Far-right lawmaker Zvi Sukkot (Religious Zionism) toured the northern Arab city of Umm al-Fahm on Sunday, hanging an Israeli flag outside one of its schools as the city’s education system went on strike against his controversial visit.

The parents’ committee in Umm al-Fahm decided Saturday night to shut down schools for the entire day during Sukkot’s planned tour, decrying the visit as a political stunt meant to court far-right voters during election season.

With an Israeli flag in hand, the lawmaker stood outside a school in the city — locked and empty of students — and accused the local education system of stoking nationalist violence.

“If you bring declared terror organizations or people who incite terror here, not one shekel from the state’s coffers will go to the places where you incite terror,” he declared.

The visit was nominally an official tour by the Knesset Education Committee, which is chaired by Sukkot, but he arrived in the city unaccompanied by his fellow committee members.

“The question is why did he choose to come to Umm al-Fahm in such a way now, so close to the elections?” Ahmad Yousef Mahajneh, the head of the city’s parents’ committee, told The Times of Israel.

Later during the visit, Sukkot arrived outside the gates of another school while guarded by a large, heavily armed police entourage, as residents and a handful of left-wing Jewish activists protested his presence.

He accused the school of previously having hosted Raed Salah, a firebrand Islamist preacher convicted of incitement, and held up an undated photo of the cleric speaking to students.

Salah, an Umm al-Fahm resident, was jailed for incitement to terror over sermons he gave lauding a terror attack that........

© The Times of Israel