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An
elderly Palestinian man argues with an Israeli soldier to enter
Jerusalem through a checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank
town of Bethlehem |
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Israeli
security forces arrest a Palestinian boy during clashes in the Old
City of Jerusalem near the Lions Gate |
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Palestinian policemen struggle with Palestinian youths as they
start to remove dozens of stone throwers from the Karni border
crossing with Israel to prevent serious clashes with Israeli
soldiers |
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Reports |
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The Myth of
Incitement in Palestinian Textbooks
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By Palestinian
Ministry of Education and Higher Education
Allegations Unfounded
There has been a flood of accusations for several years over the
content of Palestinian textbooks; that the textbooks incite
children to hatred and violence towards Israeli Jews, and fail to
promote the values of peace, tolerance and coexistence. This claim
has been widely accepted as a fact mostly in the United States and
Israeli official circles. Such claims are largely based on reports
by the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP), a Jewish
organization with links to extremist and racist Israeli groups
that advocate settlement activities in the Palestinian
territories, expulsion (transfer) of Palestinians from their
homeland, and claims that Palestinians are all "terrorists" that
peace with them is not possible. Israel's supporters now are
intensifying their orchestrated crusade against Palestinian
education, in preparation for the House International Relations
Committee's planned consideration of the Foreign Relations
Authorization bill, FY 2006-2007.
The issue of Palestinian incitement "is going to be a very big
issue for Congress as we move ahead to the next few years," said
Ester Kurz, legislative strategy and policy director of the
influential pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC), according to Jewish American paper The Forward,
27 May 2005.
Senator Hillary Clinton has continued to criticize Palestinian
textbooks since her first Senate campaign. “All future aid to the
Palestinian Authority must be contingent on strict compliance with
their obligation to change all the textbooks in all grades—not
just two at a time,” she insisted five years ago. Unfortunately,
she fails to realize that leading the campaign against what she
calls "new generation of terrorists" is in itself an act of
incitement to hate and racism. (“Hillary Clinton: Link PA Aid to
End to Antisemitism,” Jerusalem Post 26 September 2000)
A member of the United States Congress wrote to The New York
Times: "According to the Center for Monitoring the Impact of
Peace, today’s sixth-grade Palestinian students are required to
read the textbook 'Our Country Palestine,' which has a banner on
the title page of Volume I that reads, 'There is no alternative to
destroying Israel.'" (Steve Israel, letter to The New York Times,
10 June 2001, Section 4, p. 14). Had Congressman Steve Israel
checked his sources before making his declaration, he would have
found that there is no such banner in the textbook.
However, in their rush to judgment, some American politicians
repeated the allegations without bothering to verify such claims.
Thus, and consequently, victimizing the Palestinian people and
children further. In the words of Alice Rothchild, co-chair of
Visions of Peace with Justice, in a speech given at World
Fellowship Center August, 2001: "The campaign of the CMIP has
created a self-fulfilling prophecy that is devastating to the
peace movement." And she asked: "What does this tell us about our
own stereotypes, racism, power relationships and knee jerk
responses?"
Criticism of Palestinian textbooks has been largely based on
claims by Israeli government sources and CMIP, who's work has been
criticized as "tendentious and highly misleading" by Nathan Brown,
Professor of Political Science at George Washington University,
and Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, who has also published his own studies on this subject.
According to Prof. Brown, CMIP's "method was to follow harsh
criticisms with quotation after quotation purporting to prove a
point…In short, the CMIP reports read as if they were written by a
ruthless prosecuting attorney anxious for a conviction at any
cost… Exaggerated rhetoric, charges of anti-Semitism and racism,
and denial of the significance of existing changes in the
curriculum will hardly convince anyone further improvements are
worth the effort." (Nathan J. Brown, Getting Beyond the Rhetoric
about the Palestinian Curriculum, 1 January 2002)
CMIP's claim that the European Union was funding Palestinian
textbooks with anti-Semitic content infuriated Chris Patten, on
the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, and
External Relations Commissioner. He declared: “It is a total
fabrication that the European Union has funded textbooks with
anti-Semitic arguments within them in Palestinian schools. It is a
complete lie.”
The European Union, responding to the false allegations, issued a
statement on 15 May 2002 which asserted that: "Quotations
attributed by earlier CMIP reports to the Palestinian textbooks
are not found in the new Palestinian Authority schoolbooks funded
by some EU Member States; some were traced to the old Egyptian and
Jordanian text books that they are replacing, some to other books
outside the school curriculum, and others not traced at all. While
many of the quotations attributed to the new textbooks by the most
recent CMIP report of November 2001 could be confirmed, these have
been found to be often badly translated or quoted out of context,
thus suggesting an anti-Jewish incitement that the books do not
contain… Therefore, allegations against the new textbooks funded
by EU members have proven unfounded."
