Another One of Naftali Bennett's "Brilliant" Ideas!

ראש החודש השישי תשע״ה

This post was written with help from the ISRAEL: THE JEWISH NATION group on Facebook and Netanel Feingold.

JPost: Arab students will learn Hebrew from kindergarten, Bennett announces

Maariv Online with Lahav Harkov, 08/14/2015

"Improvement of Hebrew among Arab students will result in their ability to more easily integrate into the Israeli workforce, and economy and society at large," he added.

Education Minister and leader of the right-wing religious-Zionist party Bayit Yehudi Naftali Bennett thinks that Arab students in Israel need to learn more Hebrew. Bennett announced that in the coming year, the Education Ministry will be rolling out a program called "Continuous Hebrew" in which Arab students will begin learning Hebrew as a compulsory subject beginning in kindergarten.

The program aims to improve the Arab students' verbal Hebrew language abilities and will run from kindergarten through grade 12 and will cost an additional 30 mill

Bennett said the decision was meant to narrow social gaps in Israel.

"The decision for Hebrew to be taught in kindergartens in the Arab sector was taken with a view to the children's future," Bennett said.

"We believe that the improvement of Hebrew among Arab students will result in their ability to more easily integrate into the Israeli workforce, and economy and society at large," he added.

Education Ministry statistics show that 93 percent of grade 6 Arab students think that knowing Hebrew will help them to succeed in the future. Only 47 percent of the students have exposure to Hebrew outside of school; 26 percent read newspapers in Hebrew, and only 16 percent watch Hebrew television programs.

Study of Arabic from first grade

In May, MK Oren Hazan proposed a bill requiring Israeli pupils to study Arabic from first grade.

The legislation states that schools in all sectors of Israeli society must learn Hebrew and Arabic – Israel’s official languages – from first grade onward.

“Just as it cannot be that Arab citizens complete 12 years of school without knowing Hebrew, the existing situation, in which Jewish citizens complete 12 years of school without knowing Arabic, cannot continue,” Hazan wrote in the bill’s explanatory portion.

The Likud MK pointed out that Arabic is on street signs and used by public institutions and government offices.

Mandatory Arabic classes “will allow students and citizens to understand one another,” he explained. “Knowing the language of the other is the basis for understanding and mutual respect, which are necessary in the current situation in Israel.”

According to Hazan, knowing Arabic will help Jewish Israelis understand Israeli Arabs’ culture and social codes.

“Knowing the language and being able to communicate with different people can increase our sense of security and serve as a bridge between people,” he added.

Esser Agaroth (2¢):

Naftali Bennett working his magic...again!

Seriously? How does Naftali Bennett even come up with this stuff?

How incredibly embarrassing that he is Israel's Minister of Education.

It looks like these Arabs already know Hebrew pretty well.

Arabs vandalize a Jerusalem light rail station in their own neighborhood of Shu'afat.

Hebrew graffiti: "Death to Israel, Death to Jews"

Let me tell Minister of Education Naftali Bennett something. I taught in his the Israeli public school system for eight years.

I wonder how much experience Bennett has in the elementary school classroom.

One of these years I taught in Yaffo, at a school which was two thirds Jewish and one third Arab. It was made very clear that this was a Jewish and Hebrew language school, both by the Ministry of Education, and by the secular, Jewish principle. But, these middle-class Arab students' parents were happy that their kids attended this school anyway,...for integration purposes.

While the upper class Arabs went to private schools, and the lower class Arab kids' parents chose to send their kids to the Arabic language, public school, these middle class Arab students of mine spoke Arabic at home and Hebrew at school and often on the street, most of them without any noticeable accent. They only began to learn how to read and write Arabic in the fourth grade, just like the Jewish kids.

In this school, the Arab kids are already learning Hebrew, starting in the first grade.

If Naftali Bennett is concerned about social gaps, then why doesn't he concern himself with the "Israeli Arab" community internally?

Let me tell Naftali Bennett what happens when middle and upper class, "Israeli Arabs" learn Hebrew.

Iyyad changes his name to Idan, to fit into Israeli society better. Then, in university, or college, or vocational school, he starts dating Rachel. Before Rachel realizes that Idan the Israeli is really Iyyad the "Israeli Arab" Muslim, she is already smitten with him, believing that she is in love.

You won't have to worry about Rachel's Arabic skills, because she is about to get a crash course,...literally!

I wonder how much experience Bennett has teaching Arabs.

As far as MK Hazan and the "social codes" of Israeli Arabs go, just look at the photo above.

Our children do not have to learn Arabic to understand their "social codes." They have to learn more Tana"kh (Bible). It's all there, in the Tana"kh, and in the news. Even the leftist-controlled news media cannot manage to hide all of the truth from us.

