Introduction
The
Palestinian Authority school books
The books reviewed in this report are published by the Palestinian
Authority (PA) Ministry of Education. One privately published book is also
included: an atlas published in 1998, which was approved by the PA. With this
one exception, all the text books quoted in this report are published
officially by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education and are used in
their schools.
Number of Books reviewed: 140
Publisher: Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education
Subjects: National Education (Civic Studies)
Grammar & Syntax
Language & Literature
History
Geography
Islamic Studies
Grades: 1-12
There are two categories of books: original PA publications and those based on books published in Jordan or Egypt. In the years Israel was responsible for education in the areas now under the PA, Israel likewise republished Jordanian and Egyptian books. However Israel republished them without the anti-Semitic and hateful material. Today it is the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education which is solely responsible for the selection, editing and content of all the school books reviewed in this report.
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 teaching is not under critique even when it
portrays Jews negatively. Nevertheless, it has been included when the editors
have used the Islamic material as a basis for instilling explicit or hateful
political expression. For example:
“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 the 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.
Contents:
Introduction
2. The evil enemy
3. Denial of legitimacy
4. To be fought through Jihad (Holy War)
5. Israel does not exist on maps. Its place is
marked - “Palestine”
6. Israeli cities are labeled Palestinian cities.
7. Israel’s capital, Jerusalem, is called: the capital of “Palestine”
B. Education to Jihad - Holy War - and Martyrdom
1. Education to Jihad
2. Education to Martyrdom
B. Appendixes - Additional sources for in depth study.
1. Obligation to fight against Israel.
3. Hostile portrayal of Jews, Israelis, and Israel.
4. Denial of Israel’s legitimacy and Jewish history
5. Promotion of Jihad and Martyrdom
6. Glorification of Personal Examples of Jihad and Martyrdom
7. The fall of the West and its replacement by Islam
8. Additional texts of interest
D. The PA educational system
1. Background
2. Current System
3. Development
4. Tables
D. International Aid for the PA Education System
Overview
A
telling measure of a government’s genuine interest in peace is the intensity
with which it acts to replace hateful stereotypes with positive attitudes.
Thus, it is disturbing that the following abusive terminology for Israelis,
Jews and Israeli characteristics is being used in Palestinian Authority school
books and being aired on Palestinian Authority television.
[All sources and context appear later in the report.]
|
Palestinian Authority
School Books Jews and Israelis are: Cunning Deceitful Treacherous Disloyal Wild animals Jewish aggressors Robbers Locust Thief Enemy Thieving conquerors Thieving enemy Enemy of prophets and believers Israel and Israeli characteristics include: A provocation to the Arab world A racist Jewish administration Zionist enemy Oppressors Occupied Palestine Israeli danger Zionist entity Zionist greed Zionist occupation The map that replaces all of Israel is: Palestine Israeli regions cities and towns are: “Israeli settlements in Galilee in northern Palestine” Israel’s Negev is: “Southern Palestine” |
Palestinian Authority Television Jews and Israelis are:
Deceiver Cheater Liar Cancer Terrorists Mean Brutal Inhuman Fascist Racist Genocidal
Israel and Israeli characteristics include: Oppressors Occupier Israeli entity Zionist entity Jewish gangs The map that replaces all of Israel is: Palestine |
One)
Overview
Two)
The Evil Enemy
Three) Islamic Sources used to
Create Stereotype
a. Overview
Palestinian Authority school children are actively taught that the Jews and Israel are the enemy in a broad range of contexts. The school texts portray the Jew as the enemy of believers, the enemy of Islam, the enemy of the Arabs, as well as generally evil and dangerous. Jews are killers and robbers and have stolen Arab land. Modern events are misrepresented to portray Israel and Jews as the evil force in their world. Zionism is equated to Nazism. Together they are depicted as the prototype examples of racism. These themes also appear regularly on PA television.
b. The Evil Enemy
·1 “Complete the following blanks spaces with the appropriate word:
The Zionist enemy - - [attacked] - - civilians with its aircraft.
