Education

Education

The Palestinians are often accused of teaching their children to hate through the school curriculum. Conversely, the Israeli curriculum is viewed as whiter than white. Both these assumptions are inaccurate.

Myth of incitement in Palestinian textbooks

In “A Study of the Impact of the Palestinian Curriculum,” commissioned by the Belgian Technical Co-operation at the end of 2004, education experts Dr. Roger Avenstrup and Dr. Patti Swarts state:

“In 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.”

http://www.minfo.gov.ps/reports/english/14-06-05.htm

At a September 2004 conference in Oslo on “Teaching for Tolerance, Respect and Recognition in Relation with Religion or Belief,” Dr. Wolfram Reiss, researcher at Germany’s University of Rostock, wrote:

“Palestinian textbooks cannot be considered a ‘war curriculum’…These textbooks…convey visions of society in which tolerance to other religions, human rights, peace, pluralism, democracy and other values are encouraged and fostered…There is no hatred or incitement against Israel, the Israeli people or Judaism. The textbooks do not contain anti-Semitic language.

“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.”

To access the article, click here.

The Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, in its June 2004 report “Analysis and Evaluation of the New Palestinian Curriculum,” commissioned by the US Congress and submitted to the Public Affairs Office of the US Consulate General in Jerusalem, concludes:

“There is…no indication of hatred of the Western Judeo-Christian tradition or the values associated with it…The textbooks promote an environment of open-mindedness, rational thinking, modernization, critical reflection and dialogue.”

http://www.ipcri.org/files/4&9report.pdf

Fouad Moughrabi, director of the Qattan Center for Educational Research and Development, states in his report “The Politics of Palestinian Textbooks,” published in January 2004, that:

“…the new Palestinian school textbooks make a special effort to promote tolerance, openness, and democratic values. But even if all the grades in Palestinian schools carried absolutely exemplary textbooks, and even if all the teachers preached amity and concord, it is doubtful that such values could take hold in the ever deteriorating conditions of recent years. For ultimately, the Israeli occupation, with its daily cruelty and humiliation, is a far more powerful text than any schoolbooks could possible be.”

The General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union stated in May 2002:

“New textbooks…are free of inciteful content…constituting a valuable contribution to the education of young Palestinians.

“Allegations against the new textbooks funded by EU members have proven unfounded.”

Following are excerpts of a report published in March 2002, entitled “Comparing Palestinian and Israeli Textbooks” by Ruth Firer, director of peace education projects at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Sami Adwan, professor of education at Bethlehem University. Their research was supported by the US Institute of Peace and UNESCO:

“The texts teach Palestinian students to respect human rights, justice, peace, equality, freedom, and tolerance, in terms of both self and others. They caution students to avoid extremism and stereotypes, and encourage them to treat all people equally. The books also encourage tolerance among religions and ask students to respect the freedom of religion. The students are taught to protect all religious places as well.

“Palestinian students are warned in the texts about the terrible results of wars and conflict, and are encouraged instead to resort to negotiation and peaceful forms of conflict resolution. They are told that wars only leave people with death and destruction. The texts discuss the Oslo Accords as a step toward peace and as a sign of breaking the enmity and the long period of conflict. Students learn about Gandhi and his form of civil disobedience, and are asked to relate to other stories of peaceful forms of conflict resolution. We found no incitement for the use of violence at all.

“The new Palestinian textbooks define the future independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders as described in UN Resolutions…Students are taught to cooperate and develop good relationships with neighboring states.

“The books portray Jews throughout history in a positive manner and avoid negative stereotypes.”

Nathan J Brown, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, published a report in November 2001 for the Adam Institute entitled “Democracy, History, and the Contest over the Palestinian Curriculum,” in which he states:

“…the Palestinian curriculum is not a war curriculum…it does not incite hatred, violence, and anti-Semitism…the charges against it are often wildly exaggerated or inaccurate.

“…virtually every discussion in English on Palestinian education repeats the charge that Palestinian textbooks incite students against Jews and Israel. It may therefore come as a surprise to readers that the books authored under the PNA [Palestinian National Authority] are largely innocent of these charges. What is more remarkable than any statements they make on the subject is their silence – the PNA-authored books often stubbornly avoid treating anything controversial regarding current Palestinian national identity, forcing them into awkward omissions and gaps.

“…maps…clearly draw Palestinian governorates as covering only the West Bank and Gaza.

“…far from inciting schoolchildren, the books generally treat sensitive political questions as tangential.

“Harsh external critics of the PNA curriculum and textbooks have had to rely on misleading and tendentious reports to support their claim of incitement.

“With the effects of conflict felt on a daily basis, what textbooks and teachers say is probably irrelevant in any case.”

Following are excerpts of a summary by Brown of his research that originally appeared in “Teaching about Terrorism,” a publication of the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education:

“I had heard so much about incitement and anti-Semitism in Palestinian textbooks that I was confused: there was no mention of any location as Palestinian except for those Israel occupied in 1967; no anti-Semitism; only brief and neutral references to Israel; and often awkward attempts to deal with sensitive political issues.

