Dear Friends,
There are many days when I wish that I hadn’t opened the newspaper. But today’s item takes the cake!!! If there is one organization that is commendable beyond doubt it is the Parents Circle—an organization of bereaved families on both sides of the line: Palestinian and Israeli! But the present government wants all Palestinians to be enemies—as if the pain of loss on the Israeli side is stronger than the pain on the Palestinian side.
He accuses the organization of supporting terrorism! Well if that can be said for the Palestinian side, it also holds for the Israeli side! Not only many Israeli colonists (so-called ‘settlers’—settling someone else’s land) are violent and have caused injury and death, but so also Israel’s soldiers. The difference is that Israeli ‘terrorist’ families don’t have their homes demolished, and almost never does a soldier pay for his crime.
I am so angry!!! You probably sense it from my writing, which this time is not ‘considered’ or ‘gentle’ and far from ‘scholarly’! This is a crime! I suggest that we all write letters to the malicious idiotic Israeli minister of education—Gideon Saar– and tell him what we think of him. The parents that set him to it also deserved to be condemned, but they can only suggest, he (the minister) effects!
Email gsaar@knesset.gov.il
Phone—972 2 560 2222
Fax same as phone, except last digit is 3
Thanks
Dorothy
++++++++++++
Bereaved Families
,No room for comparison.’ Sa’ar Photo: Gil Yohanan
Bereaved Israeli, Palestinian families’ meetings nixed
Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar instructs to halt reconciliation gatherings between relatives of deceased Palestinian terrorists, families of terror victims; claims meetings ‘legitimize terrorism’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4166475,00.html
Tamar Trabelsi-Hadad
Relatives of Palestinian terrorists who were killed in the conflict will not be allowed to participate in gatherings with bereaved families who lost their loved ones in terror attacks, Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced.
The meetings, which are organized by the Parents Circle – Families Forum (PCFF) – an organization that promotes reconciliation between bereaved Palestinians and Israelis – were halted after parents of students in Kfar Saba complained to the Education Ministry.
Several months ago, a group of parents turned to the legal adviser of the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, Attorney Hila Cohen, in demand that the encounters be discontinued.
“Drawing a comparison between bereaved Israeli families and Palestinian families is inconceivable, as such discussions legitimize acts of terrorism,” Cohen wrote in a letter to the Education Ministry.
According to the letter, the Palestinians who participate in these gatherings pay lip service to the victims’ families, while their true goal is to garner support for terrorism.
Following the request, Minister Sa’ar instructed to prohibit terrorists’ families from attending the meetings. “The education system supports messages of peace, conciliation and dialogue, and promotes pluralistic discourse, but there is no room for comparison between terror victims and terrorists,” the minister explained.
Families of Palestinians who weren’t engaged in terrorist activities and were killed in the conflict, will be allowed to keep attending the meetings, he added.
Following the announcement, some schools decided to stop hosting such meetings in protest of the new directive.