THE North's Education Minister has survived a vote of no confidence at Stormont following his controversial trip to Israel.

The DUP’s Paul Givan was heavily criticised after his department promoted his visit to the Ofek School in East Jerusalem on social media. The school is located in an area occupied by Israel and is not recognised as part of Israel by either the UK or Ireland.

Brought by West Belfast People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll, the motion was supported by Sinn Féin, Alliance, the SDLP and independent MLA Claire Sugden. It was opposed by the DUP, Ulster Unionists and the TUV.

Although the majority of MLAs – 47 out of 80 – supported the no confidence motion, it fell as it did not have cross-community support.

Opening what was sometimes a heated debate, Gerry Caroll said Mr Givan's visit was a “propaganda junket funded by the Israeli state”.

“There can be no other way to describe it, hence the huge outcry from a huge number of the public. In this Chamber, a matter of days before the trip, Paul Givan expressed his thanks to the Israeli Defence Forces, as he calls them. I wonder whether that was before he had his ticket booked to Jerusalem.”

Sinn Féin MLA Declan Kearney said Minister Givan had aligned himself with a rogue state by his visit to Israel.

“The participation of the Education Minister in his Israeli state-sponsored propaganda stunt was an obscene act that has caused deep offence. It has also been roundly condemned by teachers, unions, students and all right-thinking people across these islands.”

The DUP’s Michelle McIlveen claimed the school that Mr Givan visited was “an integrated one where Arabs, Christians and Jews are educated together”.

“In response, People Before Profit, Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Alliance Party – a pan-nationalist pile-on – decide that is enough for them and he needs to go. Is it any wonder that this place is ridiculed?”

The SDLP's Matthew O'Toole said: "We are not here solely because of Paul Givan MLA's views on Israel, which I and others in the Chamber find reprehensible and abhorrent. Nor are we are here solely to debate Israel's genocide in Gaza, which has scarred the moral conscience of the entire planet. We are here because of Paul Givan's misuse of office, his shameless compromise of Civil Service impartiality and his flagrant breach of a law that was passed in the Assembly four years ago."

Mr Givan claimed the motion was an attempt to “drive a unionist Minister from office, not for misconduct but simply for daring to dissent from the prevailing anti-Israel orthodoxy of Irish nationalism”.

“We have had a glimpse into a new Ireland. It is not a land flowing with milk and honey but a land where unionists serve only at the pleasure of and on terms of dictated by nationalists and republicans, aided and abetted by the Alliance Party. It is a vision not of equality but of subjugation.”