You may recall Hillary Clinton trumpeting the news that Palestinian school textbooks teach hatred of Israel and Jews. This so-called revelation was supposed to teach the world the perfidy of Palestinians; that they don’t want peace; that they only want to hate; and that the fault for the conflict lay at the foot of the Palestinians alone. Hillary’s ‘news’ was meant as a boon to AIPAC and the Israel-First crowd and meant to bolster her pro-Israel bona fides. In fact, two senior Jewish Federation volunteers use the charge to support their endorsement of Clinton’s candidacy.
When I first read of Hillary’s charge my response was: “So what?” I spent most of my public school education resisting the propaganda some of my teachers tried to inculcate (cf. Tom Paxton’s remarkable song, What Did You Learn in School Today?). Many students are smart enough to see through the lies that might be taught them. Besides, do we really believe that what schoolchildren learn is critical to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
But little did I realize that I needn’t have bothered trying to explain or rationalize the allegedly defamatory Palestinian textbooks. Why? Because Hillary’s claims were not true. Diane Mason lays out the case in her own impeccable fashion at Lawrence of Cyberia and I recommend you read the entire post.
In short, Hillary relied in her charges on “research” performed by the Committee for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP), a right-wing pro-Israel propaganda outfit founded by Itamar Marcus. CMIP’s purpose, like that of MEMRI, CAMERA, Debka, and a host of other similar groups is to cut and paste media stories that are embarrassing to Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular. Many of the stories are either mistranslated, wrenched out of context, or generally twisted to place Islam in the worst possible light.
In this particular case, CMIP’s research and conclusions are entirely wrong. While there are some textbooks used by students which deride Jews and Israel, they are old Jordanian and Egyptian publications and they are being used because Israeli administrators prefer not to allow Palestinians to use textbooks created by the PA for fear that this might mean recognition of a Palestinian claim to sovereignty. Actual Palestinian textbooks do NOT contain any of the slurs documented by CMIP.
To the CMIP charge that classrooms display maps missing the State of Israel, non-partisan academic investigators note that the maps are GEOGRAPHIC, and not political or national maps. In other words, they don’t show the boundaries of ANY country.
Diane also notes that in an interview a CMIP director acknowledged that he does not think that Palestinian textbooks are guilty of incitement against Israel or Jews. There goes Clinton’s argument. There is much more to the story of course which you may pursue at Diane’s site.
But let’s return to the question why any of this is important considering that Hillary’s errant claims are several years old. The reason why this is entirely relevant is that Hillary is running for president on a hawkish, pro-Israel agenda. She has never renounced these false claims. She continues to raise them in Jewish venues as if they are true.
Clinton has a first-rate staff that I’m sure researches all of the claims she makes to test their accuracy. It would be extremely easy for her to investigate the Palestinian textbook claim and discover that it is false. Yet she does not do so. So much for a concern for truth. So much for a sensitivity to the Palestinian educational system which she has slandered for political advantage.
In other words, this is a candidate who uses a sledge hammer when it comes to discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when a scalpel is required. Do we trust her to understand the nuances, complexity and ambiguity of the issues involved? Do we trust her to be an honest broker in bringing the two sides together should she become president? I know I don’t and this issue confirms my doubts.
Writing just after the New Hampshire primary, in which Clinton displayed deep emotion in responding to sexist attacks against her, Mason writes:
Like many people, I’ve been disgusted by the sexist attacks that you have faced in the primaries so far, and will no doubt continue to face the closer you get to the Presidency. It must be very difficult to be the first serious female contender for President, and to see your candidacy belittled by big-mouthed pundits who…demean you just because of who you are. We could all see how much that hurt you when you teared up in New Hampshire. But have you never stopped to consider that you have made a political asset out of demonizing and defaming Palestinian Arabs, even though racist rhetoric hurts its target just as much as sexism hurts you? You have made a decision that it is all right to do to others what is obviously painful when it is done to you, just so long as there is some political advantage to be had.
