-1.508539
By Or Kashti | Mar.11, 2013 | 2:11 AM | 1
Gideon Sa’ar outside a polling station in Tel Aviv during the Likud’s primaries, Nov. 25, 2012. Photo by Moti Milrod
The battle over the Education Ministry was to be decided late Sunday night – the fight was between Likud’s Gideon Sa’ar and Yesh Atid’s Shay Piron.
Over the past few days Sa’ar has repeatedly declared he wants to remain at the ministry, where he has been in charge for all of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s third term. Leading the Education Ministry is nothing less than a “mission” and a “national assignment,” says Sa’ar.
But you should take those expressions with a grain of salt and a bit of understanding for a politician in trouble. Not long ago, say, just before Likud’s disappointing election performance, Sa’ar knew how to signal, through official spokesmen and temporary volunteers, that his next national mission would be at the Finance Ministry. His current attempt to hold on to the Education Ministry is just damage control, a respite on his way to his next job.
Limor Livnat was education minister for almost five years, from 2001 to 2006. The destruction she left behind created a feeling that she was there for much longer, a kind of lost decade. If at the end of last night it turned out that Sa’ar will continue as education minister, he’s likely to serve longer than Livnat did.
We can hope that in such a case Sa’ar will show a bit less of the magical thinking and lust for power that he enjoyed showing during his term now ending. Chances are this won’t happen. It’s hard to be weaned off such behavior.
Two areas were the focus for Sa’ar and his staff over the past four years: raising achievement levels and strengthening values. Tests, national and international, were made sacred to a level never seen before in an attempt to achieve the first goal. Studies deteriorated to learning based on getting students passed the next exam.
Subjects that were difficult to evaluate quantitatively were neglected and almost abandoned; the threat of measurement held over the heads of principals and teachers blocked every opportunity for pedagogical entrepreneurship, or prevented the creation of trust among educators.
These laws of the jungle are not a heavenly decree or a careless mistake. They stem from direct policy, one that prioritizes management over education, dictation-taking over listening. Piron was until recently the principal of a high school yeshiva in Petah Tikva and the director of the Hakol Hinuch education movement, a nonprofit group seeking to reform the education system.
Based on his previous statements, he believes in reducing the oppressive influence of measurement and evaluation.
The second area where Sa’ar worked tirelessly was to subordinate the education system to his political worldview. Here too there was very little listening.
The right-wing indoctrination flooded every level of the system from nursery schools, where the teachers were asked to teach the national anthem, to high schools, which were judged and incentivized based on the percentage of students who joined the army.
If the meaning of education is marked by dialogue, listening and at exceptional magic moments considering other opinions, then Sa’ar is maybe the most anti-education Education Minister. This should be a good enough reason to transfer the ministry to Yesh Atid, a party that put education at the heart of its platform. But that may not be enough.
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2 Haaretz Monday,
March 11, 2013
Israel going for one million Jews in the West Bank
Despite his disappointing results at the ballot box, Netanyahu has successfully leveraged his negotiating position to create a right-wing government that is outwardly aggressive and inwardly nationalistic.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/israel-going-for-one-million-jews-in-the-west-bank.premium-1.508510
By Aluf Benn
Settlers and their supporters demonstrating in Ulpana in June against the evacuation of several families from their homes. Photo by Emil Salman
The election campaign season comes to its real conclusion this week with the formation of the government and an unadulterated victory for the right. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recovered from the blow he took at the ballot box and managed to extract the maximum out of the coalition negotiations he conducted with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and Habayit Hayehudi head Naftali Bennett. The old fox schooled the political greenhorns.
Netanyahu began the negotiations after a month of futile idling that was meant to weaken his partners’ negotiating positions: the highly publicized tiff with Bennett, the crocodile tears over separating from his Haredi former coalition partners, the offer of the Finance Ministry to Labor Party leader Shelly Yacimovich and the promise of renewed talks with the Palestinians to Hatnuah leader Tzipi Livni. When all the political spin had settled, the dice came out in Netanyahu’s favor: Foreign and defense policy will remain in the hands of Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu, Lapid has been kicked over to the Finance Ministry and Habayit Hayehudi will be a junior coalition partner.
The coalition negotiations were characterized by an excessive preoccupation with minor distractions like the hatred for Sara Netanyahu, the number of ministers in the new government or the production of a Lapid victory photo without Haredim. Substantive topics like foreign or defense policies were pushed aside in the discussions, except for Netanyahu’s weekly warning about the Iranian nuclear threat and the dangerous situation in Syria. Even economic policy was pushed aside to the margins, if it was discussed at all.
Netanyahu cut his rival and partner Lapid down to size. The prime minister presented him as a vacuous politician chasing after respect and ratings, as someone who wanted to be pampered at the Foreign Ministry instead of finding out “where the money” is going in the Finance Ministry, as he frequently asked ahead of the election. At the end of last week Lapid surrendered to the pressure campaign in the media and assumed the troublesome task he had tried to shirk. He also failed in ridding the government of unnecessary ministerial portfolios like “Jerusalem” and “Diaspora Affairs.”
Now the game has ended and real life will begin. The third Netanyahu government has one clear goal: enlarging the settlements and achieving the vision of “a million Jews living in Judea and Samaria.” This magic number will thwart the division of the land and prevent once and for all the establishment of a Palestinian state. The defense, and housing and construction ministries that are relevant to this issue will be given to Likud MK Moshe Ya’alon and Habayit Hayehudi MK Uri Ariel. They won’t be assuming these positions in order to freeze settlement construction, but rather to implement the Levy report which determined that Israel was not legally-speaking an occupying power in the West Bank and the Habayit Hayehudi platform; or in other words, to gradually absorb the West Bank into Israel.
Netanyahu has used the term “the math” to explain the political difficulties that prevented him from being more flexible toward the Palestinians. That was in the previous Knesset term, when moderates like Ehud Barak and Dan Meridor were in senior government positions. In the new government, the math acts with abundant force against a compromise in the territories. The radical right wing is strengthened and united, and those who would claim Netanyahu’s mantle need the settlers’ support and will do everything in order to bribe them and make them happy.
Lapid and Livni are supposed to represent the foreign policy moderates, but they will have a tough time competing to be heard over ministers Ya’alon, Bennett, Gideon Sa’ar, Avigdor Lieberman and Yair Shamir. Lapid will be bought with trifles like the Sharing of the Civic Burden Law so that billions of shekels will continue to flow into the settlements, and Livni is too weak to have much influence.
Netanyahu’s key task will be buying some quiet on the Palestinian issue to permit the expansion of the settlements at the small price of international condemnation. He will continue with the successful ploy from his previous term: threatening an attack on Iran and Syria, which are drawing American attention. Barack Obama is busy with calming the Iranian front and preventing an eruption in and around Syria, and is ignoring Israel’s actions in the territories. This is the deal that Netanyahu will strive to achieve with Obama during their meetings next week in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu has lost his drawing power at the ballot box but leveraged to his benefit the rift in the opposing camp and formed a government that is outwardly aggressive and inwardly nationalistic. He has bound to himself the ambitious Lapid and Bennett, who will make an effort to prove themselves, and left out in the cold the hungry-eyed Haredim who will seek to utilize every crack in the coalition to crawl back into government. And as a final bonus, Netanyahu lowered the expectations of the Likud’s incumbent ministers, who gave up their dreams of an office upgrade and pleaded to be allowed to stay in their old ones. Impressive results in comparison with the disappointing election campaign of the “strong” Prime Minister Netanyahu.