Palestinian textbooks don't demonize Jews or Israel

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

By Larry Derfner

|Published February 7, 2013

Palestinian textbook case closed, but more trumped-up Israeli charges expected

This week’s publication of a U.S.-funded study cleared the Palestinians of charges that their schoolbooks ‘demonize’ Israel. This was not, however, the first hoop they’ve been made to jump through, and it won’t be the last.

The Israeli and U.S. Jewish establishment reaction to the terrible news that the Palestinians don’t demonize Jews in their textbooks reminded me of the long-forgotten uproar over the Palestinian Covenant. Same bullshit. The stout-hearted nationalist Jews in the U.S. and Israel were saying in unison, “How can we ever trust the Palestinians to make peace when their covenant talks about ”liberating all of Palestine’?” And they made this their cause celebre – they lobbied Congress, they lobbied Clinton (this was in the mid-to-late 1990s), and Clinton pressured Arafat, until finally Arafat convened the relevant PLO council and they voted to take out the offending phrases. Clinton even went to Gaza at the end of 1998 for the historic event. He told the assembly: “You have sent, I say again, a powerful message not to the government, but to the people of Israel. You will touch people on the street there. You will reach their hearts there.”

I loved that. Nobody in Israel, no Jew on earth gave a good goddamn that they changed the Palestinian Covenant. But then none of them cared about the original “liberating all of Palestine” Palestinian Covenant, either. As soon as the vote in Gaza to amend it was finally taken, the whole issue vanished for the Israeli and American Jewish right as if it had never existed. This particular orange had been squeezed dry, and now it was time to move on – to find another issue over which to put the Palestinians on the defensive, to keep the world’s flashlight in their eyes and not in Israel’s, to find another hoop for them to jump through before Israel might be asked to slow the occupation train down just a tad.

So it is with the Palestinian textbooks. All this supposed distress over what the Palestinians are teaching their children about Israel and the Jews, this insistence that they clean up their textbooks as a condition for “peace” - it’s another one of the old “stop Oslo” ploys of the Israeli and American Jewish right. A bunch of right-wing propagandists like Itamar Marcus and Palestinian Media Watch have been harping on all this “demonization” in Palestinian textbooks, and the intended effect, of course, has been to discredit Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, to blacken the Palestinians’ name and thus make it harder for them to get Israel off their neck. And that’s what’s happened – right-wing Zionists everywhere who of course don’t know a word of Arabic have been hammering away at the Palestinian textbooks for nearly two decades, saying there can be no peace until those books are scrubbed good and thorough. Do right-wing Zionists want peace? No, they want the Palestinians to keep scrubbing.

But this week a three-year study of Palestinian and Israeli textbooks came out, backed by a $590,000 U.S. State Department grant and billed credibly by its authors as being “among the most comprehensive, fact-based investigations ever done of school textbooks.” It found that while neither side exactly educates its kids for peace, they don’t demonize or vilify the other side, either, except in “very rare” cases.

“Academic study weakens Israeli claim that Palestinian school texts teach hate,” wrote the New York Times. “New textbook study threatens to undercut argument that Palestinian schools preach hate,” wrote the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Oh no, what will we do? Maybe we can Goldstone these professors. “Whitewashing incitement,” said the Strategic Affairs Ministry. “Maliciously slandering the Israeli educational system and the State of Israel,” said the Education Ministry. “Distorted and counterproductive,” said Abe Foxman, a liberal compared to most other American Jewish machers.

If these people were really concerned about demonization of Israel in Palestinian schoolbooks as an obstacle to peace, they would take the findings of the study as wonderful news – hey, we were worried for nothing, it’s not a problem, let’s make peace! Just like they might have taken the changing of the Palestinian Covenant as great news.

Or like they might have welcomed the PLO’s recognition of Israel 25 years ago, which answered their long-standing No. 1 demand for proof of the Palestinians’ good intentions.

Or like they might be convinced by the PA’s fight against terror under Abbas, which has been their No. 1 demand for the last 25 years.

But no. There is literally nothing the Palestinians can or ever could do to satisfy the demands of the Israeli and American Jewish right – which now have a lock on power – because these are not demands made with an eye toward peace, they’re weapons in an information war to keep the Palestinians down. If the Palestinians recognize Israel, they’ll be told they have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. If they fight terror, they’ll be told they now have to fight incitement. If they amend the Palestinian Covenant, they’ll be met with blank stares. And if they turn out not to be demonizing Israel in their schoolbooks, they’ll be told that yes they are, and even if they’re not, they’re demonizing Israel somewhere else. If this orange has been squeezed dry, not to worry – there are plenty more oranges where that came from.

Yet another litmus test for the Palestinians was exposed this week as a cynical fraud. Now, moving right along, what are these conditions (four of them, I believe) that Hamas has to meet before Israel will agree to negotiate with them? Same bullshit.

