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essay

The Art Of Deceit In Palestinian School Books

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rab elementary-age kids who
gees, Jerusalem, water rights and holy
learn from Palestinian Authority
sites are frontline issues. But thornier may
textbooks discover the “joy” of
well be Palestinian culture, which dele-
becoming radicalized toward achieving
gitimizes Israel and the Jewish national
“martyrdom” — not just toward despis- movement. It’s a government-sanctioned
ing Israel and rejecting its existence, but culture that indoctrinates youth to hate
Israel and, by extension, Jews. Even if such
also toward blowing themselves up if
a vitriolic drumbeat, manifested in P.A.
Israelis can be taken out in the process.
textbooks, music videos, TV shows, sports
How chilling is that?
tournaments and elsewhere, were to
Hauntingly so given the
cease, it would take generations for
Western perception the P.A.
attitudinal change.
is the sole “moderate” stake-
The P.A. governs Palestinian-
holder among Palestinian
controlled areas of the West Bank
leadership factions.
and is seeking to reunite with
Sadly, current P.A. elemen-
Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
tary textbooks are more
Hamas is a terrorist organization
degrading toward Zionism
that cannot change its stripes given
than previous editions,
Robert Sklar
an inherent mandate to destroy
based on findings in a new
Contributing Editor
Israel. Fatah, the P.A.’s lead party,
report by the Institute
boasts its own terrorist wing, the Al
for Monitoring Peace and
Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, although you
Cultural Tolerance in School
could argue P.A. textbooks also sow
Education, popularly dubbed
seeds of terror. Israeli textbooks have been
IMPACT-se.
known to sometimes favorably portray
The newest textbooks push aside tol-
history, but they haven’t been grounded in
erance and peace passages in favor of
the destruction of another people.
calls to reject negotiations and become
IMPACT-se analyzed the P.A. Education
“expendable martyrs” while “demon-
Ministry’s 2016-2017 curriculum for
izing, and denying the existence of, the
grades 1-4 and 11-12. Most compelling
State of Israel,” according to Jerusalem
were lower-grade findings, spanning
Post coverage of the Institute report.
deeply formative years
That core finding is detestable given
for kids.
the baseless P.A. declaration that
Institute CEO Marcus
Palestinian culture isn’t a central issue
Sheff, a former JPost edi-
in the dormant peace process between
tor and a former Israel
the Israelis and Palestinians. Is it any
Defense Forces spokes-
wonder young Palestinians, taught to
man, told the JPost on
feel oppressed by the “Zionist enemy,”
April 3: “There is clear
continue to unleash stabbing, car ram-
evidence of a strategy of
ming and firebombing attacks on Israeli
Marcus Sheff
radicalization of young
soldiers and civilians?
Palestinians, devised
and implemented by the
CULTURAL PROPAGANDA
Ministry, which includes a commitment
Yes, borders, security, settlements, refu-

Contributing Writers:
Ruthan Brodsky, Suzanne Chessler,
Annabel Cohen, Don Cohen, Shari S. Cohen,
Shelli Liebman Dorfman, Adam Finkel,
Stacy Gittleman, Stacy Goldberg, Judy
Greenwald, Ronelle Grier, Esther Allweiss
Ingber, Allison Jacobs, Barbara Lewis, Jennifer
Lovy, Rabbi Jason Miller, Alan Muskovitz,
David Sachs, Karen Schwartz, Robin Schwartz,
Steve Stein

Arthur M. Horwitz
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to an Arab Palestine encompassing the
entirety of Israel.”
A third-grade textbook map depict-
ing the Palestinian-imagined “State of
Palestine,” for example, shows not just
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with
the Arab-dominated eastern sector of
Jerusalem as the capital, but also the
entire State of Israel. The unsettling impli-
cation: “Palestine” would encompass and
thus somehow erase Israel by retaking
what the P.A. considers “Jewish-occupied”
Arab land.
Most damning, according to IMPACT-
se, is the P.A. attitude toward 6- to
10-year-olds, who not only are “considered
expendable” as “martyrs” for Allah via the
murder of Jews, but also are indoctrinated
“to the idea that all of Israel belongs to
Palestine and all Israelis are evil.”

COGENT ANALYSIS

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and
Cultural Tolerance in School Education
is an Israeli research and policy center
that measures how well school textbooks
and curricula comply with standards of
peace and tolerance in education as set by
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The latest IMPACT-se study examined
45 P.A. textbooks and teachers’ guides
under the watch of research direc-
tor Dr. Eldad Pardo. He teaches in the
Department of Middle Eastern Studies at
Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
In the interest of balance, IMPACT-se
identifies textbook positives. It observes
that elementary-age Palestinians are
taught to respect the ideal of national
institutions and authorities. And it relates
that they are taught to not twist Islam the
religion into a radical political tool. (P.A.
leaders, of course, allow, if not encourage,

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President/Publisher: Arthur M. Horwitz
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Joelle Harder
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other mass communicative forms to extol
the virtues of radicalizing religion.)

OVER THE EDGE

Nuggets of textbook reason in elementary
school don’t out-value a P.A. “strategy of
violence and pressure” over direct, bilater-
al negotiating — or a recurrent P.A. theme
that ignores Jewish ties to Eretz Yisrael,
the biblical Land of Israel. That land takes
in the modern Jewish state as well as the
West Bank, which consists of biblical
Judea and Samaria.
The IMPACT-se study also questioned
the approach of P.A. high school texts
toward the root causes of the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. But such a challenge
invariably becomes muddled by the con-
flict’s complexity. For years, the P.A. has
maintained Israeli high school texts have
conveniently downplayed Arab claims to
the disputed areas (the West Bank, the
Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, where
together more than 490,000 school-age
children live).
Still, there’s no denying that Palestinian
Authority textbooks, principally at the
elementary level, fail to meet UNESCO
baselines for peace and tolerance in edu-
cation.
It’s no surprise the United Nations Relief
and Works Agency possesses no over-
sight to demand P.A. textbook changes
despite a United Nations charge to assist
Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the
West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria
on the strength of an internationally sup-
ported $1.2 billion budget.
In the end, Institute for Monitoring
Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School
Education findings reveal a calculated,
cunning attempt by P.A. leadership to cor-
rupt the thinking of its most precious and
vulnerable cohort: its youth. •

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April 27 • 2017

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