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

The minister’s remarks added to the fraught political atmosphere in Israel as it prepares for another election on 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.

Rafael Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi and leader of a right-wing political alliance including the religious Jewish Home party, was appointed minister of education in Israel’s caretaker government barely three weeks ago. He made the comments in a television interview broadcast Saturday on Channel 12’s evening news program.

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

Asked whether he believed it was possible to change people’s sexual orientation, he said in the interview: “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.”