Grant from page 28

grant entrepreneurs bring to the region
advance Michigan's competitiveness in
both the domestic and global market-
place, while diversifying industry and
spurring innovation. This initiative
aligns with the governor's efforts to
engage skilled, talented people to re-
invent Michigan."

The Backdrop
The Ethnic and Minority Media
Partnership is a key component of New
Michigan Media, a network of more
than 140 ethnic and minority media
outlets across Michigan assembled in
2006 by Detroit-based Wayne State
University Communications Professor
Hayg Oshagan.
The publishers of the Ethnic and
Minority Media Partnership serve
as New Michigan Media's executive
board. The concept for the partner-
ship gained traction within the past
year through the efforts of the New
Economy Initiative-funded Global
Detroit project spearheaded by former
state House of Representatives leader
Steve Tobocman.
"New Michigan Media is committed
to building bridges among success-
ful ethnic, minority and immigrant
communities with the intention of
creating new opportunities and greater
visibility," Oshagan said at the press
conference.
"Our collaboration with Issue
Media Group will enable us to grow
awareness of ethnic, minority and
immigrant successes in the region
and begin to change the narrative
about Southeast Michigan on the local,
national and international level."

A National Paradigm?
Dr. Oshagan's data shows that aside
from their digital audiences, the five
media outlets comprising the Ethnic
and Minority Media Partnership have
more circulation combined than the
Detroit News and, with pass along
readership, reach more than 400,000
adults in Southeast Michigan.
The uniqueness of the Ethnic and
Minority Media Partnership model
is already generating inquiries from
foundations in other American cities
that are determining how it can be
replicated.
But what Oshagan's data doesn't
show is how he helped plant the seeds
necessary for developing and imple-
menting the partnership and earning
the grant ... growing trust and respect
among the African American, Jewish,
Latino, Arab American and Korean
publishers.
And that will be hard for any other
city or region to replicate. I1

Contributing Editor

UNRWA Schools* •
The Real Story

A

credentialed speaker at the
2011 J Street convention in
Washington said the curricu-
lum used to instruct Palestinian kids
in schools run by the United Nations
Relief and Works
Agency is dif-
ferent and more
Western than
the teaching
materials in non-
UNRWA schools
run by Hamas.
Ambassador
Jean-Daniel
Ruch's pre-
sentation at a
session at the
March convention was a revelation.
Unfortunately, it was baseless. The
Winnipeg Jewish Review took extra
steps to prove that.
Ruch is the special representative
of Switzerland to the Middle East. His
government recognizes Hamas and
believes it should be invited into the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process (how-
ever stagnant that process is).
He understands Hamas has social
and political agendas that infuse

Dry Bones

Gazans "with the feeling of injus-
tice, anger or revenge" — instruction
fraught with brainwashing. But he is
either brainwashed himself or serving
up a clearly misleading claim. Consider
this doozy in his convention remarks:
"Thank God you still have half the chil-
dren who are being taught in UNRWA
schools, where the curriculum is
much more like a Western curriculum,
including teachings on the Holocaust."
Last year, the Winnipeg Jewish
Review approached UNRWA, which
stated that its Palestinian refugee
schools in the Gaza Strip and the
West Bank have no Holocaust cur-
riculum and no plans to introduce one.
UNRWA did acknowledge its "enriched
curriculum" includes "courses on
human rights and peaceful conflict
resolution." The courses introduce
the 1948 Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, which references the
Holocaust as an event that "gave
impetus to the progressive develop-
ment of the human rights obligations
in international law."
Reality is a far cry from Ruch's
statement that there are "teach-
ings on the Holocaust" in Hamas-
ruled Gaza. The
Hamas Charter, of
course, calls for
Israel's destruction,
hardly reflective of
the UNRWA ideal of
"peaceful conflict
resolution."

insightful Look

The Winnipeg Jewish
Review, led by Editor
Rhonda Spivak,
affirmed that UNRWA
schools in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip
follow the curriculum
and use the texts
of the Palestinian
Authority, the host
authority. The P.A. has
never sought to high-
light the Holocaust as
a seminal event in the
annals of history.
The newspaper
dismissed Ruch's
suggestion that the
curriculum in UNRWA
schools is Western-

like. It pointed to
the 2011 Institute
for Monitoring
Peace and Culture
Tolerance in School
Education report
showing that P.A.
texts taught in
Rhonda Spivak
UNRWA schools,
just as the texts
in other schools in the Gaza Strip
and West Bank, generally don't even
acknowledge Israel's right to exist.
The report reveals many references
in Palestinian texts to demonizing
Israelis and Jews. Maps in the texts
don't typically show Israel, but rather
a Palestine encompassing Israel.
If J Street is going to fashion itself
as a credible source of Middle East
advances, it must know the truth
about what's taught in UNRWA schools
in the Gaza Strip and West Bank — and
about the ongoing indoctrination of
Palestinian kids for at least the next
generation.

The Bedein Effect

Meanwhile, Israeli investigative journal-
ist David Bedein, a Michigan native,
affirms that UNRWA allocates fund-
ing for classroom education that
indoctrinates terrorism and Israel's
erasure. UNRWA's primary funders, the
European Union and the U.S., should be
outraged, not still be providing support.
Bedein will take
a broader look at
the myth behind
UNRWA when he
speaks in Metro
Detroit on Tuesday,
June 21, at Temple
Israel as a guest
of
StandWithUs-
David Bedein
Michigan, an Israel
education and
advocacy organization. He's Jerusalem
bureau chief of the Israel Resource
News Agency and director of the
Center for Near East Policy Research.
Attendees also will view For the Sake
of Nakba, a documentary filmed last
year in UNRWA refugee camps and
commissioned in part by the Center
for Near East Policy Research.
UNRWA emerged following Israeli
statehood in 1948, but perpetuated
the problem of Palestinian refugees
and their descendants rather than
striving to resettle them. It adopted
the egregious line of Palestinian lead-
ers, who welcomed global sympathy in
its quest to discredit Zionism.
"UNRWA policy, in coordination with
the P.A., mandates that descendants
of Palestinian Arab refugees from

D► yBonesBlog.coni

UNRWA Schools on page 30

JI4

June 16 2011

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