Manama: An Israeli principal who forwarded an anti-Arab video clip has sparked outrage for sending inflammatory anti-Arab material.
Teachers at Kiryat Sharet High School said they were shocked by the racist insinuations of a video-clip they received via email from the school's principal showing an Arab toddler who nearly drowned after being thrown into a swimming pool.
"It is inconceivable she could be spreading such racist, inciting material without any monitoring," a teacher who received the email a few days ago from Principal Irit Aharonson, said was quoted as saying by Haaretz.
The clip, titled How Arab Kids Learn to Swim, shows a man wearing traditional Arab clothes and speaking in Arabic while pushing a two-year-old boy into a pool.
Another adult grabs the terrified toddler's hand, takes him out of the pool and then throws him back in. The child kicks uselessly and nearly drowns, and is taken out of the pool about a minute later.
According to the education ministry, the distribution of the clip was "a grave error of judgement."
"We expect educators to promote tolerance, not send out harmful and disdainful materials," the ministry said. "It is a disgrace that a principal should be forwarding such videos.
In a survey released two weeks ago, 50 per cent of Jewish teenagers said they believed Arab citizens should not have rights equal with Jews.
Aharonson claimed that she sent the video "in a distracted state" and called the decision a "regrettable mistake."
However, teachers said Aharonson had previously sent out a video clip called What the Media Doesn't Show about Islam, that contained graphic images of atrocities attributed to Muslims. Aharonson said she did not recall sending out that clip, the newspaper said.
