Insidious Pro-Israel Propaganda Campaign Focuses on Palestinian Textbooks

• This campaign ignores the obvious role of the occupation, oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people in fostering any resentment towards Israel that may exist among Palestinians. If Palestinians are taught to resent and feel anger towards Israel, then the principle teacher is the occupation, exile and generalized calamity that Israel has brought on the Palestinians, not some textbooks. This focus on textbooks is an attempt to avoid the objective and undeniable conditions under which most Palestinians live and the role of Israel in placing and keeping them in these conditions. It is predicated on asserting, implicitly that Israel has done no wrong, that there are no legitimate reasons for Palestinians to feel anger or resentment towards Israel. Given this (completely false) starting point, what then would explain the ongoing tensions and conflict? The answer provided by this campaign is that Palestinian psychology and culture is distorted by hatred and intolerance. It is an extension of the traditional Israeli argument that the Arab
• Israeli conflict is caused not by the colonization of Palestine by the Zionist movement, but by the supposed intolerance of Arabs towards Jews. The textbook ploy is readily exposed by confrontation with the basic facts, and by pointing out the political jujitsu behind it. Is dispossession, ethnic cleansing, exile, occupation, oppression and apartheid not sufficient to explain widespread anger and resistance among a people? How could a mere textbook compete with these traumatic conditions and experiences in either promoting tolerance or intolerance?
• The suggestion seems to be that Palestinians ought to accept their dispossession and abuse at the hands of the Israelis without feeling or expressing anger and resentment. There is nothing unhealthy about a people subjected to this kind of mistreatment feeling anger, and in many cases their emotions may be all they have left after total dispossession. Expressions of hatred are not defensible or desirable, but as long as a people are subjected to extreme injustice, they have every reason to be upset about it. These emotions might be reflected in textbooks where unfortunate or indefensible statements are occasionally to be found, but the emotions are clearly not generated by them. Rather, they are rooted in a profoundly unjust reality.
• The agenda of "M.A.T.C.H.K." is political, not humanitarian, given that one of their only major efforts to date was a letter/petition designed to withdraw all US government aid to the Palestinian Authority. It asked "That not even one U.S. tax dollar be allocated to the Palestinian Authority or any of its institutions until there is a fundamental change in the educational system and that the change reflects a sincere desire to live in peace and co-existence with Jews and Israelis in the State of Israel." It placed no similar conditions on aid to Israel or any other state or organization.
• The information "M.A.T.C.H.K." relies on seems to be drawn from the work of the "Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace," a shadowy pro-Israel group that issued a "report" (which can be viewed online at <http://www.edume.org/pa-toc.html>) purporting to document the intolerance of Palestinian textbooks. These claims are, to a very large extent, bogus. For example, one section of the "report" claims that: "The Zionist movement has never called for the expulsion of Israel's Arab citizens. Yet the books teach that Zionism calls for this ‘expulsion': ‘Zionism is a political, aggressive and colonialist movement, which calls for the Judaisation of Palestine by the expulsion of its Arab inhabitants …'" The importance of the idea and practice of expulsion and ethnic cleansing (usually referred to as "transfer" or "compulsory transfer" in Zionist writings) has been exhaustively documented in the work of historians such as Walid Khalidi, Nur Masalha, Ilan Pape and many others. Any "report" which bases its analysis on as slippery a claim that "The Zionist movement has never called for the expulsion of Israel's Arab citizens" and uses it to characterize a reference to the centrality of expulsion to the Zionist cause as "hate speech," is utterly without historical grounding or credibility. The report also cites as an instance of "incitement" this passage it says was broadcast on PA Television: "The Jewish gangs waged racial cleansing wars against innocent Palestinians… large scale appalling massacres saving no woman or children." Certainly given the massacres at Deir Yassin and elsewhere in 1948 and the widespread ethnic cleansing carried out by various Zionist groups in Palestine at that time, this statement is no more than a crude, but more or less accurate, historical account. Other incidents of "incitement" according to the report are perfectly justified accusations against Israel of terrorism, racism, ethnic cleansing etc. There are some regrettable statements, which may or may not be accurately cited, but much of what is included as hate speech or incitement in this report is nothing of the kind. It even lists denouncements of the Balfour Declaration and references to "occupied Palestine," the need to liberate Jerusalem and the Canaanite origin of some Palestinians, all of which are a part of the legitimate political perspective of many Palestinians, as hate speech. Essentially, much of what the report calls for eliminating are simple expressions of Palestinian nationalism and calls for resistance to occupation. Without this type of entry, which are a significant element of the "report," what would be left would be so scant that one could hardly construct a "report," let alone assert a pattern, out of it. This is really an attempt to delegitimate the Palestinian voice and the Palestinian perspective, even within Palestinian society.
