{"id":404706,"date":"2025-09-07T07:40:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T07:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/404706\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T07:40:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T07:40:14","slug":"israels-government-is-also-at-war-with-the-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/404706\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s government is also at war with the environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The heads of the \u201cHeschel Center for Sustainability\u201d never imagined Education Minister Yoav Kisch would go this far.<\/p>\n

The center, which in many ways serves as the brain and key knowledge hub of Israel\u2019s environmental movement, has specialized for years in running programs and workshops on environmental and climate issues for various sectors of Israeli society.<\/p>\n

Among those sectors, sometimes \u2013 though not often enough \u2013 are journalists. About 20 years ago, I was invited to take part in one such short seminar. Over the course of a single weekend, I was exposed to a whole world of knowledge, dilemmas and challenges that were barely discussed in the education system, the media, or the political arena \u2013 topics such as water, energy, agriculture, waste, food, and health.<\/p>\n

About three years ago, the Heschel Center began running a climate crisis knowledge and training program for senior officials at the Education Ministry, called \u201cTevel.\u201d It aimed to give senior ministry officials from all streams an essential window into a body of knowledge that they, in turn, would help convey to the younger generation.<\/p>\n

The program, which included about 20 hours of study and a multi-day seminar, ran successfully for two years. The ministry\u2019s professional staff approved the content and gave its blessing, and graduates of the first cohorts warmly recommended it. In the upcoming school year, the third cohort was set to launch, with the ministry contributing around NIS 500,000 (about $150,000) toward funding.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGet The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition
\n\t\t\tby email and never miss our top stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n

Then the right-wing Channel 14 entered the fray, threatening to grill Kisch. The charge: funding leftists.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Education Minister Yoav Kisch attends a meeting of the Knesset Education, Culture, and Sports Committee in Jerusalem, May 12, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

To be clear, no one raised any such claim about the program\u2019s content or its facilitators. Rather, someone had dug into the Heschel Center\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9, which includes a wide range of training programs, including the program of in-depth environmental studies.<\/p>\n

Among the program\u2019s alumni over the years were former MKs Dov Khenin, Gaby Lasky, and a few other more or less familiar figures from the political left. The smoking gun: the center\u2019s chairwoman (soon stepping down) is former Blue and White party MK and TV anchor Miki Haimovich.<\/p>\n

That was enough for Channel 14 to demand that the education minister shut the program down. And the worrying part of this story is \u2013 it worked.<\/p>\n

Instead of dismissing the unfounded attack and putting the inciters in their place, a rattled Kisch rushed to announce the freezing of the program\u2019s funding and its re-examination. When this was first reported<\/a> in May by Zman Israel, The Times of Israel\u2019s sister Hebrew website, the Heschel Center believed it best to keep its head down and let the storm pass.<\/p>\n

The hope was that once tempers cooled and the left-hunt moved on to someone else, preparations for the coming school year could resume. But such optimism proved misguided.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Former Blue and White MK Miki Haimovich at the Knesset on May 27, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

Senior ministry officials who took part in the first cohorts, along with the professional staff, urged Kisch to rethink his decision \u2013 but in vain. About two weeks ago, the Education Ministry announced the cancellation of the program and its funding. The announcement was devoid of any substantive reasoning.<\/p>\n

This is a distilled and frightening moment that shows the direction the government and the education minister have chosen for the country. The Heschel Center holds immense, science-based knowledge, with broad, up-to-date thinking about challenges humanity is already facing and will continue to face in the coming decades and the century. The education minister knowingly chose ignorance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe keep complaining that the world boycotts us,\u201d says an Education Ministry source, \u201cbut we are the ones actively excluding ourselves from the family of enlightened nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kisch is not alone. The Tevel program was a joint initiative of the Education Ministry, the Heschel Center, and the Environmental Protection Ministry. The environmental protection minister, Idit Silman, should have dug in her heels and fought to preserve the program \u2013 after all, expanding climate crisis awareness among government ministries is a top priority for her office.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Education Minister Yoav Kisch and Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman arrive at a Likud faction meeting at the Knesset, May 20, 2024 (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

