The Truth about the Palestinian schoolbooks

by Itamar Marcus, director PMW

One of the most meaningful gauges of the integrity of a peace process and its likelihood for success is the degree to which the “peace partners” educate towards peace. It is for this reason that the entire Palestinian Authority (PA) education apparatus, both formal and informal, has been such a dismal disappointment. Instead of seizing the opportunity to educate the future generations to live with Israel in peace, the PA has done everything in its power to teach hatred to young minds.

Making matters worse, the Palestinian Authority has been spreading two clever lies about the schoolbooks that have succeeded in deflecting international pressure for change. This week, at a meeting in Jordan, Nebil Shaath answered Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom’s complaint about the schoolbooks saying that the PA has “spent five years” rewriting the books, implying that they are now proper. Then he added, that Israel used the same old Jordanian books for educating the local Arab population “for 30 years”, and therefore has no valid complaint to the PA. Many European governments, and many Israelis, have come to the PA’s defense, citing these and other arguments.

The truth about the PA schoolbooks is first, that both new and old are far from proper - both include anti-Semitism, de-legitimize Israel’s existence and incite to hatred and violence. In the new 6th grade book “Reading the Koran”, anti-Semitism is presented openly, as children read about Allah’s warning to the Jews that because of their evil Allah will kill them: “...Oh you who are Jews ...long for death if you are truthful... for the death from which you flee, that will surely overtake you ...”In other sections they learn of Jews being expelled from their homes by Allah, and in another Jews are said to be like donkeys: “Those [Jews] who were charged with the Torah, but did not observe it, are like a donkey carrying books...” [Reading the Koran, grade 6. p.20, 23, 78]. This religious based anti-Semitism is the most dangerous, as children are taught that hating Jews is God’s choice. And while Islam is not being critiqued, it is very grave that although Islam has positive traditions regarding Jews, the PA educators chose to incorporate only hateful religious traditions.

The new PA schoolbooks that Shaath was so positive about, also teach that Israel has no right to exist, de-legitimizing Israel as a foreign occupier, compared to colonial Britain: “Colonialism: Palestine faced the British occupation after the First World War in 1917, and the Israeli occupation in 1948 …”[National Education, sixth grade, p. 16].
Since all of Israel is said to be an “occupation”, all of Israel’s cities, regions and natural resources are presented as being part of “Palestine”. For example:
“Among the famous rocks of southern Palestine are the rocks of Beersheba and the Negev” and “Palestine’s Water Sources - ... The most important is the Sea of Galilee.” [Our Beautiful Language, grade 6, Part A, p. 64, National Education, sixth grade, p. 9-10]

The Negev, Beersheba and the Sea of Galilee are in Israel and do not border the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria. Yet PA children are taught these are “Palestine”. Continuing this ideology a book is citing dedicated to “...Palestinians, so that they would remember their stolen homeland and work for its salvation...”[Our Beautiful Language, sixth grade, Part A, p. 112] and it is referring, not to the disputed territories, but Israel pre 1967.

Educating not to recognize Israel’s existence is cemented through tens of maps in the schoolbooks in which “Palestine” encompass all of Israel. Israel does not exist on any map, within any borders. The PA defense of their schoolbook map, that since there are no final borders the map is not portraying modern “Palestine” but “Mandatory Palestine”, is an insult to our intelligence. Are we expected to believe that when Palestinian children see the map called “Palestine” in all their schoolbooks they imagine Britain a half a century ago? And when Beersheba is called Palestine, the children are picturing Biblical history?

Another new book teaches what must be done for “occupied Palestine” and the “stolen homeland”: “Islam encourages this [love of homeland] and established the defense of it as an obligatory commandment for every Muslim if even a centimeter of his land is stolen. "I, a Palestinian Muslim, love my country Palestine...” [Islamic Education, sixth grade, Part A, p. 68]

The complete and total message Palestinian children are taught is that Jews, according to Allah, are like donkeys; Israel is a colonial occupier who stole their land; the cities, lakes and deserts of Israel are “occupied Palestine”; and they, the children, have an obligation to liberate it “even if a centimeter is stolen”.

All the above messages are found in new schoolbooks written and published by the PA since 2000. The first claim that new PA books are “proper” is flagrantly untrue. However, the majority of the books still in use by the PA schools are books they republish under the symbol of their own Ministry of Education, that were written by Jordan. These books include the following hate promotion:
“One must beware of the Jews, for they are treacherous and disloyal.”
[Islamic Education for Ninth Grade p. 79, these and below from CMIP report]

http://www.pmw.org.il/schoolbooks.htm

Egypt:

Quote:


Commentary on the Surahs of Muhammad, Al-Fath, Al-Hujurat and
Qaf, Grade 11, (2002) p. 9
When you meet them in order to fight [them], do not be seized by
compassion [towards them] but strike the[ir] necks powerfully.… Striking the
neck means fighting, because killing a person is often done by striking off his
head. Thus, it has become an expression for killing even if the fighter strikes
him elsewhere. This expression contains a harshness and emphasis that are
not found in the word “kill”, because it describes killing in the ugliest manner,
i.e., cutting the neck and making the organ – the head of the body – fly off
[the body].