[Our Arabic Language, Part 2 for Third Grade #523 p..9]
·2 “Why do the Jews hate Muslim unity and want to cause division among them? Give an example of the evil attempts of the Jews, from events happening today.” [Islamic Education for Seventh Grade p. 19]
·3 “The Jews … have killed and evicted Muslim and Christian inhabitants of Palestine, whose inhabitants are still suffering oppression and persecution under racist Jewish administration.” [Islamic Education for Ninth Grade # 589 p. 182]
·4 “Who is the thief who has torn our homeland?”
[Our Arabic Language for Sixth Grade Part One #553
p. 15]
·5 “Write in your exercise book: An event showing the fanaticism of the Jews in Palestine against Muslims or Christians.” [Islamic Education for Ninth Grade p. 182]
·6 “One
must beware of the Jews, for they are treacherous and disloyal.”
[Islamic
Education for Ninth Grade p. 79]
A section on Zionism is entitled:
?1 “Zionist Greed.”
[‘Modern Arab History and Contemporary Problems, Part Two, for Tenth Grade #613 p. 49].
Even racism is defined through the Jews, while
Nazism and Zionism are equated:
?1
“Racism:
Mankind has suffered from this evil both in ancient as well as in modern times,
for, indeed, Satan has, in the eyes of many people, made their evil actions
appear beautiful... Such a people are the Jews…”
[ Islamic
Education for Eighth Grade p. 95]
?1 “The clearest examples of racist belief and racial discrimination in the world are Nazism and Zionism.”
?1 “Understanding the racist and aggressive character of the Zionist Movement.
Summary of the similarity between Nazism, Fascism and Zionism.”
c. Islamic Sources used to Create Stereotype
At times, the hateful portrayal is based on Islamic sources. The
children are taught to apply the traditional narratives to hateful teachings
regarding Jews and Israelis today. Five examples:
?1
“I learn from this lesson: I believe that the Jews are
the enemies of the Prophets and the believers.” Islamic Education, Part Two,
for Fourth Grade #531 p. 67]
?1
“From the Uhud expedition… a number of lessons can be
learned…: Treachery and disloyalty are character traits of the Jews and
therefore one should beware of
them.”
[Islamic
Education for Ninth Grade #589 p. 87]
?2 “The Jews adopted a position of hostility and deception towards the new religion. They called Muhammad a liar and denied him, they fought against his religion in all ways and by all means, a war that has not yet ended until to day, and they conspired with the hypocrites and the idolaters against him and they are still behaving in the same way…” [Islamic Education for Seventh Grade p. 125]
?1 “In many cases these Jews acted according to their known cunning and deceit, and they incite wars [between Arab tribes]…”
[Islamic Education for Ninth Grade # 589 p. 78]
?1
“Lessons to be
learned: One must beware of civil war, which the Jews try to incite, and of
their scheming against the Muslims.”
[Ibid. p.
94]
Modern events are misrepresented to portray Israel as active in an
ongoing attack against Islam and the Arabs. Two examples: In 1969 an Australian
[non-Jew] set the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on fire. Yet, the children are
taught that Israel did it.
?1
“This arson is a further chapter in the Zionist plot,
whose aim is to take control of this Islamic holy place, the Dome of the Rock
and the whole area of the Jerusalem sanctuary and to destroy all that is holy
to Islam.”
[Reader and Literary Texts for Eighth Grade
#578 p. 97]
The Zionist movement has never called for the expulsion of Israel’s
Arab citizens. Yet the books teach that Zionism calls for this “expulsion”:
?1 “Zionism is a political, aggressive and colonialist movement, which calls for the Judaisation of Palestine by the expulsion of its Arab inhabitants …
[Modern Arab History and
Contemporary Problems, Part Two, for Tenth Grade #613 p. 49]
The same hateful portrayal of Jews and Israel found in the school books
is promoted regularly on Palestinian television. There too, Israel is the cruel
enemy:
?1 “Israel’s mean, brutal, inhuman, fascist, racist, genocidal, cleansing wars…”
[PA television May 14, 1998]
?2 “The Jewish gangs waged racial cleansing wars against innocent Palestinians… large scale appalling massacres saving no women or children.”
