These matters are within the scope of governmental activity and should be addressed by the national leadership, including Netanyahu.
The situation of the haredim is complicated by subtle if not secret deals in accordance with which ultra-orthodox schools are subsidized by the government in return for parliamentary support by the various religious political parties.
In addition, the succession of Israeli governments, since the days of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, have allocated ample funding to the various rabbinical institutions, especially those in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak.
The ministry of education exerts little if any influence on their curricula or pedagogical methods.
With regard to the latter, most of the learning is by rote and there is little if any emphasis on independent thinking or analysis with regard to social issues.
The most serious defect in the haredi sector is that secular subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and foreign languages simply are not taught. These shortcomings make it difficult if not impossible for graduates of religious schools (known in Hebrew as yeshivot) to enter the scientific professions. Their prospects for gainful income in general are limited to whatever jobs may be available in the ultra-orthodox sector and make them dependent on the rabbinical leadership for the rest of their lives.
Here too there is good reason for the ministry of education to intervene and implement badly-needed and long-overdue reforms. Otherwise, the current situation in which more than 30 per cent of the ultra-orthodox community's males are unemployed and therefore are dependent on indirect government handouts for their survival and that of their families will persist.
This state of affairs is not something that the prime minister simply can mention in the course of a random summation of the economic status quo. It is an unfortunate and lamentable reality with which he and his cabinet most cope. And the sooner the better.
With regard to Israeli Arabs, one cannot but recall the optimism that prevailed during the prelude to the UN General Assembly's historic vote for the partition of Palestine, November 29, 1947, and the concurrent endorsement of Jewish statehood. Ardent Zionists in the United States predicted that once the Jewish state came into being, it would set an example for the rest of the world because of its enlightened and considerate treatment of the minorities within its domain. Regrettably, that has not happened... yet.
In the 1930s, when Jewish statehood was still far from realization, Chaim Weizmann - who was destined to become its first president - was quoted as saying that its democratic nature would be confirmed when an Arab citizen was chosen as its prime minister. That event appears very far off.