Of course other studies have already confirmed this new one. But the pro-Israel bloc's two-prong attack has already begun: 1.) Demonize Wexler, the Yale professor who led the study (he's being threatened with being Goldstoned) and 2.) bury the report.

At any rate, the bogus claim will no doubt continue to be recited, including in various threads on this forum.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Forgot to include link:

http://972mag.com/palestinian-textbook-case-closed-but-more-trumped-up-israeli-charges-expected/65470/

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Well, glad we don't have to worry about that any longer.

[sandinista! 1,816]

Yep.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Well, glad we don't have to worry about that any longer.

I dunno... "if only they didn't teach their children to hate" is such a carefully nurtured meme... it will be difficult to give up...

[sandinista! 1,816]

These are people who toss around the "they love death and violence more than their own children" meme but salute David ben Gurion, and can overlook him saying that he'd rather have half of all German Jewish children die at the hands of the nazis if it meant sending the other half to Palestine instead of all of them to England.

Edited February 9, 2013 by sandinista!

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

These are people who toss around the "they love death and violence more than their own children" meme but salute David ben Gurion, and can overlook him saying that he'd rather have half of all German Jewish children die at the hands of the nazis if it meant sending the other half to Palestine instead of all of them to England.

The human brain has ways to deal with uncomfortable cognitive dissonance, such as belief disconfirmation paradigm.

Edited February 9, 2013 by wife_of_mahmoud

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Edited February 10, 2013 by ready4ONE

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Oh so it's the kids with guns thread now.

All righty then...

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

I am glad to know they found some books that don't demonize jews. I can sleep tonight knowing all is safe in the Middle East. LOL

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

I am glad to know they found some books that don't demonize jews. I can sleep tonight knowing all is safe in the Middle East. LOL

Question is: can they find some Israeli textbooks that don't demonize Arabs ?

Book review: how Israeli school textbooks teach kids to hate

I'm pretty sure you won't lose any sleep over that, though.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Question is: can they find some Israeli textbooks that don't demonize Arabs ?

Book review: how Israeli school textbooks teach kids to hate

I'm pretty sure you won't lose any sleep over that, though.

The 'study' you based your OP upon didn't just find Palestinian textbooks largely free of demonizing Israelis, did it? Answer: no it came to the same conclusion regarding Israeli textbooks largely clean from demonizing Palestinians.

So you had to disregard the clearing of Israeli textbooks and dig back a few years to find something that concluded the opposite of your own OP. Curious that.

[OriZ 3,157]

You may not like my sources but well I still do(doesn't mean I always agree with everything said in them)...

The Israeli educational system: http://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-schools-teach-children-to-value-peace/

The PA glorifying terrorists: http://unitedwithisrael.org/fatah-party-glorifies-suicide-bomber-on-facebook/

http://unitedwithisrael.org/fatah-encouraging-shahada/

Contrary to popular belief, Israeli Arabs partake in every part of society, and LIKE being in Israel for the most part. Here is just one small example(there are many others not mentioned there): http://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-master-chef-tv-show-highlights-israels-vibrant-democracy/

More about Israel's minorities(my Catholic American wife being one of them): http://unitedwithisrael.org/israel-safest-place-for-christians-in-middle-east/

Also, people like to pretend that nothing besides Israeli occupation exists in the world. I'm not saying that there being other occupations makes Israeli occupation of the west bank more just, as I've stated many times in the past I'm all for a two state solution. However, not acknowledging(or rarely so) that Israel is not the only one in the world to ever do this, is being biased at best.

http://unitedwithisrael.org/ignored-occupations-worldwide-highlight-anti-israel-bias/

And how about ending this post with a Turkish Journalist defending Israel?

http://unitedwithisrael.org/turkish-journalist-outspokenly-defends-israel/

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Question is: can they find some Israeli textbooks that don't demonize Arabs ?

Book review: how Israeli school textbooks teach kids to hate

I'm pretty sure you won't lose any sleep over that, though.

basically I don't care. You find every fringe element site you can find to bash and present a one sided argument you can. Then if anyone dares suggest anything negative about Islam or Palestine, like you do about Israel you go screaming to the Mods. So whatever . The world knows. That is good enough for me.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

The 'study' you based your OP upon didn't just find Palestinian textbooks largely free of demonizing Israelis, did it? Answer: no it came to the same conclusion regarding Israeli textbooks largely clean from demonizing Palestinians.

So you had to disregard the clearing of Israeli textbooks and dig back a few years to find something that concluded the opposite of your own OP. Curious that.

So you're saying that Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a liar ? Which of her findings do you deny are true ?

