Letters

Wednesday, August 25, 1999

Letters

Exactly who incites violence in Middle East?

I was shocked and disturbed by the Aug. 5 article “Students’ quilted letters aim for peace in Mideast.”
Incitement to violence is a problem for Israelis and Palestinians. By relying on information from MATCHK (Mothers Against Teaching Children to Kill and Hate), an organization that led a campaign to end U.S. humanitarian aid to Palestinians, and failing to cite any studies of Israeli textbooks, readers are left with a one-dimensional view of this very serious problem. In fact, a U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian anti-incitement committee has been formed and is examining the specific subject of incitement in Israeli and Palestinian textbooks.
A recent examination of 124 Israeli textbooks by Tel Aviv University Professor Daniel Bar-Tal found that Arabs were depicted as “hostile, deviant, cruel, immoral, unfair, with the intention to hurt Jews” and were labeled as robbers and killers.
While the organizers of the Kids for Peace project claim to “combat hatred” with this quilt of letters from young children, one must question the project’s real intent. Organizers admit that the letters for this quilt were gathered from summer camps in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. I wonder: How do these young American children know that Palestinian children hate them? Have any of these children ever met a Palestinian child? Or did some less than well-meaning adult tell them that they were “hated”?
If the project’s true intent is to combat hatred, how does exposing young children to vicious stereotypes achieve that noble goal?
Amal Berry
Arab American Institute, Member
Dearborn

The News quoted the response of Jim Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute in Washington, D.C., to Mothers Against Teaching Children to Kill and Hate’s (MATCKH’s) project of quilted letters to Palestinian children in an effort to fight the hatred these children are taught in their textbooks. Zogby did not deny the reports about the incitement against Israel and the Jews in Palestinian textbooks, but he claimed that Israeli textbooks also contain “negative stereotypes of Palestinians.”
As an Israeli-born citizen, who was educated in Israeli schools and universities, and as an educator for more than 30 years, I am familiar with Israeli textbooks and Israeli children’s literature, and I can assure you that Israel is practicing what it preaches. Israeli textbooks have never advocated hatred, and since the Oslo Accords, Israeli textbooks, literature and children’s programs on TV have all consistently been advocating peace and understanding between the two nations, and emphasizing the absurdity and futility of war.
Moreover, there has been criticism by many right-wing leaders of the “leftist” nature of the most popular children’s books and the “leftist” inclinations of the media, where Israelis are urged repeatedly to make any sacrifice possible for peace. There are a number of official government-sponsored programs to help Israeli and Arab children mingle in summer camps to get to know each other and remove the barriers of many years of enmity. Please watch the Israeli Sesame Street program with Iztchak Pearlman as an example of how Israel is educating its children.
Nira Lev
Southfield

The Aug. 5 article “Students’ quilted letters aim for peace in Mideast” was misleading and insults the situation as it stands in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is indeed saddening that Israelis and their supporters wish to direct focus away from the policies Israel pursues that result in “hatred.”
A Palestinian child whose home is demolished, whose father cries while watching his olive trees being uprooted or whose once-sane brother comes home mentally ill after years of brutal Israeli torture does not need to be incited to feel resentment.
The Aug. 5 article mentioned that Sara of upstate New York asks, “Please stop! Don’t hate me just because I’m Jewish. I don’t hate you. I’m just a human being. So please stop!” No doubt, children in the West Bank must feel the same way. In fact, there have been countless reports of settlers beating small Palestinian children merely because of who they are.
In addition, a recent survey of Israeli high school students showed that 67 percent do not believe Palestinians should have equal human rights as Israelis do. One has to wonder what books these post-Holocaust children must be reading at home or at school. While the right of self-determination is guaranteed to every human being under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Palestinians have to negotiate for this with Israelis, as if it were some kind of reward.
Israelis cannot continue to oppress Palestinians while expecting roses to be thrown at their feet.
Sherri Muzher
Lansing

In The News’ Aug. 5 article, Jim Zogby of the Arab-American Institute is quoted as saying Israeli schools are also teaching the same hatred that we have accused Arab Palestinian schools of teaching. Nothing could be further from the truth.
There is not one word of incitement, hatred or call to violence in the entire Israeli public school curriculum. (Access to the material is easily available from the Israeli Consulate.) On the contrary, ever since the signing of the Oslo peace accords in 1993, the Israeli Ministry of Education has reviewed its textbooks and teaching manuals and fortified them with material geared to fostering peace, coexistence, respect and tolerance. Would that we could say the same for the curriculum on the other side of the Jordan River and Gaza.
It is also ironic to note that during the period when Israel administered the West Bank and Gaza, from 1967 to 1993, Arab Palestinian textbooks were purified of their anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli nature. It was only after regaining autonomy with the signing of the Oslo peace accords that the hate-filled, violent material was reinstated.
Molly Resnick
Mothers Against Teaching Children to Kill and Hate
West Bloomfield