In "A Study of the Impact of the Palestinian Curriculum",
commissioned by the Belgian Technical Co-operation at the end of
2004, and conducted by education experts, Dr. Roger Avenstrup and
Dr Patti Swarts, they found that: "In the light of the debate
stirred by accusations of incitement to hatred and other
criticisms of the Palestinian textbooks, there is no evidence at
all of that happening as a result of the curriculum. What is of
great concern to students, teachers and parents alike is that
although they wish it, students find it difficult to accept peace
and conflict resolution as a solution to the conflict, and
teachers find it difficult to teach, while soldiers and settlers
are shooting in the streets and in schools and checkpoints have to
be braved every day. It would seem that the occupation is the
biggest constraint to the realisation of these values in the
Palestinian curriculum."
In his evaluation of Palestinian Civic Education, Dr. Wolfram
Reiss, University of Rostock, Germany, at the Conference on
"Teaching for Tolerance, Respect and Recognition in Relation with
Religion or Belief," Oslo, 2-5 September 2004, Wrote: "[I]t must
be said first that, in general, the Palestinian textbooks cannot
be considered a “war curriculum”. At least these textbooks of
Civics Education convey visions of society, in which tolerance to
other religions, human rights, peace, pluralism, democracy and
other values are encouraged and fostered much… There is no hatred
or incitement against Israel, the Israeli people or Judaism. The
textbooks do not contain anti-Semitic language."
Dr. Reiss added that "civics education textbooks do not only avoid
hatred and incitement against the West, but foster very much
Western values: democracy, human rights, the individual rights,
the education for peace and tolerance of all religions, the rights
of women and children, the civil society and the protection of
nature… From a Western perspective the civics education textbooks
therefore have to be highly praised indeed."
Finally, the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information
(IPCRI), in their June 2004 report, "Analysis and Evaluation of
the New Palestinian Curriculum" (30 books for Grades 4 and 9),
commissioned by the US Congress and submitted to the Public
Affairs Office of the US Consulate General in Jerusalem, concluded
that: "There is, moreover, no indication of hatred of the Western
Judeo-Christian tradition or the values associated with it," and
that "the textbooks promote an environment of open-mindedness,
rational thinking, modernization, critical reflection and
dialogue."
The report also confirmed that the textbooks "promote civil
activity, commitment, responsibility, solidarity, respecting
others’ feelings, respecting and helping people with disabilities,
and... reinforce students’ understanding of the values of civil
society such as respecting human dignity; religious, social,
cultural, racial, ethnic, and political pluralism; personal,
social and moral responsibility; transparency and accountability."
Palestinians welcome having their own textbooks examined and
scrutinized from an academic, not prosecutorial stand point, but
it is also fair and legitimate to ask those rushing to prosecute
to look at Israeli curricula and compare how each side views the
"other". Incidentally, the United States Congress has an ongoing
program to fund research on Palestinian school books, but is on
record as refusing to pay a dime for research on Israeli school
books. Concern about Palestinian education and curricula, however,
can gain credibility if it is not seen as blatantly one-sided and
totally political.
Israeli Incitement
Those who are critical of what Palestinian children are learning
should try to find out how Israeli children are taught to hate
Arabs, and trained to kill them?
Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, May 7th 2002, published a
letter titled “Dear Soldiers, Please Kill a Lot of Arabs,” that
came from Israeli children who sent such letters to Israeli
soldiers serving in the Tulkarm area during the so-called
“Operation Defensive Shield”. The letters sent by Israeli school
students encouraged soldiers to disregard rules and regulations
and to kill as many Arabs as possible. According to “Yedioth
Ahronoth”, dozens of the letters were sent to soldiers, mostly
from children in the 7th through 10th grades, attending religious
schools.
Egyptian researcher Safa Abdel-Aal studied the Israeli curriculum
and media, and published her findings in a new book entitled
Racist Education in the Israeli Curricula in which she found that
Israel's educational curricula incite the new generation for war,
and racism against the Arabs. Abdel-Aal's book analyses eleven
history and five geography books for elementary school from grades
three to six.
She thought that these books deliberately paint distorted pictures
of the Arabs, giving them such derogatory descriptions as "Arab
thieves" or "embezzlers", and saying they are "bastards, thirsty
for Jewish blood" or that they are "underdeveloped Bedouins" and
"vagrant highway robbers," and "house of Arab reptiles".