I look at how much you are hurt by the sexist rhetoric you face, and I want to feel sorry for you. But then I look at how easily and how repeatedly you demonize Palestinians just because you have calculated that it will win you some votes…
Your readers may be interested in reading the latest report from CMIP (March 2008) along with Mason’s critique and decide for themselvs if which is more balanced.
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Or worse, she knows the claims are false and repeats them anyway!
This is precisely why I will vote Green before I’d pull the level for HRC. She has been to the occupied territories and sat with Palestinians. Anyone who has ever set foot in the OTs knows the absurdity of those claims. She knows their suffering, and the justness of their cause. And she still turned around and spouted that nonsense.
Or worse, she knows the claims are false and repeats them anyway!
This is precisely why I will vote Green before I’d pull the level for HRC. She has been to the occupied territories and sat with Palestinians. Anyone who has ever set foot in the OTs knows that this conflict is about land and national aspirations. And she still turned around and spouts that nonsense, which is intended to equate Palestine’s legitmate national aspirations with mindless “hate.”
Is there more overused, meaningless word in the English language?
More information about the content of Palestinian textbooks, in the context of the religion curricula of eight other Middle Eastern countries, can be found in Eleanor Abdella Doumato and Gregory Starrett, eds., Teaching Islam: Textbooks & Religion in the Middle East (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers 2007):
http://www.rienner.com/viewbook.cfm?BOOKID=1587&search=doumato
While there is some anti-Semitic content in some of the region’s national curricula, the revised Palestinian texts are in fact the LEAST likely to contain potentially inflammatory material. At the same time, textbooks used in Israeli schools have often portrayed Arabs as dirty, violent, primitive, hostile, and immoral, natural enemies to be cleared away “like swamps”. The defamation, where it has found its way into schoolbooks, has been mutual, and is the result of the real political conflict in the region, rather than being its cause.
It is too bad that Senator Clinton and others focus on this issue rather than on real political problems and real political solutions. It’s a sure way to guarantee that no progress will be made toward peace.
Has anybody actually seen a Palestinian textbook, I haven’t. But Rich neither have you, Diane Mason, or Gregory Starrett. What I have seen are video’s of children’s shows that are totally perverted in their hatred of Jews. Everybody has an agenda. I admit that. But to dump on CMIP on one hand and take at face value anything on Lawrence of Cyberia is a little disingenuous. Don’t you think
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Gregory would you like to back up your absurd claim that “At the same time, textbooks used in Israeli schools have often portrayed Arabs as dirty, violent, primitive, hostile, and immoral, natural enemies to be cleared away “like swamps”.” with a link or some proof. I have three kids in Israeli schools and have never run into anything like this. Something in the last twenty years would be nice. And not just something but many things since you claim that it is done often. If you go to the CMIP website you will see hundreds of pages of referenced reports from many middle eastern countries to back their claim.
Thank you Richard for pointing out this excellant resource of which I was unaware of before.
Bill: Gregory Starett is a cultural anthropologist who teaches at a major university. I assure you that he doesn’t write about subjects unless he has first hand documentary evidence sitting right in front of him. In this case that would mean the textbooks he’s evaluating & critiquing.
As for the content of Israeli textbooks, Amir hasn’t been paying much attention to what his children are learning. Or if he has his attitudes are so deeply ingrained that he doesn’t notice prejudicial assumptions when he reads them. All he’d have to do is Google & find numerous links documenting problematic content in Israeli textbooks. This is but one of many such sources. And here are actual quotations from Israeli textbooks:
Only someone as prejudiced as you, Amir would believe CMIP was a “excellant [sic] resource” instead of a propaganda tool. The next time I say something that hurts yr feelings just remember that you are the one who continually displays your own prejudices against Arabs. I merely hold up the mirror to them & you don’t like what I see. Too bad.
So what your saying is that somebody who actually has kids in Israeli schools doesn’t know what he is talking about. But you do.
