New Palestinian school books omit Israel

Reuters, November 24, 2001

A new range of textbooks used in Canadian-funded Palestinian schools has failed to fulfill promises to the international community to modify Palestinian hostility to the Jewish presence in Israel and promote peace in education.

According to 58 new textbooks and two teachers' guides for grades 1, 2, 6, 7 and 11 published in the past two years by the Palestinian Authority, Israel does not exist -- nor does the concept of peace, a U.S. study has found.

Children are encouraged from the earliest school age to hate Israelis, glorify "martyrs" and seek the "liberation" of all of Palestine, including Israel.

The analysis of the textbooks, published this week, was carried out by the New York-based Center for Monitoring Impact of Peace (CMIP), a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging a climate of tolerance and mutual respect between peoples and nations.
The study reveals the Palestinian Authority (PA) has removed some anti-Semitic stereotypes that were featured prominently in Jordanian and Egyptian textbooks previously used in the West Bank and Gaza, but no positive or even neutral images of Jews and Israelis have been introduced.

"The PA curriculum does not teach the acceptance of Israel's existence and instead of working to erase hateful stereotypes, it is instilling them into the next generation's consciousness," said Yohanan Manor, CMIP's vice-chairman.

When presented with the report's main findings, a spokes- man for the Palestinian Education Ministry, which published the textbooks, refused to comment. "I have nothing to say about this," he said.

The new textbooks are being used throughout the Palestinian-controlled areas in the West Bank and Gaza in 1,300 schools administered by the Palestinian Authority and 261 run by the United Nations Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA).

Since 1993, Canada has contributed $165-million in direct aid to Palestinian development programs, including education, plus a further $10-million annually to UNRWA.
An additional grant of $5-million, announced in May by John Manley, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is about to be distributed through the World Bank to a series of projects, including new schools and libraries.

The offensive textbook material has been included despite commitments made by the Palestinian Authority in the May, 1994, Cairo Agreement, where both parties undertook to "ensure that their educational systems contribute to the peace between Israel and the Palestinian people."

"Incitement in Palestinian media and schools betrays any interest in peace and must come to an end if Palestinians are to be credible as partners for peace-making," Dennis Ross, a former U.S. Middle East envoy, wrote this week.

While there is recognition in the Palestinian textbooks of a sovereign Jewish state under King David in ancient times, the modern state of Israel is never shown.
Every map in every subject -- from Grade 2 math to Grade 7 geography -- marks the entire area of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza as Palestine and fails to show any modern Israeli cities such as Tel Aviv or Hadera.
The Oslo peace process, which brought the Palestinian Authority into existence, is hardly mentioned and nowhere is the idea of peace with Israel promoted.

A similar report by CMIP a year ago on 360 textbooks used in Israeli schools found dozens of examples where Israeli children were being taught to recognize Palestinian claims and problems and where an effort was made "to prepare the younger generation for openness and peace.

"Islam, the Arab culture and the Arabs' contribution to human civilization are presented in a positive light," the report on Israeli textbooks found.
"No book calls for violence or war. Many books express the yearning for peace between Israel and the Arab countries."

Mr. Manor said CMIP did find some isolated examples of "prejudice, patronizing expressions and disrespect to Arabs" in books used in ultra-orthodox Israeli schools and the organization raised objections with representatives of those educational systems.

But the Palestinian textbooks are replete with images of violence and hatred in all contexts, reinforcing negative views of Israelis even in subjects far removed from history or politics, the new study found.

A Grade 2 language textbook prompts young children to describe a series of brightly coloured pictures in which Israelis uproot trees, expel Palestinians and destroy their houses. A Grade 1 science book illustrates a magnifying glass by enlarging a text which reads "Palestine is Arab."

Mr. Manor expressed particular concern at the representation of Jews and the Hebrew language and their connection to the Holy Land.
Jewish immigration to Palestine since the 16th century is described in negative terms as "infiltration" and Hebrew is referred to as a dialect rather than a language.
A Grade 7 "national education" textbook lists Christian and Muslim holy places in Palestine but no Jewish ones.

The same book refers to "the attempt to Judaize some of the Muslim religious places" such as the Western Wall in Jerusalem and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron -- both were built by the Jewish King Herod.

A population table for Palestine in a Grade 6 National Education textbook lists 1.9 million people on the West Bank, 1.1 million in Gaza, 1.1 million "Palestinians of the Interior" (i.e. Israeli Arabs) and 4.4 million "Palestinians of the Diaspora." The five million Jews living in Israel are not mentioned at all.

The following excerpts show that the PA school system does not envision a Palestinian state living peacefully side-by-side with Israel, but actually replacing Israel:

"In the case of our country, Palestine, this interaction [between the inhabitants' efforts and the available resources] faces challenges of which the most important ones are: the establishment of the independent Palestinian state on our entire national soil."
(The Palestinian Society - Demographic Education, Grade 11, p. 134)

"There is no (relinquishment) of our right in Palestine."
(Language exercise, Our Beautiful Language, Grade 6, pt. 1, p. 27)

"I thought it advisable to return to my book in order to reassemble it anew and present it to the sons of Arabdom in general and to the sons of Palestine in particular, so that they will remember their usurped homeland and work for its rescue."
(From the preface of Mustafa Murad al-Dabbagh's book "Our country, Palestine" as quoted in: Our Beautiful Language, Grade 6, pt. 1, p. 112)

"The Jewish claim to historical rights to Palestine has no justification, it is a deceitful and disproved claim with no parallel in history, it is a blatant lie...
they [the Arabs] have resided in it [Palestine] since the dawn of the land's history, before there were Jews in the world ...
The Jews entered our homeland and left it just as other transient nations have entered and left it ...
The Arabs, and not the Jews, are those who have the connection [to the land]. The return of the Jews to Palestine and permitting them to establish a Jewish State contradicts history"
(Introduction to the "Our Country, Palestine" encyclopedia)

"There is no alternative to destroying Israel" (ibid., p. 13).

"The Achievements of the Palestinian Liberation Organization [include] the establishment of the independent Palestinian entity on the Palestinian lands that would be liberated."
(National Education, Grade 6, 2000, p. 23)

"The demographic problem has occupied a central place in the Arab-Israeli conflict during the last two decades. From the Palestinian point of view it has become the numerical challenge that will enable the Palestinian people during the coming two decades to stand against the Zionist settlement expansion and overcome it. From the Israeli point of view the demographic problem has become the danger hidden in the rates of natural increase among Palestinian families, which threatens in the foreseeable future the existence of a Jewish majority population...
Therefore, the increase of fertility rates is a demographic weapon that can be used in resisting the occupation. It plays a positive role in winning the Arab-Israeli conflict...
The net migration of the Palestinians from 1948 until 1992 was always negative, in the sense that the number of emigrants from Palestine was much greater than the number of those who entered it. The net migration became positive in 1992..."
(The Palestinian Society - Demographic Education, Grade 11, p. 29, 36)