Zion-Hate? What Zion-Hate?
A Palestinian chick whitewashes the hatred right out of Palestinian school books--and in the high-toned pages of Time Literary Supplement, no less. Lina Alsaafi slams Israel (of course) for keeping the Palestinians down, and hails the contents of Palestinian school texts for striving to unite "fragmented" Gazans (who live under the thumb of Hamas, a genocial jihadi outfit) and West Bankers (who live under the yoke of Abbas's despotic, Zion-loathing kleptocrats, the PA):
As the first minister of education of the newly formed Palestinian Authority in 1994, [Dr. Naim]Abuhummos was designated the task of creating the first Palestinian curriculum, uniting the Gaza Strip and the West Bank for the first time in decades. The process took ten years and involved 4,000 people. Even after the 2007 Fatah–Hamas split, the curriculum has remained more or less the same. The books are printed in Ramallah and sent to Gaza every year. Historical events in Palestine are “taught as they are”, says Abuhummos – by which he means without the gloss of patriotic rhetoric. The Arab defeat of 1967 is thus taught as exactly that: a defeat. At primary school level, lessons are taught about landmarks in cities across the country – Jerusalem, Nablus, Nazareth, Hebron, Gaza City, etc. National poets, such as Mahmoud Darwish, along with the siblings Ibrahim and Fadwa Touqan, are included, but the works of Ghassan Kanafani, the writer, intellectual and activist for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), are not, despite his being one of the most famous Palestinian literary figures.
We learned about these types of individuals, as well as about various other aspects of Palestinian resistance, from our parents and their personal libraries. Home was where different dialects could be absorbed and used interchangeably, as I eventually learned to do. It was the school away from school, which taught us that, despite the many differences – of accent, geography, cuisine, oppression – between a Palestinian in Haifa, Khan Yunis, Ramallah and Jerusalem, these are also the unifying factors that bind us together under the threat of separation.
You know what really binds them together? The Jew-hate. Hence this blast of reality from the Palestinian Media Watch site:
In July 2015, PMW prepared a comprehensive report on Palestinian Authority education. It includes chapters on names of schools (dozens named after terrorists), school activities (e.g., visiting homes of terrorists), statements and activities of educators (e.g., presenting murderers as role models and promising a world without Israel), schoolbooks, informal education (children reciting poems on kids' TV programs: e.g., Jews are monkeys and pigs; Tel Aviv is "occupied Palestine"), and a chapter with examples of honoring Hitler.
And early this year, Fox News reported this:
Students attending United Nations-run schools in the West Bank and Gaza use textbooks that ignore the existence of Israel, according to a new report sure to fuel renewed claims about anti-Semitism within the world body.
The schools, which teach mainly Palestinian children, are funded by the UN’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and use texts from the Palestinian Ministry of Education. The books convey the ministry's refusal to recognize Israel, as well as the message that holy sites like the Western Wall and the Cave of the Patriarchs are exclusively Muslim sites, according to the report.
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"It is despicable that a UN agency is teaching Palestinian children racism and lies about Jews and Israel,” Roz Rothstein, co-founder and CEO of StandWithUs, an international Israel education organization, told FoxNews.com. “There will be no peace and no justice as long as Palestinian leaders, backed by the UN, continue to deny the history and rights of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland."
Use of the textbooks was discovered after an investigation was completed by Arnon Gross, who translated the books, and Ronni Shaked from the Harry Truman Research Institute at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem according to Ynet News.
In their translations, the pair discovered that not a single mention is made of the historical connection of Jews to the land of Israel or the city of Jerusalem and that the UNRWA schools also make no mention of Jewish holy sites in their materials. Instead, the textbooks contain learning materials that say that these are all Muslim holy Sites that the Jews are trying to illegitimately control.
Children at the schools are also taught to negate the existence of the Hebrew languages, according to the report. One text has a picture of a stamp used during the British Mandate period which has Hebrew, English and Arabic writing. The image of the stamp in the book has been altered to remove all the Hebrew writing.
The researchers also discovered that maps accompanying the books contain no reference to the presence of Jews in Israel, with all Jewish cities and towns established after 1948 erased. Tel Aviv is even renamed "Tel al-Rabia."
Hillel Neuer, executive director of Geneva-based UN Watch, said that the UNRWA is in breach of a recent agreement with the State Department.
As bad as Ms. Alsaafi's brazen whitewash is, its being printed in--and therefore validated by--the prestigious TLS makes it exponentially worse.
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