Ministry-approved books fall far, far short of the standard that Palestinian texts have set.
Jerusalem, January 25 – An international inquiry into the content and tone of books assigned to students in the Jewish state has produced what researchers are calling a disturbing findings: incitement to attack Arabs, calling Arabs subhuman, and myriad other examples to parallel the hateful content toward Jews in Palestinian books – all remain negligible or nonexistent in Israeli curricula, calling into question the Israeli Ministry of Education’s seriousness in educating coming generations.
A United-Nations-led team reviewed more than a hundred textbooks in current use in Israeli elementary and secondary public schools, an effort prompted by the recurring – and embarrassing to the UN – phenomenon of antisemitic, violence-glorifying content in Palestinian textbooks, both those of the Palestine Ministry of Education and those approved for use in UN-run schools. The reviewers had assumed they would find similar-magnitude, though perhaps more subtle, racism and incitement in Israeli textbooks, only to find that ministry-approved books fall far, far short of the standard that the Palestinian texts had set.
“We question Israel’s commitment to properly educating its students,” remarked Pierre Krähenbühl, formerly the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which runs many of the Palestinian schools, and the head of the investigative commission. “As anyone with any amount of experience in the field, in this part of the world, can tell you, the only approved texts should at the very least dehumanize, if not outright call for the persecution and murder of, any population that one’s national leadership has declared an enemy. I regret to say that our inquiry found Israel produces lackluster results in that department. One might even accuse it of educating toward tolerance, which has no place in the Middle East, and can unfortunately serve as support for those who see Israel as a foreign entity on Arab soil. That sentiment is more in keeping with UNRWA textbooks, for example.”
The commission made recommendations to bring Israeli school textbooks into line with regional norms. “It’s not simply that Israeli textbooks don’t preach hatred of Palestinians, or of Arabs in general,” explained one researcher. “I think had we found that kind of content, we’d have made noise about Israel being just as bad as the Palestinians they love to accuse of incitement, blah blah blah, the same thing everyone always does. The real problem is that the textbooks don’t go far enough in preaching hatred for Israelis, or for Jews in general. Until Israel addresses that shortcoming, we cannot endorse the use of those textbooks.”
Please support our work through Patreon.
Buy In The Biblical Sense: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B92QYWSL
Fabulous Facebook Comments!
Glorious Google+ Comments!
Wordpress Comments