by Peter Fernandez
Do Israeli grade school texts advocate hate against Arabs? They do, according to Israeli author, Nurit Peled-Elhanen, who wrote Palestine in Israeli Schoolbooks, Ideology and Propaganda in Education. Book review: how Israeli school textbooks teach kids to hate | The Electronic Intifada.
In her 2012 book, she wrote, “Palestinians are often referred to as ‘the Palestinian problem.’ …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. ”
But if you read Elhanen’s book, you should also peruse Princeton University’s Dr. Arnon Groiss’ essay rebuttal- Comments on Nurit Peled (impact-se.org): “It is astonishing that her peremptory general statements are actually based on a study of only seven textbooks,” stated Groiss. “Since Israeli schools use a large variety of textbooks and new ones appear every year, one wonders how such a small number could be regarded as a solid base for the kind of claims made by Dr. Peled-Elhanen.”
In contrast, a Palestine Authority Grade 5 textbook provides a four-page lesson glorifying Dalal al-Mughrabi, 18, a female terrorist commander who led a murderous assault against an Israeli civilian bus on March 11, 1978: “Our Palestinian history is replete with many names of martyrs who sacrificed their souls for the homeland, among whom is the martyr, Dalal al-Mughrabi, who painted with her struggle a picture of challenge and bravery that has made her memory eternal within our hearts and minds. The text before us shows her struggle and journey.” Her struggle and journey climaxed in the murders of 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, before she was killed.
According to a June 15 2021 UN Human Rights Council letter to the General Assembly, “Regrettably, Palestinian Authority (PA) textbooks continue to incite antisemitism and terrorism. In May this year, the European Parliament condemned the PA in this regard, expressing concern ‘that problematic material in Palestinian school textbooks has still not been removed.’” AHRC47NGO145_150621.pdf (un.org)
In October 2021, The George Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, Braunschweig, Germany, concluded its studies of 174 Palestinian Authority textbooks and 16 teachers’ guides for 2017-20, grades 1-12. The research was launched by members of the European Parliament “who had expressed concern about antisemitic and anti-peace contents found in the books.”
Another excerpt from a PA 2020 Grade 10 Arabic Language text reads: “…[The occupier] has built for himself an artificial entity that derives its identity and the legitimacy of its existence from tales, legends, and phantasies and has tried in various methods and ways to create live material evidence for these legends, or archaeological architectural proofs that would determine their truth and authenticity, but in vain.” The ancient and archaeologically based history of the Jewish people, the Old Testament, is being canceled and replaced by Palestinian grade school curricula.
In a grade 6 mathematics textbook, the photo of a 1927 Mandate of Palestine coin minted by the ruling British government is provided. The Arabic and English wording for ‘Palestine’ is evident, but the original coin(s), as located by the institute, clearly show that the Hebrew wording for Palestine was edited out for “educational purposes.” See Dr. Arnon Groiss’s JEWS in PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY SCHOOLBOOKS In UNRWA USAGE. But it isn’t only the Palestinian Authority that prints inciteful curricula.
In 2000, PBS Frontline researched religious textbooks for Saudi Arab middle school children. According to Frontline, the textbooks printed in 2000 were verified to be “part of the official curriculum for Saudi students and are a fundamental part of their education.” Here is a textbook extract, a saying, or a “hadith” of the prophet Mohammed: “The last hour won’t come before the Muslims would fight the Jews and the Mus- lims will kill them so Jews would hide behind rocks and trees. Then the rocks and tree would call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
Religious Textbooks | PBS – Saudi Time Bomb? | FRONTLINE | PBS
School textbooks, grades 1-12, used by Israeli students, have been scrutinized by American and European education boards and new sources, but there doesn’t seem to be much to criticize unless you are Peled Elhanen.
So what does all of this mean? Just that the Islamic-based idea for the violent liberation of Palestine will never go away as long as Palestinian and Arab children are taught to hate and kill. A minority of texts in Israeli curricula were found to be questionably racist but none were found to advance murder, rape, pillaging, and kidnapping. Life and human dignity are sacred in Judaism. But Islam? Attitude towards your Islamist “neighbors” is one thing, but deadly actions are another.
Hamas attacked some leftist-progressive kibbutzim in southern Israel and butchered its members. Bastions of the Left, Kibbutzim Are on Front Lines of War – Haaretz Com – Haaretz.com But terrorists do not quiz whether you are sympathetic to their cause or not. Had author Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a left-wing progressive, been a member of the Be’eri Kibbutz, where 150 Israeli civilians were killed, her ideals would not have shielded her. A Be’eri Kibbutznik, Vivian Silver, 74, a Canadian/Israeli peace activist, was murdered on October 5th.
Further reading:
Palestinian girl’s goal: “to reach the level” of terrorist who killed 37 PMW Analysis (palwatch.org) Palestinian Textbooks Don’t Vilify Jews, New Study Reveals, The Forward 2/4/2013
The roots of Hamas’ terror attack can be found in Gaza’s schools-The Forward
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Categories: Commentary
This article is, obviously, an academic (pseudo-intellectual), anti-religious rant.
