Enemies of Peace? Arabs Suspend School Principal for Serving in the IDF
Dedicated educator had managed an American-funded Jerusalem school for over a year before his “secret” came out.
East Jerusalem activists found out that the principal of a prestigious school in Beit Hanina had served as an officer in the IDF and suspended him from his post.
Nizar Deka, headmaster of the private K-12 school in Beit Hanina, an Arab-Muslim neighborhood in East Jerusalem, was suspended when a group calling itself the “Parents Committee” discovered that he served as an officer in the Israeli Army.
On the school’s Facebook page a post was published with photos of Deka in an IDF uniform with the caption: “The executive committee at the school held an emergency meeting and decided to freeze the work of the high school principal.”
Deka, a resident of Shafaram, a Christian Arab village in the Galilee, managed the American International School in Beit Hanina for the past year.
About a thousand students study at the school, mainly from the elite of East Jerusalem, but also from the north of the country and children of officials in international organizations. The school is an alternative educational framework to the Israeli education system for the children of emissaries of foreign countries in Israel who do not speak Hebrew. The language spoken at the school is English, and unlike the Arabic-language schools in East Jerusalem, the students there do the American matriculation (86% success rate). The school has engraved on its banner at the entrance to the building, “Peace begins with me.”
Those close to the director claim that an Arab inspector from the Ministry of Education is behind his suspension. According to them, she was the one who passed on the information about the manager’s military service to the group of people in Beit Hanina who acted against him. “She gave the parents the information about the school principal’s military past. The case is an unequivocally nationalist [anti-Israel] case,” they said.
Other sources claimed that in addition to serving in the IDF, the principal was suspended because of a pedagogical failure, or because he is a Druze. Senior officials at the school testified that “this is a principal, a first-class pedagogue. Before that, there were Israeli principals, residents of East Jerusalem and Nazareth. There were also principals from England and the United States, this is not because he is Druze. The school also has Druze students. The problem is that he served in the army.”
Senior security officials who have been concerned for Deka, who serves among East Jerusalem’s volatile residents, likewise insisted that “the problem is that he served in the army.”
Matan Peleg, chairman of Im Tirtzu, a non-profit working to strengthen the values of Zionism in Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, said:
“We demand that the Minister of Education Yifat Shasha Biton immediately revoke the funding of the school. Punishment of Israelis due to their military service is anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli to the core. We also demand that Mayor Moshe Leon announce the closing of the school. There is no place for a fifth column in the State of Israel.”
The group’s name Im Tirzu is taken from Theodor Herzl’s famous quote on Zionism: “If you will it, it is no dream.”
East Jerusalem Muslims and Palestinians are intent on removing any Christian influences from their neighborhoods, schools and institutions. When they discovered that Deka was both a Christian and a high-ranking IDF officer, it was too much.
Israel Today reached out to a number of local Arab believers to try and get their perspective on this firing of a Christian school principal because he served in the army, but none were willing to respond out of fear of retribution from the Muslim activists.
However, the Jerusalem Initiative, a Christian and Jewish organization that works to build bridges between Arabic-speaking Christians in Jerusalem and Israeli society, did respond with this statement:
“We believe that it is inappropriate to disqualify such a talented person because he served in the Israeli Army. He is also a member of a minority in Israel, a Druze, whose actions and contributions in the past and present are opening doors of opportunity for Arabic-speaking Christians and members of other minorities to get to know Israeli society and integrate into this country for those who want and choose to do so.
“To remove such an administrator from his position does serious harm not only to the future of the students, but to the relations and real coexistence between the different population groups in Israel. This way of thinking is racist and outdated.”
No comments:
Post a Comment