Commentary on the Surahs of Muhammad, Al-Fath, Al-Hujurat and
Qaf, Grade, 11 (2002) pp. 19-20

The rules of jihad in this context
Jihad is a religious duty of every individual at a time of general call to arms, and a religious duty of a sufficient number [of Muslims] in other times. Jihad is a firm religious duty and anyone [i.e., any Muslim] who repudiates it should be considered an unbeliever. Its being a religious duty is proven by the Book [i.e., the Qur’an], the Prophetic Tradition [Sunnah] and the [Muslim] nation’s consensus. As for the Book, there are His words: “Fight those who do not believe in God, neither in the Last Day” and the rest of the verses regarding the command to fight the infidels. [As for] the Sunnah,
[there are] the Prophet’s words: “I have been ordered to fight the people until
they say that there is no god except God….”

Fighting the infidels is a duty of every man who is in full possession of his mental faculties, healthy, free [i.e., not a slave] and able [to perform jihad], because a woman and a slave are occupied by [the task of] serving the master
and the husband…

If the enemy attacks, it is the duty of all people to [participate in the] defense:

Women and slaves go out [even] without the permission of the[ir] masters and husbands, because it [i.e., jihad] becomes [in such a case] a personal religious duty, and the husband’s and master’s right is not superior to a  personal religious duty, as is [the case with] prayer and fasting.

Selections for the Explanation of [the Book of] “Selection”, Grade 11,
(2002) p. 329

http://www.teachkidspeace.com/reports/EgyptianTextbooks2003.pdf

JORDAN:

Researcher denounces inaccurate rights terminology in textbooks

Photo: IRIN  

AMMAN, 18 January 2006 (IRIN) - Jordanian authorities should revise national school textbooks in order to avoid erroneous human rights terminology from being taught, a researcher from the quasi-governmental National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) said.

In an ongoing study commissioned by the NCHR, the Ministry of Education and UNESCO, researcher Suleiman Sweiss found several instances of inaccurate information related to human rights in textbooks.

One example was found in a secondary-school course book in which writers define the term “oriental democracy” as “the rule by a small group of educated people who know very well how to run the state.”

“I checked this term and was unable to find it in any scientific resource,” said Sweiss during a roundtable discussion on human rights education in Jordan, held earlier this month in Amman.

Another example of misleading definitions was found in an Islamic secondary-school textbook published last year. The book stated that “the husband has the right to beat his wife softly in a manner that would not leave any traces on her body.”

After having reviewed some 40 course books, Sweiss came to the conclusion that most textbook writers “are incompetent and not well-informed on human rights issues.”

Overall, however, the researcher considers recent steps by the education ministry to disseminate human rights information in school curriculum a positive sign.

“I’ve noticed an increase in references to democracy, citizenship, women’s and children’s rights and human rights declarations [in textbooks],” said Sweiss.

“The problem is with the implementation of these concepts,” he added.

NCHR’s report on the status of human rights education in Jordan is part of the United Nations World Programme on Human Rights Education.

Officials from the education ministry would not comment on the researcher’s findings.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=26059

Calanen- if you believe that muslims are forbidden from taking jews and christians as friends or anything else- then why do you suppose they are allowed to marry them?

also why did muhammed advice his followers to take protection under a christian state?

freediver wrote on Jan 21^st, 2009 at 5:57pm:


we're not talking about slaves. we're talking about wives. jewish and christian women who marry muslim men now are not slaves

and the question stands. if you marry someone obviously you take them as a friend- even more than that. so how does this sit with calanen's POV?

if it were just about sex then it would have been said 'thou shalt lie with them but not take them as your wives'- or something to that effect. but that was not said.

jewish and christian wives are also given the same rights in marriage as muslim women as far as I remember.

Quote:


It doesnt matter what I believe, at all. I could think of some great arguments about Islamic theology. But these arguments have all been answered and settled by Islamic jurisprudence. What I think, or interpret, is pointless. What matters is what the followers of the Religion of Peace have thought or interpreted. They tell us all the time, but we ignore what they say, or at least most of the west does.

I watch for what Islam says it means, and the way in which Islamic followers act in reliance on these teachings.

I have found the textbook examples to be powerful weapons in the fight against Islamic deception. It is one thing to say that my understanding of islam is the wrongheaded poorly translated Islamohpbic version, but then if it is coincidentally the same as is being taught to Islamic children in their textbooks, what does this tell us? Why is that? And not just in Saudi Arabia, but right around the world.

What does matter is what people do, and why they do it. Islamic terrorists say they do these things in Allah's name. I think we should take them at their word.

freediver,

Quote:


You really do yourself a disservice everytime you touch that keyboard of yours fd. She clearly stated marriage, yet you jump to slaves. Are you deliberately just arguing something other than what she asked?

Please answer the question she asked, not what you perceive it to be in your deluded little fantasy world.