Tolerance: Hamas teaching kids Torah and Talmud are 'fabricated'
The New York Times reports on Hamas' new textbooks, which teach, among other things, that the Torah and Talmud are '
fabricated.'
Among other points, the books, used by 55,000 children in the eighth,
ninth and 10th grades as part of a required “national education” course
of study in government schools, do not recognize modern Israel, or even
mention the Oslo Peace Accords the country signed with the Palestine
Liberation Organization in the 1990s.
Textbooks have long been a point of contention in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which dueling historical narratives and
cultural clashes underpin a territorial fight. And they are central
examples of what Israeli leaders call Palestinian “incitement” against Jews, held up as an obstacle to peace talks newly resumed under American pressure.
Beyond their take on Israel, the new texts are also a salvo in the war
for influence between the rival Palestinian factions: Gaza-based Hamas
and Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank.
They reflect a growing gulf between the 1.7 million Palestinians living
in the densely populated Gaza Strip and the 2.5 million spread among the
West Bank’s cities and villages.
“Textbooks are always and everywhere a very important means of
representing a national ethos,” said Daniel Bar-Tal, a Tel Aviv
University professor who helped lead a comprehensive recent study of
Israeli and Palestinian textbooks.
“When a leader says something, not everyone is listening. But when we
talk about textbooks, all the children, all of a particular peer group,
will be exposed to a particular material,” he added. “This is the
strongest card.”
What Gaza teenagers are reading in their 50-page hardcover texts this
fall includes references to the Jewish Torah and Talmud as “fabricated,”
and a description of Zionism as a racist movement whose goals include
driving Arabs out of all of the area between the Nile in Africa and the
Euphrates in Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
“Palestine,” in turn, is defined as a state for Muslims stretching from
the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. A list of Palestinian cities
includes Haifa, Beersheba and Acre — all within Israel’s 1948 borders.
And the books rebut Jewish historical claims to the territory by saying,
“The Jews and the Zionist movement are not related to Israel, because
the sons of Israel are a nation which had been annihilated.”
For contemporary history, there is a recounting of Hamas’s battle with
Israel last fall that exaggerates: The books say that rockets from Gaza
sent “three million Zionists underground for eight days” (somewhat fewer
Israelis were in and out of shelters sporadically), that Tel Aviv was
hit (one missile landed
in the sea, and another fell well short) and that an attempted strike
on Israel’s Parliament building “forced the Zionists to beg for
cease-fire.”
Yosef Kuperwasser, a senior Israeli official who has led the charge
against the incitement, said the new texts were blunter expressions of a
dangerous message spread throughout Palestinian schools and news media.
“Palestinians have developed a system of deception — to English-speaking
people they sell one story, and to themselves they have a different story,” Mr. Kuperwasser said. “Textbooks are one of the
tools with which they tell their children what is the truth.” He added,
“If you want real peace, it has to be based on a real change in the
culture of hatred.”
Peace is at hand.... What could go wrong?
Labels: Fatah, Hamas, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian education to hatred, Palestinian textbooks, Talmud, Torah
Victims of our own narrative?
In February, a prominent study funded by the US State Department concluded that Israeli and 'Palestinian' school textbooks were equally biased in their treatment of '
the other.' An exhaustive study in the Tower
destroys that myth.
Despite the media presentation, however, something about the study,
and the media reports on it, didn’t ring true. As a product of more than
a decade of Israeli schools I can attest to the fact that the Israeli
public education system certainly has its share of problems. But of all
the issues—ranging from crowded classes to plummeting standards—one
thing I never encountered was ignorance or hatred of “the other side.”
Indeed, this is true of Israeli society in general. Even a surface-level
familiarity with Israeli culture and academics provides enough
information to know that the Palestinian perspective is represented in
the arts and media and factored into the Israeli political process and
legal system. Faced with a purportedly objective study that completely
contradicted my own experience with the Israel’s education system, I
felt compelled to examine the report in depth.
