Palestinian Textbooks - Update


The Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI) has recently made public a March 2003 report on Palestinian textbooks. IPCRI is currently preparing a similar study on Israeli textbooks.

The report on Palestinian textbooks, entitled "Analysis and Evaluation of the New Palestinian Curriculum: Reviewing Palestinian Textbooks and Tolerance Education Program" was commissioned by the US Congress. The report debunks many of the mythologies that have circulated in the US and Israel regarding the alleged use Palestinian textbooks to incite hatred. A full text of the report can be found on the IPCRI website (www.ipcri.org). The report, together with other information on Palestinian textbooks, including Professor Nathan Brown's study of last year which similarly concluded the Palestinian textbooks do not incite hatred, can also be found on the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department website (www.nad-plo.org) click on the "Palestinian Textbooks" icon at right of home page.

Excerpts from the IPCRI Report:

"The overall orientation of the curriculum is peaceful despite the harsh and violent realities on the ground. It does not openly incite against Israel and the Jews. It does not openly incite hatred and violence. Religious and political tolerance is emphasized in a good number of textbooks and in multiple contexts." (p. 5)

". . . the curriculum focuses on showing and providing evidence of the relevance and importance of democracy, human rights, pluralism, tolerance, and peace in students' lives." (p. 15)

". . . the future Palestinian State is described as a democratic, peace-loving country that acknowledges the legitimate rights of all peoples in the region to self-determination and aspires to a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict." (p. 16)

"The concepts and principles of human rights, the justice system, diversity and respect of others, mutual respect and understanding, the role of central and local government, the legislative council, elections, voluntary work, fair resolution and fair competition, all figure prominently in the new Palestinian textbooks." (p. 29-30)

". . .there is no evidence of the "misuse of history" in the Palestinian curriculum. . . No attempts are made to falsify or create false evidence, to doctor statistics or to fake images. The past is in no way distorted for the purpose of propoganda, nor is an excessively nationalist version of it given. In general, history as it is presented in the Palestinian history textbooks is compatible with the fundamental values and statutes of the UN." (p. 48)

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“Analysis of the Palestinian Textbook Controversy"
a talk given by Alice Rothchild, co-chair Visions of Peace w/ Justice,
at World Fellowship Center August, 2001

Recently there has been a major controversy over the content of Palestinian textbooks, with the accusation that the textbooks incite children to hatred and violence towards Israeli Jews, and do not promote the values of peace and coexistence. In examining this question, it is also fair to look at Israeli curricula as the question of how each party views “the other” is legitimate and important. It is obviously true that what is “in” textbooks is not necessarily what is taught, that what is “taught” is not necessarily learned, and that there are major outside influences that shape a child’s perceptions. Additionally, the “facts” of history are shaped by their context in the relationships of power and cultural forces that are being described. As the Palestinian educator Moughrabi stated, ”History through the eyes of victims is different than history through the eyes of the conqueror.”

The accusations regarding textbooks surfaced in November and December, 2000 when an American lobby called Jews for Truth Now printed inflammatory advertisements in Israeli and US newspapers and on their website featuring the quote, “There is no alternative to destroying Israel.” This group gave as its source the encyclopedia, “Our Country Palestine,” and described this as a textbook for 11-year-old students. The lobby linked the Intifada to “anti-Semitic indoctrination” of children and asked the UN to set up an international commission to investigate racist teaching in Palestinian schools that called for genocide against Jews.

President Clinton speaking at the Israel Policy Forum in NY called on Palestinians to change the culture of violence. “ Young (Palestinian) children are being educated to believe in confrontation with Israel.” This charge was repeated in US and European policy circles and in the larger Jewish community.

In July, 2001, Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton held a press conference to denounce Palestinian incitement to violence and stated, “Yasser Arafat instructs the young people of Palestine to hate the Jews in a way not unlike what the Germans did in the 1930s…” As evidence for this they pointed to a sixth grade textbook, “Our Country Palestine,” put out by the Palestinian Authority and required reading in the new Palestinian sixth grade curriculum in all schools.

