Ahead of the new school year, the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality is hanging maps of Israel in classrooms - showing the 1949 Armistice Line, popularly known as the "Green Line," Haaretz reported.
The maps are in contradiction to Education Ministry guidelines, which prohibit such maps from being displayed in classrooms.
According to Ynet, the maps are being hung in accordance with instructions from Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai.
The site quoted the city's municipality as saying that the maps are being hung as part of a "serious and in-depth work process." The municipality also said that during this process, they turned to the Education Ministry and to the Survey of Israel, and requested a map and data, "but these were not provided."
Ynet reported that the creation of the map took two years, "as well as in-depth work which researched every single part and brought reality as it is, without brokers or censors, and allows boys and girls to accurately understand the area."
Haaretz noted that the Education Ministry slammed the Tel Aviv municipality's decision, calling the map "amateur and unprofessional, invented by the Tel Aviv municipality."
According to the Ministry, "The map was not brought for Education Ministry approval, and therefore it is not approved for studies and not even for use as a placard on the walls."
"The only one authorized to create maps of Israel is the Survey of Israel (SOI)," the Ministry added.
"It is important to us that the students be familiar not only with their city and their area of residence, but with the entire country," the municipality said, according to Ynet. "They should know where every town is, how many people live in it, and who the local population are. It's important that they know the borders between us and other countries, as well as the borders of Israeli sovereignty and the complex reality in certain areas."
Gush Etzion Regional Council Head Shlomo Ne’eman responded, "The Mayor of Tel Aviv Ron Huldai is referring to a line which is irrelevant and does not represent the consciousness of the Israeli public. Let's remember that in the last Knesset election Huldai failed on a national level and quit because he did not receive the trust of the general voting public. Now from his perch in Tel Aviv he is trying to manipulate consciousness in regard to the inheritance of our ancestors."
Ne’eman added: "Huldai is right about one thing – there is a great need to apply sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, where hundreds of thousands of Jewish citizens of the State of Israel are treated as second class and any quipster can decide to remove us from the map at any time."
