The following is a short summary of research on Palestinian textbooks that originally appeared in “Teaching about Terrorism” a publication of CAJE, the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education. Information about the publication can be obtained by calling (212) 268-4210 or by e-mailing [email protected]
Another version was circulated by the Search for Common Ground News Service.
In 1999, I began my research on Palestinian
education by reading the only textbooks authored by the Palestinian Authority
(PA) up to that point: a 1994 series on “National Education” that was to
supplement the Egyptian and Jordanian books then temporarily in use. My
reading shocked me---pleasantly. I had heard so much about incitement and
anti-Semitism in Palestinian textbooks that I was confused: there was no
mention of any location as Palestinian except for those Then
where had the persistent reports of incitement come from? A little digging
turned up the ultimate source: an organization calling itself the “Center for
Monitoring the Impact of Peace” (CMIP). The organization’s publications
constituted virtually the only source in English—and certainly the most
widely quoted one—on the Palestinian textbooks. As I dug
a little more, I found a series of problems with the organization’s reports.
Their method was to follow harsh criticisms with quotation after quotation
purporting to prove a point. However, a close reading revealed that many
quotations did not support the strong charges. And those that did came not
from the 1994 books that I had read but from the Jordanian and Egyptian books
that the PA was working to replace. Criticizing the PA for interim use of the
books was certainly fair. But the CMIP neglected to mention that the Israeli
government distributed the same books in East Jerusalem schools while it
refused to distribute the innocuous 1994 “National Education” supplements
(because they were clearly written by the PA meaning that their use might
have undermined Israeli claims to sovereignty in all of the city). Nor did
the report mention the dramatic changes in the supplementary 1994 books.
Similarly ignored was a richly documented Palestinian project to devise its
new curriculum. A 600-page official report mercilessly criticizing existing
educational practices had been published in 1996.In 1997, the Palestinian
legislature and cabinet approved the Ministry of Education’s plan—based
partly on the 1996 report—to write the new curriculum. Neither document
contained anything anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic, so the CMIP showed no
interest. In
short, the CMIP reports read as if they were written by a ruthless
prosecuting attorney anxious for a conviction at any cost. I realized from
the research of Israeli academics (and also from my own children’s experience
in an Israeli school for a year) that a hostile and highly selective report
on Israeli education might produce a similarly misleading result. Israeli
educators in the secular schools have begun an effort to revamp their
textbooks to rid them of stereotypes and incendiary material. The fact that
the effort has not been completed and that religious schools have shown far
less enthusiasm for the project would have left enough selections for a
Palestinian zealot to compile quite a report. Since almost all Israeli maps
mark no border between the As I
continued my research, I collected published and unpublished documents and
followed public debates on the new curriculum being written. I interviewed
figures in the Legislative Council, the Ministry of Education, the Despite
this very active debate, one issue was never treated in detail: how should “ |
In 2000, the first
and sixth grade textbooks for the new, comprehensive Palestinian curriculum
were completed. When I read the books, I found the reticence I had expected.
For instance, the books handled the awkward issue of maps in a series of
awkward ways. How should The 2000
books showed other forms of confusion. They praised Gandhi at length for his non-violence
but also included a poem praising children who threw stones during the
intifada. In a few areas they were bolder than I expected. They avoided any
sustained treatment of Palestinian history or of Yet when
the 2000 books came out, the CMIP rushed out a report recirculating the old
charges. The report was fairly cavalier in its prose and use of evidence,
especially in that anything undermining its claims was overlooked. In 2001,
the second and seventh grade texts were published, and the CMIP pressed its
claims yet again. In some ways, this latest report is the most responsible,
avoiding some of the misleading techniques of earlier documents (such as
obscuring the difference between the old and the new books). Yet its
strongest charges are simply unsupported by a fair reading of the books. For
instance, the CMIP cites an “implicit aspiration to replace the State of
Israel with the State of Palestine.” No such aspiration is implicit in the
books. Each textbook begins with a foreword describing the The CMIP
has finally admitted that overt anti-Semitism has been removed, but it has
buried its admission in such grudging and qualified prose that most readers
missed the point. Oddly, just as the Palestinians moved to construct an
entire curriculum free from anti-Semitism, international criticism (generally
based on cursory readings of the CMIP report) gained increasing steam.
Indeed, past criticisms of the Palestinian textbooks have been so widely and
uncritically accepted that I generally receive either confused or highly
skeptical stares when I present a less charged version of the books. The
harsh and tendentious campaign against the schoolbooks has obscured the real
and significant improvements. But the worst effect of the campaign has been
to make it difficult to make more accurate but far milder criticisms about
the Palestinian curriculum. A true peace curriculum will probably have to
come after, rather than before, a comprehensive settlement. But in the mean
time, less hostile critics might persuade the Palestinians to be more direct
in their treatment of Israel and Jews, more willing to engage students in
thinking critically about issues of national identity and coexistence, and
more explicit in the political assumptions underlying their treatment of such
subjects. Exaggerated rhetoric, charges of anti-Semitism and racism, and
denial of the significance of existing changes in the curriculum will hardly
convince anyone further improvements are worth the effort. The
Palestinians will continue introducing their new curriculum, two grades at a
time, over the next few years. If the past is any indication, we should
expect a highly nationalistic curriculum that criticizes |