In this heavily charged arena, it is important to investigate the events and material leading to this controversy. Palestinians first assumed control of their educational system in 1994, following the Oslo Accords. Before 1994, Jordanian textbooks were used in the West Bank and Egyptian textbooks in Gaza. These books were old, often anti- Zionist and reflected both their age and their source. Nonetheless, the textbooks were censored by the Israelis such that the word “Palestine” was removed, maps were deleted, and anything “nationalistic” removed. No investment was made in this educational system for thirty years, and it was obviously in serious decline.

In 1994, the first curriculum center was established by Palestinians with an agreement with UNESCO and the Ministry of Education. Palestinian researchers began an in depth analysis of curriculum, goals, principles, etc. They began asking the difficult questions such as: “What Palestine do we teach? How do we view Israel? etc.” Several principles emerged which included a focus on democratic values such as justice, personal responsibility, tolerance, empathy, pluralism, cooperation, and respect for others. The texts tended to avoid unresolved political issues such as maps of Israel or Palestine which require clear borders. As expected, the history was written from the viewpoint of Palestinians, so the narrative was one of natives in conflict with a settler colonial movement. Israel was referred to as an occupier, because that has been the experience of those writing the texts. The educators agreed that this is a work in progress. “Palestinian scholars and historians need to engage in critical self-reflection and historical revisionism in order to produce a more accurate history of their society.”

In 1998 work was begun on the first textbooks for grades 1 through 6, funded by a donation from Italy and administered by the World Bank. In September 2000, the first new books reached the schools in a gradual rollout program.

So what is the source for the very serious allegations made by Jews for Truth Now? A Jewish American NGO, the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, whose research director, Itamar Marcus, is an extreme right wing settler living in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, stated that since the PA became responsible for education it has portrayed Israel as an evil colonialist enemy who has stolen the land from the Palestinians. The NGO cited the textbook, “ Our Country Palestine,” originally written in 1947, and reported that this is currently mandatory for sixth grade school children. The CMIP report was the result of a research project with the Truman Institute of Hebrew University and relied on analysis of the content of Arabic textbooks. In 1998, CMIP presented its findings to a gathering of US congressmen and administrators and demanded that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright make UNESCO and the World Bank stop funding publications and textbooks by the PA.

Interestingly enough, critics claimed that the press conference was filled with misinformation and in fact that the encyclopedia, “Our Country Palestine,” was written in 1947, is currently out of print, and does not contain the alleged quotes. Palestinian Ministry of Education officials pointed out that the book was written before the state of Israel was founded, although CMIP claimed the book was revised in 1965. Hanan Ashrawi confirmed that the offensive language was not in the original book or in currect schoolbooks. One conjecture as to the source of the confusion lies in the fact that there is an encyclopedia called “Our Country Palestine” by Mustafa Dabbagh, written in 1949 and reissued in 1988. Dabbagh’s life is discussed in a PA textbook called, “Our Beautiful Language.” Nonetheless, the offensive quotes do not appear in the original encyclopedia, it is out of print, and not currently available on the West Bank or Gaza. More broadly, CMIP countered with the criticism that the textbooks delegitimized Israel by explaining history from the eyes of non-Zionists and omitted maps that clearly show the borders of Israel or discuss the importance of the Oslo Accords. Palestinians argued that Israel’s borders are still not defined and that Oslo has been an exercise in “deceit and frustration” and does not deserve significant discussion.

Looking to other sources, Deborah Sontag of the “New York Times” visited a class in Ramallah and did not find evidence for anti-Semitic teaching. Fouad Moughrabi wrote, “As a father who closely monitors what his son learns at school and as a Palestinian American academic trying to establish an educational research and development center in Ramallah whose primary objective is to help improve the quality of Palestinian schools, I find no evidence of brain washing or anti-Jewish incitement in the new texts produced by the PA.” Other Israelis have examined the PA textbooks and have not confirmed the CMIP findings. Dr Ruth Firer, leader of a research team from the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace stated, “(the new books are) freer of negative stereotypes of Jews and Israelis, compared to Jordanian and Syrian books.” Dr. Sami Aswan, co-researcher with Firer at Bethlehem University, analyzed the new Palestinian textbooks for grades 1 through 6 and found that the new books contained no negative stereotypes of Jews. He noted that the texts attemped to build a Palestinian national identity with a focus on history, culture, heritage, and origins. Indeed, Palestinians were portrayed as historic victims of colonial and Zionist assaults, with descriptions of uprooting, dispossession, land confiscation, massacres, and forced exile.