Precisely what I’m saying. Amir doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Thanks for clarifying that for anyone who didn’t follow me earlier.
That is one of the most inane statements I’ve ever read. Do you truly believe that. That an Israeli with kids in school doesn’t have a clue about what is going on in said schools. But you do.
Those links you provide do not supply a single reference for the quotes the give so we don’t know what textbook, from what year and under which context the terms were supposedly used. Contrast this with the CMIP studies which are extensively referenced. You erased the link to their site in spite of the fact that this post is mostly about them. You give an example of a geographial map not containing the name Israel when in fact if you actually read their report you will see photocopies of texts with several maps where the name Israel is excluded from the text in spite of the fact that other countries are clearly labelled. You willl find other examples where Hebrew writing or history is erased from the record.
The CMIP site is balanced. Their analysis also contains positive points about changes made in the PA textbooks and their site also contains links or full reproduction of critiques of their work with their responce or full e-mail correspondence.
I really don’t see what prejudices against any ethnic group I have displayed in these comments. You perssonal attacks against me are nothing but a sign of the weakness of your arguments.
Bill: Inane by yr standards perhaps. I simply don’t believe anything Amir writes unless he proves it which he often doesn’t do; or he does so by providing hopelessly propagandistic “evidence” fr. sites like CMIP.
That’s not what I said. Go back & reread it.
Amir: So well-referenced in fact that textbooks that were actually Egyptian & Jordanian became “Palestinian” by propagandistic sleight of hand. I guess ‘extensively referenced’ is in the eye of the beholder.
CMIP is simply a hopelessly biased outfit & I trust nothing it writes or says. BTW, does the report document the title of the textbook fr. which the map is allegedly taken & does it document who the publisher was & whether it was Palestinian or not?
“Balanced” by the standards of a propagandist like yrself. Not balanced by the standards of the rest of us. Which is why I removed the link. Read the comment rules if you want to know which sources are considered untrustworthy for linking here.
Bigots often don’t see their own bigotry. You’re actually a bigot out of ignorance rather than outright toxicity or malevolence, but it is a willful ignorance & therefore bigotry nonetheless.
Richard, if you went to the source material, that is the CMIP’s original reports available on line you will see that every report differentiates between PA authority book and Egyptian and Jordanian books. Not only are the book titles and year of publication available but also the page the picture/ map or quotation was from.
Also (from their website), “The use of Egyptian and Jordanian textbooks by the PNA during the period that Israel was responsible for education in areas now under PNA rule were reprinted after the material offensive to Jews and Israel had been removed. The PNA chose to adopt the older, un-censored, versions containing the offensive material – and it was this fact that CMIP was highlighting in its 1998 report, while querying the PNA decision, and not, holding the PNA responsible for the content of books not produced by themselves.”
Here is a link to a channel 10 news report from 2007 that disproves all the objections who have made on this post. It’s 2007 and it’s pf Clinotn and Itamar Marcus. You can see that she sees the books first hand, that they are not Jordanian textbooks (but rather PNA 0nes) and that the map they show is geo-political and includes names of all the countries other than Israel. Now, I usually do back up my opinions with links and you know very well that your spam filter doesn’t let them through, but I’ll try again.
BTW, this link doesn’t break any of your comment rules.
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This is just a boon to the AIPAC lobby, exactly like you wrote Mr. Silverstein.
Basically, this is throwing some bloody meat to the hyenas – no one wants it, and no one cares for it but the hyenas (wow! what is with me and animals today? jimmeny cricket! oh … my!)
Incidentally, the war drums for a new war with Iran are beating ever so loud – as we all KNOW, the war will be “limited”, “surgical bombing strike”, “because of Iranian nukular program”.
I will now blogspam my blog here – feel free to remove the link if it is against the rules.