The Yishma'elim (Arabs/Muslims) understand physicality; they understand force. And they certainly already understand our social codes quite well, including just how gullible we are, including our Minister of Education.

If Bennett were really a Religious Zionist, and truly right wing, then would be concerned with doing something else to the Arabs, not teaching them Hebrew in the first grade.

He certainly wouldn't be interested in giving some Arabs autonomy and others Israeli citizenship.

The Bennett Plan vs. the Arafat Plan
Can you tell the difference?

Nor would he support any building freezes.

It's all relative, I guess.

Should Jewish Children Learn Arabic?

י״ג לחודש השלישי תשע״ה

Freshman MK Oren Hazan (Likud) seems to think so...

Arutz 7: Bill: Compulsory Arabic Classes from First Grade
MK Oren Hazan (Likud) thinks all Israeli kids should know Arabic – to lessen fear. Support from Left and Right.

Gil Ronen, May 27, 2015

MK Oren Hazan

Freshman MK Oren Hazan (Likud) has sponsored a bill that would make it mandatory for all Israeli schoolchildren to study spoken Arabic, from first to 12th grade.

The trigger for Hazan's decision is apparently the Defense Ministry's announcement that it has frozen plans to offer separate buses for Jews and Arabs in Samaria.

"In our daily reality, with Jews riding the buses in Judea and Samaria and hearing the Palestinians – they are usually afraid,” Hazan said. “With global terrorism and radical Islam on the rise, the lack of knowledge and understanding leads to fear.”

Army Radio reported that the bill has been received with enthusiasm by both Left and Right. MK Meretz's Issawi Frej signed the bill in support, and said: “This bill is a process that I have been accompanying for a year. I can only hope. Everything has a chance, it depends on who's behind it. Since Oren Hazan is a Coalition man and knows how to work and dig – there's a chance that it'll pass.”

Other MKs who signed the bill include Yinon Magal (Jewish Home), Anat Berko (Likud) and Merav Ben Ari (Kulanu).

(Tip: Life In Israel)

Esser Agaroth (2¢):
I'm not against the idea of students learning Arabic in school, nor even for them to learn it for several years, or for it to be a requirement. After all, the more we know Arabic the more the people will be able to hear for themselves just exactly what the Arabs think and feel, with their own ears.

Although, I do believe that pedagogically, the first grade is too young to begin studying Arabic, when students are still making regular mistakes in Hebrew, and in an increasing number of schools, expected to begin studying English as well.

I also do not buy the "to lessen fear" argument. Although most Jews make their way around Yehudah and Shomron (Judea and Samaria) on buses for convenience sake, many do ride the buses or safety reasons. They ride bulletproof buses to protect themselves from the Arabs. So, actually inviting the Arabs to join us on the bus, completely defeats the purpose of the bulletproofing, don't you think?

Furthermore, the kids getting around by tremping (hitchhiking), the Jews who are not afraid of Arabs, have been demonized for not being afraid of Arabs, and for daring to defend themselves from their "neighbors."

Do you really think that the government wants "to lessen [our] fear?"

And speaking of our "neighbors," Jews learning Arabic will also make it easier for Arabs and Jews to get together socially. Even more so, the Arabs connecting with these Arabic-learning Jews would be those non-Hebrew-speaking Arabs, who despise everything about Israel, such as Hebrew being its official language.

Social interaction leads to dating, which leads to a romantic connection. How many more cases of abusive Arab husbands battering their Jewish wives will result from MK Hazan's proposal? And what about the increase in cases of young, Jewish men being seduced into meeting their prospective Arab girlfriends in Ramallah, only to meet with a torturous death?

As one who grew up in the U. S., very close to the Mexican border, and in the bilingual city in denial, San Diego, I know first-hand just how practical it is to learn the language of a neighboring country.

But where do we fit it in? Who's gonna pay for it? How will students cope with learning two foreign languages simultaneously?

And just who do you think will be hired to teach our children? Arabs?

Jerusalem parents of special needs kids have already been expressing concerns over their children being driven to and from school by Arabs from East Jerusalem neighborhoods. "Expressing concerns" is an understatement.

What about the Arab employees caught trying to poison customers at restaurants in Jerusalem and Ramat Gan?

What about the Arab employee who blew up the cafeteria at Hebrew University in 2002?

What about the Arab employee who shot up the Merkaz HaRav Kook Yeshiva High School in 2008?

Will you trust these new, Arab teachers of Arabic? Will they go through background checks? Will that matter? Do you really want to take that chance?

I do not know about you, but this proposal does not lessen my fear of Arabs. It only makes it worse.