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Re: ADL Press Release on source of Palestinian children’s terrorism, 

Aref Assaf

November 20, 2002  

Pro Israel groups often criticize the Palestinian Authority (PA) for producing educational materials that incite hatred and undermine the legitimacy of the Israeli state. Indeed, a recent press release by Shari Goldstein, Regional Director of the  Anti Defamation League (ADL), claims “the Palestinian children are victims of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Hezbollah's education systems that promote glorification of murder." Quoting a UN official, the statement also laments the fact Palestinian children have no sports figures or people in authority to look up to.” (Full text of press release appears below and on http://www.adcnj.us/adl-pr-targum-ad.htm )

Mr. Goldstein’s accusations were in response to a condemnation by two Arab American groups, the NJ Chapter of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, (ADCNJ) and NJ Solidarity (NJS),  of the decision of the Rutgers’ newspaper, The Daily Targum, to publish an inflammatory anti-Palestinian ad in their November 4, 2002 issue. The ad was paid for  by a hitherto unknown and possibly  fictitious pro-Israel group called “campustruth.org”. The ad depicts, on one side, an Israeli athlete, labeled as an "Israeli School Children's hero", and on the other side, a suicide bomber, labeled,” Palestinian School Children's hero".  The bottom of the ad proclaims, "There are two sides to every story, but only one truth."  ADCNJ and NJS properly and promptly attacked this ad because it does not contain any political message, but rather, proclaims that all children of a particular nationality worship killers.[*] ADCNJ, perhaps mistakenly, expected ADL to also criticize the offensive ad but it appears the ADL has a different agenda.

Mr. Goldstein claims are unsubstantiated and truly troubling.  Such accusations by the ADL are non-trivial. They have, in fact,  been used to pressure the European Union to  reduce or eliminate its funding to PA educational institutions. They have also been manipulated to foster anti-Palestinian sentiments in America and fuel anti-PA resolutions in Congress.[1] What is true is that the PA had no control whatsoever over Palestinian textbook from 1948 until 1994. Palestinian curriculum and textbooks  were based on Jordanian, Egyptians curriculum from 1967 until 1994 and they were run by the United Nations.  Secondly, the militant group, Hamas, except for its own religious schools,  never had any control over the contents or publication of official Palestinian curricula. Most absurd, is Mr. Goldstein reference to Hezbollah , which is a Lebanese and not a Palestinian group. ADL’s sweeping accusations are only intended to obscure the real reason of Palestinian violence:  the Israeli occupation of Arab lands.

As for Palestinian textbooks, we cite an independent report prepared by Nathan Brown, an American professor at George Washington University ,[2] that finds that the vast majority of ADL’s accusations stem from a single very suspect Israeli source. A Jewish-American nongovernmental organization called the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP). Its research director and main financial contributor, Itamar Marcus, is, notably, an Israeli settler. Dr. Brown’s report concludes CMIP's accusations are "often wildly exaggerated or inaccurate" and the sources "misleading and tendentious." He does assert, “the Palestinian curriculum is not a war time curriculum. While highly nationalist, it does not incite hatred, violence and anti-Semitism.  It cannot be described as a peace curriculum either.” Nationalism, whatever its drawbacks, underpins almost every country’s school textbooks, not least in the US and Israel . Are we to label as racist or inciting when we say ‘God Bless America ’ instead of saying, perhaps, “God Bless the World”?

ADL’s accusations are probably based on an Israeli Army ‘study” published in a Haaretz. [3] Example of PA’s “hate-teaching”  include the use of maps that do not show Israel's borders, the allegation that Israeli changed the names of formerly Arab towns, the contention that many Arabs were forcibly displaced in 1948, and even the suggestion that there were centers of Palestinian population in Palestine before 1948! All these concrete claims however are widely acknowledged  to be true even by Israel historians such as Meron Benvenisti and Ilan Pape. Perhaps they are “inciting” simply because they do not conform to the foundation myths of Zionism. My fathers' village, Allar, was one of over 420 Palestinian Arab villages destroyed by Israel in 1948, bears the Hebrew names Matta and Bar-Giyyora. Sadly, my father, like the Palestinians who were expelled from their villages, is barred from ever returning, for no other reason other than they are Palestinians. According to ADL standards, it is “inciting” to teach this fact in Palestinian schools!