With that in mind, here is Kyra Phillips asking ‘The Longest Interview Question in the History of US TV “journalism”‘
http://americangoy.blogspot.com/2008/03/this-needs-posting.html
This is probably not totally off topic, so here goes:
I find it incredible that AIPAC and the rest of the pro-Israel lobby is what it is today – a monolithic bloc that works to censor, obfuscate and lie about issues (what is called “steering the discussion”) concerning Israel-Arab conflict.
They speak with one voice, a monolithic bloc…
Which is incredible, as the Jewish-Americans in the USA are all over the political spectrum, with anarchists co-mingling with staunch conservatives.
AIPAC and the pro-Israel lobby DOES NOT represent American-Jews AT ALL; rather, it is a foreign body working for a foreign government.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say.
Keep up keeping up and all that upper chin stuff!
Amir: As for yr first comment quoting from the CMIP website, the passage you quoted is garbled either in your copying it from the website or else by the person who wrote it. I can’t figure out what they were trying to say.
The clip from You Tube, while it was broadcast on Channel 10 is complete Palestine Media Watch propaganda. THe clip was uploaded to YouTube by PMW & it features Marcus as a representative of PMW. PMW is a group no diff. than CMIP, CAMERA, MEMRI or all the other anti-Palestinian media sites that exist. Not welcome here. As for your claims about the origin of the textbooks and the maps, only the newscaster makes these claims & it is impossible to tell fr the brief seconds of screen time where they are flashed before your eyes what the textbooks actually contain.
I just did a cursory review of the CMIP site & I noticed a few interesting items. Here is what it says about who it is:
CMIP is “non-political?” Who are they trying to fool??
I then reviewed the countries whose textbooks it has reviewed. CMIP has indeed reviewed Israeli textbooks–in 2002! Why has there been no review in the past six years when there are far more regular reviews of textbooks from Arab countries? Gee, I wonder why. As for the Israel review, here is what the executive summary concludes:
There you have it: Palestinian textbooks–a cesspool of hatred; and Israeli–pass with flying colors. No partisanship in that.
“only the newscaster makes these claims ”
That’s right, Only the newscaster. Usually in Israel it is the newscaster who presents the news. Since the textbooks were right there it would follow that the newscaster knew what he was talkng about, as well as Senator Hillary Clinton.
“Why has there been no review in the past six years when there are far more regular reviews of textbooks from Arab countries? ”
It is my understanding that the PA issued new books for two schoolyears every year to replace the old Jordanian ones, therefore the review of their books is every year as the new books come out.
“No partisanship in that.”
Since Israeli textbooks do not promote zenophobia and racism, it’s not surprising that those were the findings.
I think anyone reading the comments on this thread can decide for themselves who, between the two of us, is willfully ignorant.
I’ll save you the trouble of asking. I will not be posting any more comments on this thread.
Correction: xenophobia
I have had several children go through the National Religious school system, and like
Amir, they don’t recall seeing anything like “the Arabs are primitive, the Arabs are barbarians”, and the other epithets Gregory claims are taught.
Sure, history is taught. Israel has fought many wars with the Arabs and the Arab terror attacks of 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-39 and 1947-1948 and later “fedayun” raids.
Compare this with Americans teaching their kids about their wars with Germany in the 20th century, and the need for the US to enter these wars. German atrocities would be mentioned. Naturally, one would come to a logical conclusion that “something was wrong with the Germans”, at least as a nation, at least in that period. Similarly someone studying the Arab/Israeli conflict would come to conclusions about the nature of the Arab enemy, in the context of the violence that has accompanied it. But no one teaches that the “Arabs are inherently inferior”.
@ Amir: There are ways to present a news rpt. that allow the viewer to actually see the material in question. That’s what computer graphics are all about. Pages can be blown up & shown along w. other graphic aids. None of this was used so a viewer would have no idea what was in the texts. Newscasters are especially lazy journalist & almost never do their own research. They usually accept what they are told by the source, in this case an anti-Palestinian Israeli media source. Clinton has her own staff but has no interest in testing the authenticity of the research presented to her.