Well, Silman didn\u2019t utter a word. She, too, is dependent on her right-wing voters and needs the support of Channel 14. In those circles, the \u201cclimate crisis\u201d is a punchline.<\/p>\n

Silman knows this, and lately it seems she\u2019s even comfortable with the fact that the Finance Ministry, headed by the far-right Religious Zionism party leader Bezalel Smotrich, is stalling the Climate Law<\/a>, which is slowly rotting away in the basement of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Silman has frozen funding for environmental organizations: NIS 11 million (about $3.25 million) in grants that the Maintenance of Cleanliness Fund \u2013 funds collected from various environment-related fees and fines that are earmarked for environmental protection activities \u2013 had already allocated.<\/p>\n

Silman first excused her decision by citing \u201cbudget constraints\u201d; however, this money doesn\u2019t come from the Environmental Protection Ministry\u2019s budget, and the fund\u2019s coffers are far from empty.<\/p>\n

But lately, it seems, the real reason has been exposed. \u201cArutz 7\u201d, a right-wing news website, reported that it was briefed by \u201csources in the Environmental Protection Ministry\u201d claiming these were funds channeled over the years to\u201cNGOs identified with the political left under the guise of environmental organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From left to right: Samaria Regional Council Head Yossi Dagan, Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu at the archaeological site of Sebastia in the West Bank on May 12, 2025. (Courtesy of Heritage Ministry)<\/p>\n

Those anonymous ministry sources further stressed that \u201cat last, there is a hand supervising and monitoring. For years, money flowed to extremist left-wing NGOs without sufficient transparency\u2026 Silman has put an end to the cynical misuse of state funds, stopping 11 million shekels that would have been wasted on political NGOs disguised as green.\u201d<\/p>\n

The matter has now landed before the High Court of Justice, following a petition from the organizations. But as far as Silman is concerned, she wins either way: If the court forces her to release the funds, she can claim it\u2019s because of leftist judges and still score points with her base.<\/p>\n

The painting of environmental issues in overtly political colors and the submission to the base\u2019s contempt for anything \u201cgreen\u201d only intensify as primaries and elections draw nearer.<\/p>\n

As time goes on, Silman scatters more promises aimed at settler ears. At a settlement solidarity event in Binyamin last week, she told an Arutz 7 reporter of her plan to initiate \u201cenvironmental sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same event, she took another swipe at the greens and those protesting against the government in calls to agree a deal to end the war and free all hostages held by Hamas: \u201cThose people demonstrating today about hostages,\u201d she said, \u201care the same people who spoke to me about climate, and today they\u2019re burning tires in the streets with their MKs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Waste burned in Nazareth, Israel. May 2025 (Photo courtesy of \u201cCitizens for Clean Air\u201d)<\/p>\n

Silman has also recently promised to tackle the severe problem of waste-burning in the West Bank. It is indeed a serious hazard \u2013 but such fires also occur on the Israeli side of the Green Line, and Silman and her government have utterly failed to address them.<\/p>\n

According to the Environmental Emissions Inventory report<\/a> her own ministry published last week, 75% of carcinogenic substances in Israel are released into the air from illegal waste-burning \u2013 and that\u2019s without even counting the fires in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

While government ministers are busy targeting and smearing environmentalists, the environment itself \u2013 the very thing they are charged with protecting \u2013 is steadily deteriorating, already approaching third-world standards.<\/p>\n

The detailed report published last week by the Environmental Protection Ministry reveals that the ongoing war, which began on 7 October 2023, has caused massive damage to the environment and to public health in a range of areas \u2013 including the widespread forest fires sparked by Hezbollah rockets in the north.<\/p>\n

The report does not list the damage caused by another war: the one the government has declared on the environmental movement.<\/p>\n

Translated and edited from the original article<\/a> on Times of Israel\u2019s Hebrew site Zman Yisrael.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The heads of the \u201cHeschel Center for Sustainability\u201d never imagined Education Minister Yoav Kisch would go this far.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-404706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115161886039527173","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}