Peled-Elhanan examines 17 Israeli school textbooks on history, geography and civic studies. Her conclusions are an indictment of the Israeli system of indoctrination and its cultivation of anti-Arab racism from an early age: “The books studied here harness the past to the benefit of the … Israeli policy of expansion, whether they were published during leftist or right-wing [education] ministries” (224).

...

Inculcation of anti-Palestinian ideology in the minds of Israel’s youth is achieved in the books through the use of exclusion and absence: “none of the textbooks studied here includes, whether verbally or visually, any positive cultural or social aspect of Palestinian life-world: neither literature nor poetry, neither history nor agriculture, neither art nor architecture, neither customs nor traditions are ever mentioned” (49).

“all [the books] represent [Palestinians] in racist icons or demeaning classificatory images such as terrorists, refugees and primitive farmers — the three ‘problems’ they constitute for Israel” (49).

“For example in MTII [Modern Times II, a 1999 history text book] there are only two photographs of Palestinians, one of face-covered Palestinian children throwing stones ‘at our forces’ … [t]he other photograph is of ‘refugees’ … placed in a nameless street” (72).

This what Peled-Elhanan terms “strategies of negative representation.” She explains that “Palestinians are often referred to as ‘the Palestinian problem.’” While this expression is even used by writers considered “progressive,” the term “was salient in the ultra-right-wing ideology and propaganda of Meir Kahane,” the late Israeli politician and rabbi who openly called for the Palestinians to be expelled. Peled-Elhanan finds this disturbing, coming as it does “only 60 years after the Jews were called ‘The Jewish Problem’ ” (65).

She reprints examples of the crude Orientalist cartoon representations of Arabs, “imported into Israeli school book [sic] from European illustrations of books such as The Arabian Nights” (74). Arab men stand, dressed in Oriental garb, often riding camels. The cartoons of Arab women show them seated submissively, dressed in traditional outfits. Meanwhile, two Israelis on the same page are “depicted as a ‘normal’ — though caricaturistic — Western couple, unmarked by any ‘Jewish’ or ‘other’ object-signs” (110-11). The message is clear: Arabs do not belong here with “us.”

Peled-Elhanan concludes: “The books studied here present Israeli-Jewish culture as superior to the Arab-Palestinian one, Israeli-Jewish concepts of progress as superior to Palestinian-Arab way of life and Israeli-Jewish behavior as aligning with universal values” (230).

While Israeli war crimes are not entirely ignored, the textbooks do their best to downplay or justify massacres and ethnic cleansing. “[T]he Israeli version of events are stated as objective facts, while the Palestinian-Arab versions are stated as possibility, realized in openings such as ‘According to the Arab version’ … [or] ‘Dier [sic.] Yassin became a myth in the Palestinian narrative … a horrifying negative image of the Jewish conqueror in the eyes of Israel’s Arabs’ ” (50-1).

Deir Yassin was a Palestinian village where, in 1948, a notorious massacre of around 100 persons by terrorists from the Zionist militias Irgun, Lehi and Hagana took place. Yet note in the example above that is is only the negative image of Israel that is “horrifying.” The massacre of unarmed men, women and children is otherwise not a cause for concern.

The issue of the Nakba, the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland in 1948, is for the most part not ignored, but instead justified.

For example, in all the books mentioning Deir Yassin, the massacre is justified because: “the slaughter of friendly Palestinians brought about the flight of other Palestinians which enabled the establishment of a coherent Jewish state” — a result so self-evidently good it doesn’t need explaining (178).

Contrary to the hope of previous studies “for ‘the appearance of a new narrative in [israeli] history textbooks’ … some of the most recent school books (2003-09) regress to the ‘first generation’ [1950s] accounts — when archival information was less accessible — and are, like them ‘replete with bias, prejudice, errors, [and] misrepresentations’ ” (228).

By the way it was cute how you put the word study in quote marks - reminds me of the way some Zionists still put Palestinians in quote marks. As if unpleasant things can be simply denied or just wished away. Well, it worked for a while... hey, maybe the old stand-bys will still cut it for the 2013 crowd...

I already noted that it would be very difficult for Zionists to give up their institutionalized demonization of Palestinians, as it has been key to their attempts to justify Israel's continued crimes against Palestinians for the past 60+ years - and not just to the outside world. It's the foundation of the continued internal state propaganda needed to keep Israelis focused on dispossessing and marginalizing the Palestinians who remain.

Because of course if the Palestinian people can be dismissed as sub-human troglodytes bereft of the same basic cultural developments and national awareness that every other ethnic group on earth managed to come up with, then their very “humanity” may be questioned - and one need feel no guilt over killing them, driving them from their property, and stealing their stuff. It's not like they are "human beings" with actual "human" rights.

Of course Israeli youth aren't born with these attitudes; they have to be indoctrinated with them. Israeli school textbooks are an important part of the process.