PA Education Minister: Israel trying to “assassinate” PA education system

Images and text posted on the Facebook page of PA Minister of Education Sabri Saidam

Posted text: “In the first month of my term in the [PA] Ministry of Education and Higher Education, I had the honor to meet female student Shifa Mlehat during my visit to the Arab Al-Ka’abneh school near Jericho, which was expected to be destroyed due to a new decision of the occupation. This student received me, with the encouragement of the school principal, with an original Bedouin Qasida (i.e., a poem in specific Arabic style of poetry)… I am leaving the Ministry [of Education] and the school is still standing, praise Allah and our people that is standing firm. A few days ago, during a tribute ceremony in my honor in Jericho, Shifa came to bid me farewell with a painful Qasida , the last part of which was the most painful. My message to her and to my female and male colleagues: Life goes on and the resolve in our educational institutions must continue to stand against the occupation’s attempts to assassinate the Palestinian identity by accusing our curricula of incitement and by Israel opposing our educational institutions being named after Martyrs, and to incite the world against us.”

Sabri Saidam also holds the following posts: Fatah Central Committee Deputy Secretary, Fatah Revolutionary Council Deputy Secretary, and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor for communications and information technology.