What I found isn’t pretty. The report is not only flawed, but also
dishonest. It systematically exaggerates the faults in Israeli textbooks
and downplays those found in the Palestinians’. Its methodology tends
to distort the raw data rather than analyze it, usually to the detriment
of the Israeli education system. Put simply, it makes every possible
effort to create the impression that Israeli and Palestinian attitudes
toward each other are the same, even when this is demonstrably
untrue—according to the study’s own research data. It is no surprise
that the State Department, which funded the study in its early phases,
has endorsed neither the composition of the committee nor the report’s
findings.
This is an important issue, not only because of the need for
scientific accuracy in such studies, but because the presentation of
“the other” in Palestinian and Israeli texts is an absolutely essential
topic. In many ways, it is the essential question in regard to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Are both sides building societies that can
sympathize, or even empathize, with “the other”? If so, it could mean
an (eventual) end to years of war. If not, then we may well be facing
decades of further violence and the absence of any lasting peace between
Israel and the Arab world.
Read it all.
Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Palestinian textbooks, US State Department
A textbook study in deception
Some of you may have heard about a comparative study of Israeli and 'Palestinian' textbooks, which finds that the 'Palestinian' textbooks are only slightly more inciting than the Israeli ones.
In an article that's way too long to post, Ben Dror Yemini
debunks that study. The study is a textbook study in deception.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Palestinian incitement, Palestinian textbooks
The textbook symmetry
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, February 5.
The textbook symmetry
A number of news organizations have reported on a recent study of
Palestinian and Israeli textbooks that was funded by the State
Department.
The JTA reported New textbook study threatens to undercut argument that Palestinian schools preach hate:
“This obviously cuts down one of the pegs and a linchpin in the
argument that the Israel government makes, that the Palestinian
Authority is teaching hatred to their kids,” said an official who works
closely with mainstream Jewish organizations in the United States. The
official declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the
matter.
That's a nice touch, suggesting that someone has been intimidated by pro-Israel forces.
Joel Greenberg of the Washington Post reported Israelis unhappy with study of their textbooks and Palestinians’:
While various surveys of Israeli and Palestinian textbooks have been
conducted over the years, organizers of the latest study said it was the
most systematic and comprehensive of books from both sides. It examined
94 Palestinian and 74 Israeli books, evaluating more than 3,000 texts,
as well as photos and maps.
Funded with a grant from the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy,
Human Rights and Labor, the study was directed by Bruce E. Wexler, a
professor of psychiatry at Yale University who worked with two Israeli
and Palestinian experts on textbook analysis, subjecting books from both
sides to identical evaluation questions, with results fed to a
database.
The study was initiated by the Council of Religious Institutions of the
Holy Land, an interfaith association of Jewish, Muslim and Christian
leaders that seeks to promote reconciliation. But the Israeli Chief
Rabbinate, which is represented on the council and had previously
endorsed the textbook study, dissociated itself from its findings in a
statement last week, citing what it called serious methodological flaws.
The spin here is that when something objective contradicts the official Israeli position, Israel denies its validity.
In a companion article Anne Gearan reports State Department strains to avoid Israeli-Palestinian textbook dispute:
The report came on Secretary of State John F. Kerry’s first day in
office. He is expected to renew U.S. efforts to draw Israel and the
Palestinians back to stalled peace negotiations.
The findings presented in Jerusalem on Monday drew on research by
Israeli, Palestinian and American academics who called it a definitive
objective look at the way Israelis and Palestinians teach their children
about the histories of both peoples. The report said outright
demonization or incitement is rare, but that each side’s narrative is
skewed and myopic.
Palestinians quickly said the study showed that Israel is wrong to
accuse Palestinians of racial or religious incitement in schools.
Here the implication is that Israeli objections to further negotiations are based on unsupported prejudices.