Moughrabi noted, “Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands breeds more hatred and mistrust than any schoolbooks can. “ Echoing these sentiments, Dr. Sami wrote, “How can a Palestinian write in a textbook that Israel or Jews should be loved while what he is experiencing is death, land expropriation, demolition of homes, and daily degradation? What children learn on the street, on TV, and on the net has a far greater impact than any book.”

As painful as this collision in historical perception and perspective feels, it is only fair to examine attitudes in the Israeli curriculum as well. Jews in general and Israelis in particular pride themselves in the strength and open-mindedness of their educational system, in the tradition of European and American institutions. It is nonetheless appropriate, as Americans have done with regard to institutional and cultural attitudes towards Native Americans, Afro-Americans, etc., to explore Jewish Israeli attitudes towards Arabs. Not surprisingly, the present debate clearly needs to be understood in the context of a major divide in perception and historical experience.

Firer reports that “until the 1960’s, Israeli textbooks were nothing but instruments of Zionist propaganda, full of racist clichés towards goyim and even towards oriental Jews, in addition they totally failed to take into account the existence of a Palestinian people.” A number of studies by Israelis examining Israeli textbooks and storybooks in the 1970’s to 1990’s found descriptions of Arabs using language such as “primitive, hostile to Jews, violent, easily incited, inferior, fatalistic, apathetic, tribal, divided, exotic, sick, poor, dirty, noisy , and ungrateful.” For many Israelis, their only other contact with Palestinians was in the military as “the enemy” or as service workers and day laborers. Firer did an in depth analysis of 54 Israeli history textbooks, 23 civics books, and 5 peace manuals. Not surprisingly, she found a predominant emphasis on the historical and political rights of Jews in Israel as the historical priority. She reported all the textbooks presented Israelis as peace loving and Arabs as terrorists. She found maps of Israel extending from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River with the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza as undisputed Israeli territory.

According to a recent article in “Reuters,” Professor Daniel Bar-Tal from Tel Aviv University reviewed 124 elementary through high school textbooks and found that the Jews were portrayed as participating in a justified and humanitarian struggle against an Arab enemy that does not acknowledge the rights of Jews to exist in a State of Israel. He also noted blatant stereotyping of Arabs, while Jews were described as industrious and brave. Other studies have found similar negative portrayals of Arabs in children’s Hebrew literature.

Adding to the complexity of the controversy, in 1999 a “New York Times” correspondent, Ethan Bronner, reported that official Israeli textbooks no longer state Arabs were a major military might in 1948, no longer state that Arabs fled in 1948 because they were told to do so by invading Arab armies, have introduced the word “Palestinian,” sometimes discuss massacres of Palestinians in the historical descriptions of the birth of the State of Israel, and have less emphasis on Jewish uniqueness, and more understanding of Jews being part of world history. In noting changes in the curriculum, it is possible to understand where the problems have occurred in the past.

