Palestinian Textbooks Continue
to Incite
by Noa Meridor
(March 2006)
An examination of Palestinian
fifth and tenth-grade textbooks for the
2004-2005 school year shows a continuing
denial of the State of Israel’s
right to exist and a continuing cultivation
of the values of armed struggle against Israel. The books contain incitement against
the State of Israel and the Zionist
movement,
one of them even employing anti-Semitism.
 |
A “Political map of the Arab
homeland” in a fifth-grade geography
textbook indicates Palestine while
making no reference to Israel. As in
previous years, the name of Israel
once again does not appear in the textbooks
examined, this being part of an educational
policy that reflects a fundamental
attitude denying the State of Israel’s
right to exist. |
Main Findings1
-
In the 2004-2005
school year, at the end of Yasser
Arafat’s era and the
beginning of Mahmoud
Abbas’s (Abu
Mazen) tenure, the Palestinian Education
Ministry published 29 new textbooks
for the fifth and tenth grades. We
examined the books, used to this day, with
the purpose of analyzing their outlook
on issues related to the State of Israel,
Zionism, the Jewish people, and the Palestinians’ attitude
towards the State of Israel. The findings
of the review of that year’s books,
compared to books from previous years,
indicate a consistent, long-standing
negative attitude of the Palestinian curriculum
towards the State of Israel, the Zionist
movement, and the Jewish people.
-
As in the past, the existence of the State
of Israel is conspicuously ignored
in this year’s curriculum. Israel
does not appear on the maps, and when
it does appear in written texts, it
is only in negative contexts. The agreements
achieved between Israel and the Palestinians
are not mentioned. A strong emphasis
is placed on the “Israeli occupation” and
settlements in the “territories”,
portrayed as part of the phenomenon
of global imperialism, coveting the
lands of the weak. The list of negative
actions attributed to Israel has grown
to include the construction of the
Security Fence.
-
To undermine the
ideological foundation of the Zionist
movement, the book authors keep ignoring
the Israeli people’s
profound historic connection with the
Land of Israel. They do so by almost
completely disregarding the ancient Jewish
presence in the Land of Israel, and by
defining the ancient inhabitants of the
region as Arab peoples. 2 As
for the Palestinians’ attitude
towards Israel, the books, as in the
past, deal with war, violent confrontation,
what they refer to as “the martyrdom
of the Palestinian warriors,” and
the refugees’ “right
of return” to those places in Israel
they left.
- An innovation of grave significance
found in one of the 2004-2005 textbooks
is the use of the Protocols
of the Elders of Zion as a means to besmirch
the Zionist movement, reiterating
anti-Semitic myths on the Jews’ intention
to take over the entire world (note:
the authors of the book chose to
omit that section from this page
in another edition of the book).
Furthermore, even though the subject
of World
War II and its consequences
is covered in one of the textbooks,
its authors chose to totally ignore
the Holocaust.
- In the previous year (2003-2004),
a positive change was observed in the
textbooks, which indicated the Green
Line and mentioned the agreements between
the Palestinians and Israel. The 2004-2005
textbooks, however, show a regression,
which is reflected in ignoring
the agreements between Israel and the
Palestinians and in renewing the practice
of referring to population centers
in Israel proper (within its pre-1967
borders) as “settlements” (the
purpose being to portray them as illegitimate
and temporary). Moreover, the textbooks
also make use of anti-Semitic motifs as
a means to attack the Zionist movement.
- These negative findings are characteristic
of the Palestinian curriculum, based
on an educational policy striving
to indoctrinate the young generation
of Palestinians with hatred against
the State of Israel. It
is reflected in the denial of Israel’s
legitimacy, unwillingness to peacefully
coexist with it, cultivation of hostility
against Israel (and against the Jews,
albeit to a lesser extent), attempt
to refute the connection between the
Jewish people and the Land of Israel
by rewriting history, and inculcation
of the concept of violent struggle
as a positive national and religious
value. This “education,”
conducted in the Palestinian
Authority’s education institutions, gives rise
to new generations of students instilled
with hatred against Israel, making peaceful
coexistence between the two peoples highly
difficult to achieve
*Ms.
Noa Meridor is a researcher in the Defense
Ministry’s office of the Coordinator
of Israeli Government Activities in the Territories,
yearly examining the contents of Palestinian
textbooks, primarily focusing on the stance
towards the State of Israel, the Zionist
movement, and the Jewish people.
1This document includes the
main findings of the examination of Palestinian
textbooks for the 2004-2005 school year.
A breakdown of the findings appears in Hebrew
on the Intelligence and Terrorism Information
Center website.The full document is currently
being translated into English, and will be
distributed in full once the translation
is complete.
2Note by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information
Center: This claim—a baseless one,
as far as historical research is concerned—stems
from the worldview of Arab nationalism, defining
all those who ever lived in the “Arab
homeland” as Arabs. The exception is
the Jewish people.
Sources: Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center |