• Neither "M.A.T.C.H.K." nor the "Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace" has yet produced any evaluation of the extremely biased, racist and chauvinistic nature of Israeli textbooks (an article about which from an Israeli newspaper follows below). Their interest has been in condemning the Palestinians, and locating the source of ongoing tensions in their textbooks Nor have they noted the extreme inequity in educational opportunity and resources in Israel for Jewish and Palestinian citizens of the state, not to mention the apartheid-like conditions that exist in the occupied territories. The highly discriminatory educational policies of the Israeli state concerning its Jewish and Palestinian citizens are outlined in the report "Legal Violations of Arab Minority Rights in Israel" published in 1998 by the Palestinian Human Rights Group Adalah. According to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, the conditions of Arab schools in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem are also discriminatory and substandard. On August 10, 1999, it reported that "Thirty percent of elementary school students in East Jerusalem are illiterate, and 40 percent of its high school students drop out of school due to substandard, outdated teaching methods and poor facilities, according to a secret report compiled by an interministerial committee last year." The educational disparities are, of course, at their greatest in the rest of the Israeli-occupied territories where colonial divisions between Israeli settlers and Palestinians living under occupation characterize the apartheid conditions. Of course, neither "M.A.T.C.H.K." nor the "Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace" have shown any concern about the effects on peace of this kind of discrimination and educational apartheid, or the effect such discrimination will have on the psyche of young Palestinians and Israelis.
• Neither "M.A.T.C.H.K." nor the "Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace" have shown any interest in the work already done in Israel documenting the racist and chauvinistic nature of Israeli textbooks, as outlined in excerpts below.

EXCERPTS FROM ISRAELI ARTICLE ON IMAGES OF ARABS IN ISRAELI TEXTBOOKS:
An Arab and a Jew Meet in the Fourth Grade Text book
by Tamar Rotemk
[Excerpts from an article in Ha'aretz published on 7/6/99. These experts come from the online magazine News From Within and can be viewed online at <http://aic.netgate.net/nfw/july99/9907p31.html>]
[…] Research published in the May issue of "Megamot" magazine studied the contents of books used in the educational system during the peak of the peace process in the years '94 -'95. [More specifically, it examined to what extent issues such as beliefs about security, the role of the army, deligitimization of Arabs, positive self-imagery, self-perception as victim, the importance of national unity, and beliefs that relate to peace, are reflected in children school books.]
124 text books in History, Geography, Language and Citizenship, as well as text books which include pieces of literature used in elementary and high schools of the state secular and religious streams, were examined.[…]
The research found that the positions presented in the text books suffer from being one sided, prejudiced, and lacking critical thought. According to professor Bar-Tal from Tel Aviv University, "a state such as Israel, in the midst of a violent and continuous conflict takes special care to endow its citizens with a spirit of dedication together with values of unity and solidarity as a means of coping with the prolonged conflict. Such a society which recognizes the [exclusive] righteousness of its goals, has internalized a system of social beliefs regarding security and survival which includes admiration of the army and myths of bravery. Deligitimization of the enemy and self-perception as a victim define its self imagery"
[…] The relationship between Jews and Arabs are presented in an ethnocentric and simplified way, while ignoring the right of the Arabs and their national identity.
The subject of security enjoys the greatest conspicuousness. […] The symbolism of the weak vis-à-vis the strong (the David and Goliath battle) comes up again and again: the Jews are represented as the victim albeit brave and daring.[…]
65% of the text books in elementary schools strengthen the positive image of Jews as making the desert bloom, as determined and courageous fighters, and even as a minority [within a sea of Arabs]. They are responsible, active, progressive, ready to help, peace-loving, determined, educated and the ones who brought progress to the Arab population.
[…]Even when the Arabs do not appear as attackers and terrorists, the tendency is to present them as primitive, ignorant and lacking any initiative of their own. […]
Anyone with information on the activities of "M.A.T.C.H.K." or the "Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace" is asked to contact ADC at <adc@adc.org>.