Anti-Israel Palestinian Textbooks

Paper Summary:

The paper demonstrates the culpability of Palestinian educators in creating a climate that is intolerant, contemptuous of civil debate and which openly seeks the destruction of the Jewish state. The paper discusses what can be done to change the course of Palestinian education. The paper concludes that if Palestine can be prevailed upon to produce textbooks emphasizing basic numeracy and literacy instead of revenge, there is hope that the future of the Middle East can be less bloody than its past.

From the Paper:

"To begin with, it is worth noting that Palestinians have been using Jordanian and Egyptian curricula and textbooks since the early 1950s. In light of the fact that Egypt has been a pretty virulent enemy of Israel for decades, it may be said that someone else's hatred not only found its way into Palestinian textbooks but actually complemented and amplified the antipathy Palestinians already felt towards Israel. In any case, Dr. Sami Adwan of Bethlehem University also writes that the aforementioned textbooks were subject to "complete censorship" by the Israeli military governor in the years between 1967 and 1993. Even when this state of affairs was modified in the 1990s, Adwan - who is Palestinian - writes that the Israelis continue to restrict the freedom of Palestinian students and teachers to move where they wish - and that the production of a new wave of Palestinian textbooks since the dawn of this decade has been done against a backdrop of violence and hopelessness."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Adwan, Sami. "Schoolbooks in the Making: From Conflict to Peace. A Critical Analysis of the New Palestinian Textbooks for Grades One and Six." Economics & Culture, 31.1 (2001): 5-19.
• Bekerman, Zvi. "Dialogic Directions: Conflicts in Israeli/Palestinian Education for Peace." Inter-cultural Education, 11.1 (2000): 41-51.
• Gur-Ze'ev, Ilan. "The Production of Self and the Destruction of the Other's Memory and Identity in Israeli-Palestinian Education on the Holocaust/Nakbah." Studies in Philosophy and Education, 20.3 (2001): 255-66.
• Hussein, Yamila. "The Stone and the Pen." Radical Teacher, 74 (2005): 17-22.
• Marcus, Itamar. "Palestinian Education". FDCH Congressional Testimony 30 Oct. 2003. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCOhost. University of Calgary Lib., Calgary, AB. 18 Sept. 2006 <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=55&hid=5&sid=6b4b9d60-a1cb-4a4c-9608-1f7df2449e81%40sessionmgr3>

More papers on Anti-Israel Palestinian Textbooks:

• Persuasive Essay # 129601 : "Palestinian Textbooks and Anti-Israeli Sentiment"
• Analytical Essay # 147289 : "The Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO"

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