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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sits with a group of first grade students after attending an opening ceremony of the new school year at a school in Meona, near the border with Lebanon, Sunday. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners September 3, 2006 |
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, accompanied by Education Minister Yuli Tamir, visited the local school in Meona on Sunday morning, where they met with students on the first day of the new school year, one of the few remaining sympathetic Israeli audiences: first graders.
"Education is everything," Olmert told the students in the northern village. "It is security, it is economics, it is culture, and it is what will move us forward."
The prime minister also addressed the war in the North. "The opening of this school year in this area has special significance," he said. "We have had a difficult summer in the North. I look in the eyes of all the children, and I can see you know how to cope."
Olmert expressed to the students his appreciation of "your will, your persistence, your optimism, and your love for the area in which you live."
Olmert also said Sunday that he hoped to eventually reach a peace deal with Lebanon in the wake of the recent fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas there.
"How natural, how understandable it would be for the prime minister of Lebanon to respond to the many calls I have made toward him and say, 'Come on, let's sit, shake hands, make peace and end once and for all the hostility, the jealousy, the hatred that some of my people have toward you,"' Olmert said while touring a school in northern Israel as the school year opened.
"I hope this day comes soon. I yearn for it. I am sure that you yearn for it. I'm sure all of Israeli yearns for it. But until then, we will do everything, thoughtfully, responsibly to handle everything needed to be ready for every opportunity," he said.
Northern Israel was hit by nearly 4,000 Hezbollah rockets during the 34 days of fighting that ended Aug. 14.
Israel has long hoped for a peace treaty with Lebanon, its northern neighbor, but Lebanese officials have been cool to the idea.
Last week, Olmert and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said they hoped that the U.N. brokered cease-fire that ended the fighting last month could be the basis for a long-term peace deal between the two nations.
However, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora quashed those hopes, saying Lebanon "will be the last Arab country that could sign a peace agreement with Israel."
The AP contributed to this report.
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