Another example is the Palestinians’ “failure” to show Israel 's borders. This does not really constitute a claim to all of Palestine (Brown argues that the textbooks are simply evasive to avoid controversy); and where official claims are made, for instance by the PA, they have explicitly recognized Israel for more than a decade. The Israeli government has of course made no such parallel recognition of a Palestinian state nor has it ever defined its borders. The official map of Israel includes the West Bank , the Gaza Strip and the Golan heights- areas that Israel’s sovereignty was never recognized by any country including the United States and the United Nations.

Since Mr. Goldstein has engaged in an analysis of educational materials, he would do well to examine depictions of Arabs in Israeli textbooks.  According to recent academic study by Professor Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University and surveys Israeli school textbooks as well as children’s storybooks,  portray Palestinians and Arabs as "murderers," "rioters," "suspicious," and generally backward and unproductive. As Maureen Meehan writes, outright delegitimization of Arabs is the rule rather than the exception in Israeli schoolbooks,  Her assessment is based on a report by Dr.  Bar-Tal  o Tel Aviv University, who  studied 124 elementary, middle- and high school textbooks on grammar and Hebrew literature, history, geography and citizenship.[4] He concluded that Israeli textbooks present the view that Jews are involved in “a justified, even humanitarian, war against an Arab enemy that refuses to accept and acknowledge the existence and rights of Jews in Israel .” He concluded :"The early textbooks tended to describe acts of Arabs as hostile, deviant, cruel, immoral, and unfair, with the intention to hurt Jews and to annihilate the State of Israel. Within this frame of reference, Arabs were delegitimized by the use of such labels as 'robbers,' 'bloodthirsty,' and 'killers.'"  Professor Bar-Tal also notes that  there has been little positive revision in the curriculum over the years.  Bar-Tal pointed out that Israeli textbooks continue to present Jews as industrious, brave and determined to cope with the difficulties of "improving the country in ways they believe the Arabs are incapable of."  Our message to ADL is look at the Israeli textbooks first!

Admittedly, the Palestinian education system (what is left of it, following this most recent round of incursions and reoccupation) is deeply flawed and requires major improvements. One such improvement is to emphasize democratic values and greater personal freedoms instead of almost unquestioned respect for authoritarian rule. It is, however, manifestly absurd to suggest that bad school textbooks explain undeniable Palestinian rage.  Mr. Goldstein accusations are only intended to obscure the real reason for Palestine rage: Israel’s brutal and humiliating 36-year occupation[5] of the West Bank , Gaza strip and East Jerusalem. Mr. Goldstein would have us believe that the hell that 3 million Palestinians must endure on a daily basis- in the form of humiliation and day long delays at checkpoints, home demolitions, house to house searches, arbitrary round up, segregation from settler areas and major highways, imprisonment in their homes for weeks, 60% unemployment due to Israel’s siege of the Occupied territories, severe poverty and alarming child malnutrition rates --- have nothing to do with Palestinian rage or hopelessness. NO, according to Mr. .Goldstein—it must the PA’s textbooks.

Even if the Israeli Army wrote the textbooks,[6] little will change the minds of Palestinian children when they see their schools demolished, their teachers killed or abused and the mere mention of the word “ Palestine ” illegal. Textbooks matter little when a six-year old Palestinian child- asked to draw a cloud in the sky- draws the after-burn “cloud” of an F16 jet aiming for a Palestinian home! Blaming the victim for their own fate has been the domain of those who want the conflict to persist.  Shamelessly, pro Israel pundits continue to maintain the lie about Palestinian textbooks and find in them non-existent excuses to continue the oppression and dehumanization of the Palestinians.

 How ironic that the ADL accuses certain organizations of trying to "divert attention from the real issues" when, ironically, the entire release never even alludes to the fact that a brutal military rule is the reason for rage among the Palestinian people.  Perhaps most ironic is that its  statement points to the fact that Palestinians have no "sports figures" to look up to, as if the Israeli occupation and economic strangulation of the Israeli siege of the Occupied Territories permitted Palestinians to worry about anything more than daily  survival. It is unfathomable that Goldstein quotes a United Nations source- the same organization that, since 1948, Israel has consistently defied and refused to carry any  of its resolutions.[7]   The Palestinians can thank the Israeli occupation -- not their textbooks -- for their inability to eat or work, much less root for a soccer team. 

 
Aref Assaf

Footnotes:

* Full story on  http://www.adcnj.us/Rutgers%20targum.htm

1] See “ The Politics of Palestinian Textbooks, Foud Mughrabi , http://www.ipsjps.org/jps/121/moughrabi.html