Israeli Arab education has not be equal to that of Israeli Jews, but there have been moves to redress this.

Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development (NISPED),
Israel’s Arab and Jewish citizens won’t merely live side by side but will cooperate fully as equals.
http://www.nisped.org.il/

The Jewish-Arab Center - University of Haifa
http://research.haifa.ac.il/~jew-arab/about.htm

Central Bureau of Statistics
Higher Education in Israel (search 'Arabs')
http://www.cbs.gov.il/webpub/

In 1999 in attempt to close the gap between Arab and Jewish education sectors, the Israeli education minister Yossi Sarid announced an affirmative action policy, promising that Arabs would be granted 25% of the education budget, more than their proportional share in the population (18%). He also added that the ministry would support the creations of an Arab academic college.[
Middle East Contemporary Survey, Volume 23; By Bruce Maddy-Weitzman. p. 329;http://books.google.ca/books?id=zs57d0logH8C&lpg=PA329

In 2007 the Israeli Education Ministry announced a plan to increase funding for schools in Arab communities. According to a ministry official, "At the end of the process, a lot of money will be directed toward schools with students from families with low education and income levels, mainly in the Arab sector."
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israeli-arabs-to-get-greater-school-funding-settlements-less-1.214753

The Education Ministry prepared a five-year plan to close the gaps and raise the number of students eligible for high school matriculation
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3958211,00.html

In 2010, the number of computer science teachers in the Arab sector rose by 50%. The Arab sector also saw a rise of 165% in instructors teaching technology classes and a 171% increase in the number teaching mathematics. The number of physics teachers in Arab schools grew by 25%, those teaching chemistry by 44% and in biology by 81.7%.
http://www.haaretz.com/business/number-of-computer-teachers-at-secular-schools-fell-42-in-decade-1.453704

Israel21 (provides a good overview of Israeli developments including exchange with Arab states)
http://israel21c.org/
Social action (includes articles relating to Israeli Arab/Israeli Jew collaboration. One example below)
http://israel21c.org/social-action-2/
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev launches special program preparing Bedouins to fill a dire need in their community’s schools.
http://israel21c.org/social-action-2/wanted-bedouin-school-psychologists/

Lets go back to 2 Saturdays ago.
Social media and mobile phones had called the clan to action.
Few of us knew, even less it stark truth expected, that afternoons actions.
We had seen so very much worse, aimed at us, even LUNATIC American Church members heckling the family of dead American troops, at their funerals.
So why would any one, truly anyone, from any country, think a stray idiot, Not even American by birth, would represent us? Australians?
Or America, any country?
We see here attempts to blame just about every thing, ten wheely bins full to the top with reasons for such? unreasonable acts.
Good honest and respected posters, just a few, ignore the thread, or complain about it.
Strangled by PC.
Infected by its intrusion on open discussion, of some events.
That man, flogging that burning car, he expressed the real reason for these events.
He flogged on non existent enemy, one who only he can see wrong in.
Yet, SOME see a racism, a hate, in us the people who had nothing to do with the whole sad but descriptive event, education focused on hate will in the end bring only more hate.

csteele, Danielle,

Many thanks for your civil and informative comments. Although they appear to detour from the core focus of this thread, they are of course relevant to issues emanating from the Middle-East.

I notice that neither of you have been berated for deviating from the core issue of this thread (a good thing!) - but then your name isn't "Poirot".

Sorry, Poirot, it's just that you're so good at it :)

And I apologise for not realising that this thread is really all about you.

Back to topic: is it getting too pompous to suggest that what we may be witnessing - not just on one day in Sydney, but across the entire 'Arab Spring' - is a confrontation between Enlightenment and pre-Enlightenment values ?

The Enlightenment wasn't an event, it's been a very long (and very much unfinished) process, perhaps going back to the Agricultural Revolution. Notions of law and rights and equality have been painfully built up, almost layer by layer,bit by bit, over thousands of years, but some societies have not been involved in that process.

And characteristically, those who have not been involved, or who stand to lose from progressive developments, react against any changes in the direction that that unfolding has been taking - a sort of Newton's Fourth Law, that for every progressive step forward, there is something like an equal and opposite step backwards, as the powers in reactionary societies reinforce their domination, and suppress any signs of revolt.

Conservative societies have developed extremely powerful social mechanisms for maintaining existing power structures, 'culture' for example. In a sense, Islam is a sort of ideology par excellence that systematises and strengthens so much that would have been reactionary even back in the seventh century: a sort of blueprint for anti-progressive societies.

So Arab/Muslim societies have, over the past century, had to grapple with the multitude of complexities of nationalism vs re-Islamisation, totalitarian vs democratic pathways. In such a morass of conflicting values and 'solutions', nothing is certain and perhaps no form of government can be expected to last for long without very major challenges. Steps towards something like an Enlightenment are always in danger of being swamped by nationalist-totalitarian, and Islamist-totalitarian, oppositions. It's going to be a messy century.

Just a thought.

Joe

Poirot it may be worth mentioning this.
csteele and I are unlikely to agree the sun will rise in the morning.
He, I execpt it is he, has said he can not talk to me without expressing some views I may find unacceptable, so is avoiding me.
I think that wise, for me too.
I respect you, always, but consider this, other men may pretend to agree with your comments, crawl.
I value my opinions as they are, based on honestly held views.
Women, to their credit, see the human pain in issues such as this.
I see, truly, an impending clash of cultures.
A war true war, world war, based in my view on nothing more than that man flogging the burning car.
Not unfocused hate, targeted bigoted hate.
Transfered from teachers of hate to followers of a God.
That we are asked to bend to, or die.
So while you get upset with me, never forget, it is in the west my right to say what I want to, as it is yours.
And I am too honest to pretend I think other than I do.

As sure as the sun will rise, my fears will be proved right.
We can ignore the extremely silly thing that ignited this thread.
But it is an every day thing in parts of my states city.
Hate schools nestle in enclaves and plans are made.
How very well served this country has been by those who protect us against terrorism.
But not always, not forever.
Look at the hate that saw our troops murdered by those they tried to help.
READ the Koran, truly read it.
See the near enslavement of women in the home country,s and increasingly ours.
Find me one, a single opponent of the views those of us showing concern, show me our verbal combatants concerns for the machine gunned wife.
The girl in India set up by a man of faith, to die for a lie.
Tell me about the suffering and death of the Syrian conflict.
And in time, tell me our concerns are baseless