“Exploring the relationship between Palestinians on the one hand and Israel, Zionism, and Jews on the other might logically be seen as central to any attempt to educate Palestinians about their past, their present, and even their geography. Yet educators and officials seemed to wish to avoid the subject, even in internal documents. When I pressed the matter in interviews, the explanation for this reluctance became clear: these questions were enormously sensitive and difficult.

“…the books…did not attack [Israel’s] existence or veer into anti-Semitism.

“Each textbook begins with a foreword describing the West Bank and Gaza as ‘the two parts of the homeland.’

“…the Palestinian curriculum plan approved in 1997 envisions introduction of Hebrew as an elective language for secondary-school students – hardly an expected step for a curriculum premised on destruction of the Jewish state.

“The harsh and tendentious campaign against the schoolbooks has obscured the real and significant improvements. A true peace curriculum will probably have to come after, rather than before, a comprehensive settlement. 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.”

http://www.geocities.com/nathanbrown1/CAJE.htm

Irwin Wall, of the Center for European Studies at New York University, states:

“The Palestinian textbooks…endorse democracy, pluralism, and human rights, along with tolerance and respect for other religions. Women are presented in both traditional and modern roles and equality of gender is explicitly stated to be a goal of society. Diversity of opinion is endorsed along with the existence of multiple political parties characteristic of democracy.”

http://btvshalom.org/factsheet/PalestinianTextbooks.shtml

Israeli textbooks

A July 2004 report by Israeli research institution The New Profile, entitled “Child Recruitment in Israel” by Amir Givol, Neta Rotem and Sergeiy Sandler, states:

“Glorifications of the military and military conquest, and negative or skewed representation of Palestinians, are to be found in many Israeli textbooks.”

In a study presented at the hearing of the political committee of the European Parliament in October 2003, entitled “The attitude towards Palestinians in Israeli textbooks,” Dr. Nurit Elhanan of the Hebrew University reveals 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.

“When reference is made to date in the West Bank it is only to Jewish colonies or to main cities like Nablus, Hebron or Bethlehem 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.”

http://www.minfo.gov.ps/reports/english/14-06-05.htm

“Zionist ideology is the main pillar of the secular books. Accordingly, the sovereign state of Israel is presented as the only answer for the historical Jewish problem and as the only alternative for the Jewish nation.

“The textbooks used in the state religious primary schools are as Zionist as the books designated for secular schools, but in a different way. These texts enhance religious-national education, 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 [Palestinian National Auhtority] from 1967. In addition, stories and poems about religious and national holidays are based on the existential threat posed to Jews and Israelis by the ‘others.’ These stories include wars, loss, and pain caused by the ‘others’ through the generations. Many of the chapters describe ‘the good land,’ sometimes called ‘our birthplace’ or ‘homeland’ (‘moledet’ in Hebrew), and include photos of places that are in the PNA or are in dispute between the two nations (i.e., East Jerusalem). They are presented without the national-political debate, and as naturally belonging to the Israeli state. Such textbooks are used in almost 20% of the Jewish state schools.

“The primary-level textbooks for the ultra-Orthodox community…heavily emphasize God’s promise of the whole of Eretz Israel to the Jews, and include photos from all the places considered to be part of Jewish land. In both kinds of religious textbooks, the ‘others’ are the ‘Goyyim’ (Gentiles), which includes Arabs of all nationalities.

“The Palestinians, as such, are not found in any of the three types of primary-level textbooks. In these readers, the Palestinian minority in Israel and the PNA Palestinians are referred to as Arabs.”

Irwin Wall, of the Center for European Studies at New York University, states:

“In terms of coexistence education, the Ultra-Orthodox schools present the greatest problem. In these schools, Muslims are considered the offspring of Ishmael, and Arab hostility to Jews (Christian or Muslim) is a given, in the sense that ‘Esau hates Jacob.’ The land of Israel is promised to the Jews, including Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza. The modern Zionist return to Israel represents the ‘redemption’ of the land, and Israeli victories in the War of Independence and the Six-Day War are portrayed as a result of Divine favor. Arabs who fled during the War for Independence demonstrated their lack of roots in the country; ‘Palestinians,’ per se, are not mentioned.

“Some problems are shared throughout Israeli education, however. Palestinian cities and towns don’t appear on maps of Zionist settlement in the land of Israel in either Ultra-Orthodox history texts or those used by state schools. Students are left with a distorted impression of the comparative ratio of Jews to Arabs in the land of Israel throughout the history of Zionist settlement.

“No Israeli texts question the basic justice of the Jewish return to Eretz Yisrael.

“The Arab-Israel wars are still all portrayed as having been caused by the Arabs; the refugee problem was created by Arab fears of falling under a Jewish majority and was a regrettable consequence of ‘the war.’

“The territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 war are referred to in accordance with the nationalist views of the present government as Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

“In general the Green Line is not regarded as a political boundary when it is mentioned at all.”

http://btvshalom.org/factsheet/IsraeliTextbooks.shtml