Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace

The books reviewed are published by the Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministry of Education and used in their schools. They are of two types: original PA publications and texts based on books published in Jordan or Egypt.

During the years Israel was responsible for education in these areas, selected Jordanian and Egyptian books were used. But, while it did not change educational content, Israel eliminated the offensive material. One privately published book has been included: a new atlas published in 1998 and approved by the PA for use in the 1998 -1999 school year.

With this one exception, all the text books quoted in this report are now published officially by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education who is solely responsible for the selection, the editing and the content.

Number of Books reviewed:	140
Publisher:	Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education
Subjects:	National Education (Civic Studies) Language, Grammar and Literature History Geography Islamic Studies
Grades:	1-12

The selections from the PA school books presented in this report have been chosen from peace-sensitive themes and are representative of a larger body of material with similar messages. Traditional Islamic material is not under critique even when it portrays Jews negatively. Nevertheless, it has been included when the editors use the Islamic material as a basis for instilling explicit or hateful political expression, as in: "Lessons to be learned… One must beware of the Jews, for they are treacherous and disloyal." ["Islamic Education for Ninth Grade" # 589 p79]

PA TV is under direct control of the Palestinian Authority. Sporadic viewing of PA TV during the months March - August 1998, revealed that many of the educational messages that appear in the school books are broadcast regularly on PA TV. Some of these have been included in this report.

Editing of the text material for the report has been done for the sake of brevity without changing the context. All the texts that appear in the report appear in the appendix often with greater context. In addition the appendix includes numerous other texts with similar and related educational messages.

The Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace grants full permission to reproduce material found on this web site. The condition for use in other formats is that credit is prominently given in the form of "Material provided by The Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace - http://www.edume.org"

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