That’s the entire purpose of what Diane & I are doing. We’re trying to put pressure on anyone who uses this suspect research to examine it in greater depth & to read other contradicting sources before making a rush to judgment.
This is a lie as you have been presented with actual quotations fr. Israeli texts which are racist & xenophobic. This is yet another example of yr intectually bad faith.
@Bar Kochba: Well, who should we believe–a Likud & settler supporter presenting anecdotal evidence using his children as a source saying that there is no racism in Israeli textbooks or a professor of anthropology at the Univ. of North Carolina whose career is based on the authenticity of his findings and research sources? Have you read the article Starret links to? If not, you should do so before telling us there is no racism in Israeli textbooks.
Several fallacies here. First, I’d venture to say that except for Pearl Harbor no “atrocities” against U.S. troops or citizens would be mentioned in U.S. textbooks. Second, during & after the War there was tremendous ethnic hatred directed at both Germans (“Huns) and Japanese (“Nips”). You just don’t see any of that now & haven’t for decades. Third, do Israeli textbooks mention any Israeli atrocities against Palestinians? The Nakba & expulsion of 700,000 Israeli Arabs during the 48 war? Deir Yassin? I strongly suspect that this material is either not covered or covered in such an attenuated way as to be virtually not covered.
Readers who would like further information on the issue of defamation in Arabic and Hebrew school textbooks and media can look at the collection Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism, edited by Hillel Schenker and Ziad Abu-Zayyad (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2006). This includes a chapter by Daniel Bar-Tal, to whom Richard referred to above. Adir Cohen has published an analysis of Hebrew children’s books more generally, titled “An Ugly Face in the Mirror: National Stereotypes in Hebrew Children’s Literature” (Tel Aviv: Reshafim, 1985, in Hebrew).
One of the things to keep in mind is that whatever their content, textbooks are only a very minor part of the intellectual environment of students. The development of political or ethnic prejudices are much more closely tied to what is said in the home and in friendship circles, to an individual’s personal experience, and to broader media exposure (including the internet, now). This is the case not only in the Middle East, but in the US as well. For a powerful argument that history textbooks, for example, are largely uninspiring mental sludge, incapable on their own of causing students to hold strong opinions or be able to think properly about much of anything, see James Loewen’s excellent book on American history textbooks, Lies My Teacher Told Me (New Press, 2008).
At the risk of triggering yet more heat on this issue, I’ll just repeat my earlier point: blaming the content of school textbooks for the world’s problems is silly, and using them as a means of advancing political careers rather than attending to real-world problems is irresponsible, no matter who does it.
The Palestinians have Nahoul, Farfour and Assud to spread hatred of Jews. Anyone who argues that the Palestinians don’t indoctrinate their children in this way is ignoring the mountains of evidence which suggest otherwise. Arguing about textbooks is a pointless diversion from the real argument (it appears that even people who are posting their supposedly informed opinions here haven’t even seen one!).
In contrast to school textbooks, Palestinian and Israeli TV is widely available for public viewing on the internet and there is no doubt; the Palestinians are rearing their children with hate images and the glorification of terrorism. Just type Hamas into the search engine at Youtube and you’ll see what I mean.
God, is this propaganda tiresome. So you think that Israelis are w/o sin in this regard? That they hold Palestinians and their fellow Israeli Arab citizens in such high regard? Gimme a break.
More tiresomeness. First, are you claiming that you have done original research into this matter? That you’ve studied actual Palestinian textbooks? And in fact, Gregory Starrett has done precisely what you claim no one commenting here has done. Try to hold yr ignorance in abeyance.
Just look at what groups are uploading this material to the web. You’ll find that they are the usual anti-Palestinian suspects like MEMRI, etc. which have a vested interest in self-selecting the most damaging material they can find to bolster a pre-conceived image of Palestinians. It wouldn’t be very hard for an anti-Zionist group to do the same if they spent as much time as MEMRI does ferreting out damaging material in the Israeli media (& it’s there believe me).