In 1999, there was also a controversy over including poems by a Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, in the Israeli high school curriculum, despite the fact that 20% of the Israeli population is Palestinian and would expect to become familiar with their own literature as well as history. More insidiously, it could be asked what is the message for Palestinian students with Israeli citizenship when they are referred to as “Israeli Arabs” rather than “Israeli Palestinians” or “Palestinian Israelis,” parallel to descriptions like “Egyptians” or “Jordanians” (referring to a state) or “Iraqi Jews” and “Russian Jews” referring to a land of origin? What is the message for students when they are expected to sing the national anthem, “Hatikva,” which opens with the lines, “As long as in a Jewish breast, Our ancient hope will not perish, Hope from ages long since past, In the land we cherish…?” Palestinians do not obtain benefits such as loans and governmental jobs afforded Jews who have served in the military. With this second class citizenship, what is the effect on children asked to salute a national flag with a Jewish star, which is a constant reminder of their outsider status? Thus it can be seen that even liberal, tolerant Israelis have great difficulty recognizing and humanizing Palestinians. There is a built in racism in the educational system, which is true of all areas of conquest in world history. Jews are indeed no better and no worse than any other dominant power. Israeli texts have needed to promote the justice and rightness of the Israeli cause and delegitimize the Arab cause because that is what countries and their school systems do to inculcate the values of the dominant culture.

In this light, it is obvious that there is great difficulty introducing new societal values into standard textbooks and that creating a culture of peace and tolerance is fraught with challenges. In Israel, a serious attempt at such a process has begun to emerge with the Israeli revisionist historians who are challenging Israel’s founding myths and exploring what appears to be a less biased narrative. This movement is clearly threatening to the Israeli right. Yoram Hagony, director of an Israeli research center, argues, “(including) a Palestinian historical narrative amounts to an effort to teach Zionism to Jewish children as if it were no more morally compelling than the story of those who opposed it.” This is a critical comment because one might also ask how will Jewish and Palestinian children ever grow to understand and respect “the other” and coexist successfully if there is only one recognized “correct” narrative.

This schism was also revealed in June, 2001, when Salah Tariff, a minister without portfolio in Sharon’s government, requested that Arabic be made mandatory for all Jewish students, rather than offering French or English as a second language. He pointed out that Arabic speaking students study Hebrew from age 8 and must be proficient to graduate high school and that few Jewish students study Arabic. Without a sharing of language, it is more difficult to share culture, historical perspective, and to develop a foundation for real coexistence and understanding. On the other side of this argument, CMIP concedes that ultra orthodox Jewish schools “sometimes contain shocking and racist passages about Arabs.” It is obviously easier for students to hate each other if they have dehumanized each other. It is also distressing that US officials don’t seem equally morally outraged at expressions of Israeli intolerance when compared to Arab intolerance.

The consequences of this controversy, the campaign by the CMIP, and the rush to judgment by major world powers have unfortunately been disastrous. In December, 2000, the Italian government informed the PA that it would no longer finance the development of school curricula. The World Bank notified the Palestinian Ministry of Education that money designated for school texts must be diverted to other projects, and similar actions were taken by other donor countries. The most frightening aspect to this turn of events is not so much that each people has issues around racism and tolerance and education, but that a small right wing organization could produce a shoddy and oversimplified analysis of a newly developing educational system which has shaped the agenda of a complex conflict and impacted on governments throughout the world. It is likely that the loss of funding and strangulation of Palestinian education along with closures and economic collapse for many Palestinians is a much more dangerous development that the accusations that have been made. This experience will certainly teach Palestinian children lessons that they will never forget and will not lead to greater peace and understanding. The campaign of the CMIP has created a self-fulfilling prophecy that is devastating to the peace movement. Where are the voices of educated, fair minded liberal Jews and Americans? What does this tell us about our own stereotypes, racism, power relationships and knee jerk responses? Knowing more about this difficult and critical topic, it is important to bring educated Jewish voices to the mainstream narrative and support educational systems for Jewish and Palestinian children that build serious tolerance, understanding, and the skills for future coexistence.

SOURCE MATERIAL
- Meehan, Maureen, “Israeli Textbooks & Children’s Literature Promote Racism & Hatred Toward Palestinians,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Washington, D.C.), July 31, 2001.
- Morena, Elisa, “Israel or Palestine: Who Teaches What History? A Textbook Case,” Le Monde Diplomatique, July, 2001.
- Moughrabi, Fouad, “The Politics of Textbooks,” Director, Qattan Center for Educational Research and Development, July 2, 2001, email communication.
- Zogby, James, “ Truth – sometimes details get in the way,” July 10, 2001, email communication.



Shantideva