Do Israeli and Palestinian schools teach hate?
Do American schools promoting Critical Race Theory teach hate? Do universities teaching Marxist dogma teach a hate for free market capitalism? Does simply asking this question in this context teach hate?
“So what does all of this mean?” What is hate?
‘Life and human dignity… are sacred to everyone. Attitude towards your … “neighbors” is one thing, but deadly actions are another.’ Therein lies the dilemma… for all of us.
No matter on what side of the aisle one sits, the current political debate, expressed here and elsewhere, has become an existential conflict. When one side wins, the other side not only loses, it withers on the vine never to be seen again. In the extreme, one side cannot exist without being an existential threat to the other side. The dogma is irreconcilable, emotionally and by definition.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that conflict is not only inevitable, the results are totalitarian.… survival of the fittest.
It seems we have two choices not considered by Mr. Fernandez.
Choose the side of one collective dogma or another – be it secular (pseudo-intellectual) or faith-based.
Or learn to coexist.
“The great virtue of a free-market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.” ― Milton Friedman
I think Fernandez used such words to spark interest in the conversation. “Do Israeli and Palestinian Schools Teach Hate” is simply an attempt to sell the article to readers. Of course, CRT teaches hate, but you think that this guy is on an “academic anti-religious rant?” I know the guy, and he is a believer in the Old and New Testaments.
You missed the point(s).
It’s one thing to merely want to ‘spark interest’ in a conversation. It’s another, entirely, to make a clear point about ‘hate’. If I missed something, please enlighten me.
@ HJ
Islam has no interest in coexistence; it is intent on world domination. One can’t coexist with someone intent on your destruction.
Not true. Some Islamic groups are very interested in coexisting.
10 Myths About Islam
https://www.learnreligions.com/top-myths-about-islam-2004189
This is my point about discussing ‘hate’ as a general precept. It can easily digress into a two-way street.
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
― Friedrich W. Nietzsche
@ HJ
I have both met the occasional Muslim and am acquainted with a mosque (in Israel) that are definitely more the co-existence sort. Sadly they are in the minority.
None the less, VT Independent, you raise an important point.
How do rational/reasonable people deal with those who value death (yours and theirs) over life?
IMO, the answer is obvious and need not be articulated beyond what I wrote above.
“No matter on what side of the aisle one sits, the current political debate, expressed here and elsewhere, has become an existential conflict. When one side wins, the other side not only loses, it withers on the vine never to be seen again. In the extreme, one side cannot exist without being an existential threat to the other side. The dogma is irreconcilable, emotionally and by definition… conflict is not only inevitable, the results are totalitarian.… survival of the fittest. It seems we have two choices…”
Fight or Flight.
Godspeed.
A little bit of religion sometimes goes a long way.
Just taking a guess, but it was probably not what God intended.
H Jay Eshelman believes that one article defending Islam says it all, but in real life Islam is a warlike religion.
Hadith (one of Mohammed’s sayings) narrated by Abi Hurira:
“The last hour won’t come before the Muslims would fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them so Jews would hide behind rocks and trees. Then the rocks and tree would call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only “Gharkad” tree, it is of Jews’ trees.”
JethroTull1971: Your assumption that there is only one article defending Islamic civil reasoning is as misleading as your assumption that there is one Islamic Hadith, or that there is only one narration of the account by only one disciple, Abi Hurira (aka Abu Hurairah, aka Abd Ar-Rahman ibn Sakhr), or that only one disciple spoke on behalf of the Islamic prophet, Mohammad.
The number of instances throughout history of man’s inhumanity to man, as driven by religious dogma, are countless. The Spanish Inquisition, manifest by the Catholic Church, for example, is famous for the severity of its tortures and its persecution of both Jews and Muslims. Go figure.
“I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.” – Adolf Hitler
The concept of ‘hate’ in the Fernandez article is irresponsibly over-simplified. To use it as a perfunctory reference to ‘spark interest’ in any subject is ill-advised. It’s playing with fire. Hate, after all, is not unique to people with one religious heritage or another. Hate, as is most Evil, is a manifestation of mental stress and a breakdown of social norms. It’s cyclical and self-destructive. Those who hate, or who channel that evil, will, sooner than later, destroy themselves. They always do, regardless of their spiritual nuance.
Fortunately, hate’s demise is inevitable. Unfortunately, it destroys almost everything innocent it touches along the way. Again, ‘Beware…when we gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into us.’
Mr. Eshelman, etc.; It is essential to differentiate between schools in the West bank and Palestinian schools inside of Israel. Concerning the coursework, notice the subtle propagandizing in the woman’s admonition: Are Palestinians actually presented as the problem, or does the phrase mean that there is a problem which centers around them? Much of her exposition is similar. Slanting the meaning of the language to support her point of view.
Apparently, Peled is related to a man, surname Peled, who also speaks and writes similarly. Analyzing his words in one speech, he sounds Marxist.