[PA television May 14, 1998]
?1 “One day they attacked… Attacked my country,
They killed the old and slaughtered the young
They burned the Koran and destroyed the house
They marched upon my heart, you are my country”
[summer camp song - Palestinian Authority TV, July 19, 1998]
The Jewish-Israeli character is
maligned:
?1 “The occupier as you all know is a deceiver, a cheater, moreover, he is a liar…”
[PA television May 14, 1998 , speech by Khalid Mismar, Deputy Political representative]
?1 Zionism is presented as “a cancer in the body of the nation”.
[PA television May 14, 1998]
?2 Israeli soldiers are “those terrorists”. [ PA television May 24, 1998]
?3 “…the terrorism that the occupying Israeli forces put into practice against our Palestinian nation since 1948.” [PA television May 19, 1998]
3. Denial
of Legitimacy
One)
Overview
Two)
Fabrication of racist “Talmudic
quote”
Three) Denial of Jewish nationhood
Four)
Denial of ancient Jewish history
Five)
Denial of modern Jewish history
Six)
Denial of religious history
Seven) Creation of Palestinian
history
a. Overview
The Palestinian Authority school books
have erased Jews from all contexts in Israel that are not negative and have
even fabricated viciously racist statements, attributing them to Jewish
sources. PA books describe Muslim and Christian religious, historical, and
archeological sites but omit any reference to Jewish sites. Tourists who visit
are Christian and Muslim but there is no mention of the Jewish tourists. The
Western Wall of the Temple is called “al-Buraq Wall” but there is no mention of
its Jewish history. A history book describes World War II, Hitler and Nazi
racism while ignoring the Jews and the Holocaust.
[“World
History on Modern Times for Eighth Grade” #586 pp. 34-45]
b.
Fabrication of racist “Talmudic
quote”
“It is mentioned in the
Talmud: “We [the Jews] are God’s people on earth…[God] forced upon the human
animal and upon all the nations and the races that they serve us, and He spread
us through the world to ride on them and hold their reigns. We must marry our
beautiful daughters with kings, ministers and lords and enter our sons into the
various religions, thus, we will have the final word in managing the countries.
We should cheat them [the non-Jews] and arouse quarrels among them, then they
fight each other… Non Jews are pigs who God created in the shape of man in
order that they be fit for service for the Jews, and God created the world for
them [the Jews].”
c. Denial
of Jewish nationhood
As part of the overall de-legitimization,
the books deny the continuity of the Jewish nation and their place in Israel,
by severing modern Jewry and modern Israel from their history in the land. The
children are taught that the Jews are not a nation, but rather, a religious
group:
?1
“who deluded themselves that their religious faith was
sufficient to turn them into one nation.”
[Modern Arab History and Contemporary Problems, Part
Two, for Tenth Grade #613 p. 49].
d. Denial
of ancient Jewish history
Thousands of years of Israeli - Jewish history and traditions and 2000
years of yearning to return to Israel, are likewise brushed away with:
?1 “The Zionists turn[ed] their attention towards Palestine as the national homeland of the Jews, while relying on false historical and religious claims.”
[Modern Arab History and Contemporary Problems, Part Two, for Tenth Grade p. 50].
e. Denial of modern Jewish history
The establishment of the state of Israel is portrayed not as the
authentic Jewish national movement but as a colonialist anti-Arab plot to split
the Arab world. Though similar to imperialism, the chart below shows it is far
worse:
?1 “The colonial powers regarded the Zionist Movement as the means for the attainment of their greedy colonial aspirations and saw Palestine as the base for the setting up of a Jewish state, thus tearing the Arab Homeland asunder and imposing their rule on it in order to exploit its natural resources. The European colonial powers spread the idea of Zionism among the Jews….”
[Modern Arab History and Contemporary Problems, Part Two, for Tenth Grade #613 p. 48].
?1 “The difference between Zionism and Imperialism:”
Zionism
|
Imperialism
|
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Zionism is not linked to land or country |
Colonies are an extension of the motherland |
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A tool for establishing a non-existent State |