The New York Times reports Academic Study Weakens Israeli Claim That Palestinian School Texts Teach Hate. After establishing that the study is the product of unimpeachable academic research the article gives an example:
The textbook teachings on martyrdom and self-sacrifice are treated
with similar evenhandedness. Palestinian sixth graders read in a
language book that “every stone is violated, every square cries out in
anger, every nerve is abuzz, death before submission, death before
submission, forward!”
Israeli second graders are told the story of Joseph Trumpeldor, who died
defending an early Zionist settlement from Arab attackers in 1920 and
was said to have uttered in his last moments, “Never mind, it is good to
die for our country.”
If this is an example of the "evenhanded" treatment accorded both sides,
it demonstrates the problem with the study. The phrase appearing in the
Palestinian textbook is a call glorifying martyrdom. The Trumpeldor
statement, though, is the acceptance of one's fate, not significantly
different from Nathan Hale's reported last words.
Similarly, the Jerusalem Post reports the response of Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser who compiles an incitement index of Palestinian society:
According to Kuperwasser, the report cited Israeli textbooks that
linked Palestinians to the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre as a negative
portrayal.
“By mentioning that this was a terror attack performed by Palestinians,
this is a negative description of the Palestinians? I mean, how far can
you go?” he asked.
Elder of Ziyon looked at several more examples and explains Why the textbook study is fatally flawed - on both sides:
Telling each side's narrative is not so terrible. Teaching children
lies - especially when the lies are meant to incite - is contemptible.
The study needed to concentrate on the truth above all, and only then
look at the wording. By doing it backwards and sacrificing truth on the
altar of political correctness, they are doing no one any favors.
Gidon Ben Tzvi critiques Harriet Sherwood's reporting on the story.
The New York Times mentions previous textbook studies, including one by Palestinian Media Watch, and
dismisses them as "subjective." In contrast the new report is called
"academic," "rigorous" and "scientific." Dissenters were strictly from
the Israeli side.
In contrast, when the same reporter, Isabel Kershner wrote about Palestinian Media Watch a little more than a year ago, she presented dissents from both sides.
For example:
Some explain the overheated language as a natural expression of such a
long-running conflict, and say that any real education in the language
of peace is unlikely to come before negotiators resolve the core issues.
“Reconciliation comes only after matters have been settled,” said Radwan
Abu Ayyash, a veteran Palestinian journalist and former director of the
Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, the parent of the authority’s
television and radio stations with headquarters in the West Bank city of
Ramallah.
“Thinking of Jaffa and Haifa is still there as an old dream, as
history,” he said, referring to the Palestinian refugees’ desire to
return to the homes they occupied before 1948, “but it is not reality.”
and:
Some Israelis struggle with the practice of monitoring the
Palestinian news media, acknowledging the importance of knowing what is
being said in Arabic, yet disturbed by how its dissemination is
exploited by those not eager to see Israel make concessions.
...
As the ambassador to Washington at the time, Mr. Rabinovich said he
found himself in the awkward position of having to explain to anyone who
would listen that jihad, usually translated as holy war, could also
mean a spiritual struggle, in order to justify continuing the peace
process.
Still, he said, it is not by chance that those focusing on Palestinian
incitement and publicizing it are “rightist groups who use it as
ammunition.”
In the New York Times when a study contradicts the official Israeli
position it is "scientific"and above reproach,
but Palestinian incitement is explained away and those bringing it up
are disparaged.
Labels: Middle East Media Sampler, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian textbooks, Soccer Dad
Do 'Palestinian' school textbooks promote hatred of Israel?
A claim by Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich that 'Palestinians' teach subtraction by positing how many Jews in a group have been killed (which claim is - according to YNet - unsubstantiated) has led to a debate over whether
'Palestinian' school textbooks promote incitement. And you thought that had been
settled already.... This is from the first link.
Two NGOs, one Israeli and one international, support the view of Israeli officials that the texts promote hatred of Israel. For example, Israel is not included in a list of the countries of the Levant, and Hebrew writing was removed in a depiction of a stamp from British Mandate rule of the Holy Land.
