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Israeli elementary school sparks outrage with posters comparing Netanyahu to Hitler

Ramat Gan elementary school ordered to remove posters comparing PM-elect to Adolf Hitler, showing noose around Netanyahu’s neck and accusing him of being a traitor.

By World Israel News Staff

An unorthodox educational activity at an elementary school in central Israel sparked controversy this week after posters were hung denigrating Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Sunday night, Ramat Gan Deputy Meir Moshe Revach posted photos to Facebook that had been taken at a local elementary school.

The photographs showed posters placed around the school, each featuring Netanyahu.

One poster shows a noose around Netanyahu’s neck, while another portrays him as Adolf Hitler – complete with a small, square moustache, above a Nazi swastika.

Other posters featured Netanyahu in a Nazi uniform raising his arm in a Hitler salute, with a swastika in the background, or labeling Netanyahu as a “traitor.”

“Many parents contacted me tonight in a state of anxiety after their kids told them what happened today,” Revach wrote. “This is the horror that a lone teacher exposed our children to at a young age, and this fool gets his salary from the Education Ministry.”

The city’s education department and the Education Ministry were informed of the posters. Both condemned the displays and launched an investigation.

“Incitement and abuse against elected officials will not take place in our schools,” Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton (National Unity) said Monday. “We are committed to keeping the democratic discourse respectful in Israel society in general, and specifically in the education system.”

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According to the initial investigation conducted by the education minister, Shasha-Biton said, the posters were hung up by a teacher who intended to use them as part of an educational activity aimed at warning students about the dangers of incitement.

“The conversation on these topics is suitable, but the pedagogical way that was chosen was not necessarily suited to young children in primary school,” the minister’s office said.

The Education Ministry ordered school administrators to remove the posters before students arrived Monday morning and to summon the teacher in question for a hearing.