Israeli education chief backs gay conversion therapy

JERUSALEM — Israel’s new education minister has endorsed so-called conversion therapy for gay youths, which has been widely debunked by the medical establishment.

The remarks by Rafael Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi and leader of a right-wing political alliance that includes the religious Jewish Home party, prompted immediate outrage and calls for his dismissal. They also added to the fraught political atmosphere in Israel as it prepares for another election, Sept. 17, just five months after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his conservative Likud party failed to muster the required majority for a coalition government in April’s ballot.

Peretz was appointed minister of education in Israel’s caretaker government three weeks ago. He made the comments in a interview on Channel 12’s evening news program.

He also claimed he had performed this kind of “therapy.”

Asked if he believed it is possible to change people’s sexual orientation, he said: “I think it is possible. I can tell you I have a very deep familiarity with this type of education, and I have also done this.”

He went on to describe how he counseled a student who came to him.

“First I hugged him and uttered very warm words — let’s think, let’s learn, let’s contemplate,” he said.

He added that the objective was for the student “first of all to know himself well,” and then it was up to the student to decide.

Conversion therapy has been widely rejected by medical professionals as potentially dangerous to minors. Both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association have warned against it.

Yair Lapid, a politician from the centrist Blue and White Party, mocked Peretz’s comments and said he should be removed from his post.

“Until Rafi Peretz undergoes conversion therapy for his regressive and wild opinions, he cannot continue to serve as education minister,” Lapid said.

Nitzan Horowitz, the openly gay leader of the left-wing political party Meretz, said Peretz was “not a minister of education, but a minister of darkness.”