A joint Israeli-Palestinian study takes a softer view, saying that there is no direct attempt to delegitimize Israel, but that "the way and contexts in which Israel is presented may give rise to the impression of an implicit denial of its legitimacy."
The books must be seen in the context of ongoing conflict, said Nathan Brown, a George Washington University political scientist who has written about the issue. While highly nationalistic, government texts do not glorify violence, explicitly deny Israel's right to exist or portray Jews as villains, he said.
"I think the textbook critics have cause and effect mixed up – when there is a viable political process it may be possible to introduce a process to revise the books in a reciprocal way," Brown said.
Hello? There was a viable political process from 1993-2009 and the 'Palestinian' textbooks continued to incite against Israel! What is "Israel is not included in a list of the countries of the Levant, and Hebrew writing was removed in a depiction of a stamp from British Mandate rule of the Holy Land" if not an attempt to delegitimize Israel? And here are some more tidbits about the 'Palestinian' textbooks that attempt to delegitimize Israel:
Since it took control of parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1994, the PA has been working to replace the Egyptian and Jordanian books used in its schools for decades previous.
Under intensive scrutiny from Israel and the international community, the Palestinians developed their own curriculum and purged their new textbooks of some controversial references, but kept the focus on the Palestinian narrative.
Palestinian Media Watch and IMPACT-SE harshly criticized the Palestinian textbooks: "There is a lot of jihad, martyrdom, a complete ignoring of anything Israeli," said Pardo, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor and member of IMPACT-SE. "There is no education for peace, there is education for conflict."
Shelley Elkayam of IMPACT-SE said the religious school students are influential since they go on to be religious teachers and preachers.
The textbooks include statements glorifying martyrdom. One 8th-grade text says Muslim fighters must "get rid of the usurping Jews from the usurped lands in Palestine and in the Levant."
And in 17 years, they still cannot replace the textbooks? What are jihad and martyrdom education but an attempt to incite against Israel?
"Although there is no direct instruction for immediate violence against Israelis ... hate, rejection and a vision of one Greater Islamic-Arab Palestine are fostered," said the study, which was released in May and reviewed 70 government textbooks and 25 religious school texts. "An imaginary geography in which Israel does not exist is being taught."
That's not incitement against Israel?
For those who have forgotten, here's some of the
IMPACT-SE report released in April:
“There is generally a total denial of the existence of Israel – and if there is an Israeli presence it is usually extremely negative,” said Eldad Pardo, an IMPACT-SE board member, and head of the organization’s Palestinian textbook research group. “For the next generation, there is no education at all about collaboration and no information about the many collaborations that already exist between Israelis and Palestinians in environmental and other areas.”
In geography textbooks, Israel usually does not appear in maps of the Middle East, instead “Palestine” is shown to encompass Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Jaffa is also shown on maps of Palestine, but Tel Aviv and other predominantly Jewish cities, such as Ramat Gan, kibbutzim and moshavim, are not displayed.
One of the Palestinian textbooks reviewed by IMPACT-SE, History of Ancient Civilization, published in 2009 and used to teach fifth-graders, states that the Levant consists of the states of Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Israel is not mentioned.
Other textbooks read for the study asked students to “color the Negev Desert on the map of Palestine,” and to solve the following mathematical word problem: “An independent Palestinian state was declared in 1988. How many years have passed since the declaration of independence?”
Another textbook included a map of the Old City of Jerusalem – which did not contain the Jewish Quarter. Meanwhile, in an additional example, a textbook printed a British Mandate postage stamp, but erased the Hebrew inscription “Palestine: The Land of Israel” that appeared on the original.
In addition, some textbooks described the Canaanites as an Arabic-speaking people whose land was stolen by Jews, and stated that Jews came from Europe to steal Palestine after the British conquered it in 1917.
...
IMPACT-SE noted many Palestinian textbooks included references to a ribat, an outpost on the borders of Muslim territories where wars against infidels occur. A 12thgrade Islamic education textbook, published in 2010, tells students that “the people of the Levant in general, and in Palestine in particular,” are in a state of ribat until the day of resurrection.