Abdel-Aal said that Arabs are maliciously described as murderers
and thieves. In one example she quoted the following from one
Israeli textbook, "despite a harsh climate and strange environment
full of attacks by Arab embezzlers, thieves and terrorists". And
in another citation that refers to the city of Tiberias where "a
feeling of insecurity and fear of the Arab murderers spread among
the residents of the city."
Ruth Firer and Sami Adwan, an Israeli and a Palestinian scholar,
who conducted research comparing Palestinian and Israeli
textbooks, March 2002, wrote that the Israeli books "strongly
emphasizing the collective values connected to the history of the
Jewish nation in 'their land' and God's promises to the Jews that
give them an absolute right on the land. The land of Eretz Israel
described in the books includes the territories of the PNA from
1967."
A study by Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel-Aviv University reviewed 124
Hebrew language books approved for use in 1994 by the Ministry of
Education. The study concludes that "the majority of [Israeli
school] books stereotype Arabs negatively." In one children’s
book, Bar-Tal offers this sampling, "We were lonely… pioneers
surrounded by a sea of enemies and murderers." In elementary
school books, according to Bar-Tal, Arabs are often stereotyped
negatively and portrayed as "uneducated people and enemies."
In a report titled "Israeli Textbooks and Children’s Literature
Promote Racism and Hatred toward Palestinians and Arabs,"
journalist Maureen Meehan concluded that "Israeli school textbooks
as well as children’s storybooks, portray Palestinians and Arabs
as 'murderers,' 'rioters,' 'suspicious', and generally backward
and unproductive. Direct delegitimization and negative
stereotyping of Palestinians and Arabs are the rule rather than
the exception in Israeli schoolbooks." (Washington Report for
Middle East Affairs September 1999)
In a study presented at the hearing of the political committee of
the European Parliament, 24 October 2003, titled "The attitude
towards Palestinians in Israeli textbooks," Dr. Nurit Elhanan, of
the Hebrew University, revealed that "the Palestinians are absent
from all textbooks, The Occupation is never mentioned, and the
area where Palestinians live is presented in the maps either as an
empty space referred to as 'an area without data' (Man and Space
maps) or it is incorporated into the state of Israel (The
Geography of the land of Israel maps). In both cases use of the
term 'occupation' is out of the question, since you cannot occupy
illegally what is yours anyway and you cannot occupy illegally an
empty space."
Dr. Elhanan added: "When reference is made to date in the West
Bank it is only to Jewish colonies or to main cities like Nablus,
Hebron or Beth Lehem as Israeli tourist sites…In Israel today
there is already a second generation of children who don’t know
there are occupation, illegal domination and illegal settlements."
A report by an Israeli research institution, The New Profile,
entitled Child Recruitment in Israel, 29 July 2004, by: Amir Givol,
Neta Rotem, Sergeiy Sandler, reveals the extent of the
militarization of the Israeli education system. It states:
"To begin with, militarised education naturally feeds on the
militarism prevalent in society at large. In a country where
various kinds of weaponry are permanently displayed in public
places and the status of the military is used to promote anything
from cheese to political candidates, militarised education comes
natural. One absorbs militarism at home and on the street. The
military is physically present in schools and school activities.
Soldiers in uniform are stationed in schools, many of them are
actually teaching classes. Other teachers, and especially
principals, are recently retired career officers, without proper
teacher training. High schools normally have a display on one of
the walls in the school building with the names and photographs of
“the fallen” among their graduates. School field trips, at all
ages, are often made to military memorials set up on former
battlegrounds. "Official curricula and textbooks also reflect the
militaristic attitudes inherent in the Israeli educational system,
all the way from kindergarten to the last years of high school,
where there is a mandatory programme for all Jewish state-run
schools called “preparation for the IDF,” that in most cases
includes actual military training. Whole curricular subjects are
often described to the pupils, and in official documents, as
having the aim of preparing pupils, or some of them, to military
service. Glorifications of the military and military conquest, and
negative or skewed representation of Palestinians, are to be found
in many Israeli textbooks."
Education Under Occupation
Roger Avenstrup, who is an international education consultant and
has worked in various countries in conflict and post-conflict
situations, wrote in the International Herald Tribune, December
18, 2004, that the "biggest constraint, in the words of a
Palestinian parent, is that Israeli tanks and soldiers are
shooting in the streets outside while teachers are trying to
promote peace in the classroom."
Since September 2000, according to the Palestinian State
Information Service (SIS), Israel has killed over 4,032
Palestinians, including 750 children; and wounded over 45,000 as
of April 30, 2005. Denial of access to medical facilities at
checkpoints caused the death of 131 civilians. Of a population of
3.5 million, the Israeli occupation still imprisons 8,500
Palestinians, including 350 minors; 69,843 homes were damaged,
7,438 of those were completely destroyed.