Pardo said that while there are some positive developments in the Palestinian educational system, such as emphases on democratic values and respect for women, elders and authority – no Israeli is depicted as a friend or partner. Furthermore, the Oslo Accords are rarely mentioned, and political agreements in general are presented as resulting from Arab and Muslim weakness.
Gingrich may have cited a specific example that was wrong (and it wouldn't surprise me to discover that it was not wrong), but he certainly got the general tenor of 'Palestinian' textbooks right: They preach hatred and non-acceptance of Israel.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Newt Gingrich, Palestinian textbooks
'Palestinian' textbooks continue to incite against Israel, Jews
The more things change the more they
stay the same as they were when the report pictured at left was issued.
The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE), which reviews textbooks from Israel, the Arab world and Iran, unveiled its 2011 report on PA school textbooks in a briefing with journalists at the headquarters of MediaCentral, in Jerusalem.
...
While respect for the environment and sustainable energy resources are taught to Palestinian students, IMPACT-SE found that textbooks blame Israel for all environmental problems.
“There is generally a total denial of the existence of Israel – and if there is an Israeli presence it is usually extremely negative,” said Eldad Pardo, an IMPACT-SE board member, and head of the organization’s Palestinian textbook research group. “For the next generation, there is no education at all about collaboration and no information about the many collaborations that already exist between Israelis and Palestinians in environmental and other areas.”
In geography textbooks, Israel usually does not appear in maps of the Middle East, instead “Palestine” is shown to encompass Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Jaffa is also shown on maps of Palestine, but Tel Aviv and other predominantly Jewish cities, such as Ramat Gan, kibbutzim and moshavim, are not displayed.
One of the Palestinian textbooks reviewed by IMPACT-SE, History of Ancient Civilization, published in 2009 and used to teach fifth-graders, states that the Levant consists of the states of Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Israel is not mentioned.
Other textbooks read for the study asked students to “color the Negev Desert on the map of Palestine,” and to solve the following mathematical word problem: “An independent Palestinian state was declared in 1988. How many years have passed since the declaration of independence?”
Another textbook included a map of the Old City of Jerusalem – which did not contain the Jewish Quarter. Meanwhile, in an additional example, a textbook printed a British Mandate postage stamp, but erased the Hebrew inscription “Palestine: The Land of Israel” that appeared on the original.
In addition, some textbooks described the Canaanites as an Arabic-speaking people whose land was stolen by Jews, and stated that Jews came from Europe to steal Palestine after the British conquered it in 1917.
...
IMPACT-SE noted many Palestinian textbooks included references to a ribat, an outpost on the borders of Muslim territories where wars against infidels occur. A 12thgrade Islamic education textbook, published in 2010, tells students that “the people of the Levant in general, and in Palestine in particular,” are in a state of ribat until the day of resurrection.
Pardo said that while there are some positive developments in the Palestinian educational system, such as emphases on democratic values and respect for women, elders and authority – no Israeli is depicted as a friend or partner. Furthermore, the Oslo Accords are rarely mentioned, and political agreements in general are presented as resulting from Arab and Muslim weakness.
“A textbook is the result of a policy – something created by a committee and a formal product of an entity – and this policy is creating public opinion and the public mind of the coming generation,” said Shelley Shandor Elkayam, CEO of IMPACT-SE. “The whole Talmud is based on the Jewish philosophy that the other is more interesting than yourself. You have to care about what others say. The Tunisians accept this and they teach it to their students. The PA definitely should reach that point one day, and it is up to us to bring them to this realization.”
According to IMPACT-SE, which will release a report on Israeli textbooks in July, the bulk of funding for PA textbooks and other initiatives comes from the EU. Most US aid for Middle Eastern education goes to Egypt, but some also goes to the PA.
Read the whole thing.
Isn't it funny how this sort of thing never gets mentioned in discussions of whether the 'Palestinians' are ready for a 'state'?
Labels: Palestinian education to hatred, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian textbooks