Haim Yavin, Israeli Popular TV Anchor since 1968, commenting in
the first segment of a five-part documentary he produced, after
listening to settlers insisting that God gave them the lands,
admitted: "Since 1967, we have been brutal conquerors, occupiers,
suppressing another people…We simply don't view the Palestinians
as human beings." And "At one point, according to AP report "Yavin
shifted the camera toward the Israeli soldiers to ask why they
weren't letting people through. 'I look for danger in these people
and I can't find it,' Yavin said in the film." (Associated Press,
May 31, 2005) Fouad Moughrabi, director of the Qattan Center for
Educational Research and Development, Ramallah, Palestine, wrote,
“I find no evidence of brain washing or anti-Jewish incitement in
the new texts produced by the PA.” He noted that “Israel’s
occupation of Palestinian lands breeds more hatred and mistrust
than any schoolbooks can."
The Convention on the Rights of Child of November 1991, Article 2,
obliges State Parties to “respect and ensure the rights set forth
in the present Convention to each child within their
jurisdiction.” Israel has repeatedly violated these rights and
ignored it obligations. In its 20 November 2004 press release,
Defense for Children International (DCI), appealed "to the
international community and world leaders to abide by their
declared commitment to protect the rights of all children,
including the children of Palestine. We urge them to bring
pressure on the Israeli government, to abide by international law
and end the occupation which is incompatible with any declared
commitment to promoting and protecting the basic human rights of
all."
In the same press release (20 November 2004) DCI reported that:
"Since the start of the second Intifada on 29 September 2000,
Palestinian children have borne the brunt of the upsurge in
Israeli violence. Over the course of the past four years, more
than 660 Palestinian children have been killed and almost 9,000
injured – hundreds of whom have been left with permanent physical
disabilities. Many thousands more are suffering psychological
trauma from the daily horrors they witness. An estimated 3,000
children have been arrested during this Intifada, while currently
there are still 335 children being held in Israeli prisons and
detention centers."
Conclusion
The First Palestinian Curriculum Plan of 1998 stated that the
principles of the Palestinian curriculum are that Palestine is a
democratic state, ruled by a democratic parliamentary system;
Palestine is a peace-loving state, working towards international
understanding and cooperation based on equality, liberty, dignity,
peace and human rights; Palestinian national and cultural identity
must be fostered and developed; social justice, equality and the
provision of equal learning opportunities for all Palestinians, to
the limits of their individual capacity must be ensured without
discrimination on grounds of race, religion, color, or gender;
opportunities must be provided to develop all Palestinians
intellectually, socially, physically, spiritually and emotionally,
to become responsible citizens, able to participate in solving
problems of their community, their country and the world.
Palestinian opposition to Israel must be understood in the context
of their opposition to Israeli occupation and oppression, their
quest for freedom and self-determination, self preservation, and
national liberation. Ruth Firer, of the Hebrew University, who
carried out research on Palestinian textbooks was quoted in
Americans for Peace Now published interview as saying "we were
surprised to find how moderate the anger directed toward Israelis
in the Palestinian textbooks is, compared to the Palestinian
predicament and suffering."
Experience has shown that changes in school textbooks and syllabi
are not at all the necessary ingredients for the fulfillment of a
meaningful peace agreement between states in conflict, but rather
the sincere will and commitment of both parties for achieving such
an agreement. For over fifty years Palestinians have tried
reconciliation and compromise. They declared a state on 22 percent
of their original country for the sake of peace and security,
through the Palestine National Council Conference of 1988 in
Algiers, and accepted all U.N. resolutions regarding the
Palestinian issue.
In 1993 the PLO signed the Oslo Agreement which called for ending
the Israeli occupation and implementing the two-state solution.
The Israelis responded by expanding settlement activities, in
violation of international law and the Oslo Agreements at a
frantic rate, with more violence, more land expropriation and
house demolitions, incitement, demonization, and eventually the
cantonisztion of the Palestinian population in apartheid-like
ghettos. More recently, the (apartheid) Wall, which was condemned
by the International Court of Justice at The Hague and by the
international community, has added to the inciting nature of
measure taken by the Israeli government against the Palestinian
population under occupation.
As long as Israel continues to look for excuses attacking
Palestinian institutions to smoke screen it brutal military
occupation, and to deny the Palestinians' self-determination,
freedom, and human rights, in violation of international law, and
all U.N. resolutions, the conflict will continue. Palestinians
need peace more than any other nation on earth, but peace must be
based on mutual respect and justice for all.
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