Israel's Arab schoolkids get first booklet explaining Palestinian history

Violet_Crumble

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Tue Dec-20-05 07:36 AM
Original message

Israel's Arab schoolkids get first booklet explaining Palestinian history

note: title shortened slightly to fit it all in

A booklet explaining key terms in Palestinian history from 1948 onwards is being distributed among Arab schoolchildren in Israel for the first time. "We are trying to break the stranglehold of the Education Ministry on the information given to our children, which is always presented from a Zionist perspective," said Asad Ghanem, head of political science at Haifa University and one of several academics behind the initiative.

Called "Belonging and Identity", the booklet includes entries on 99 major personalities, places and landmarks in the Palestinian story, as well as explanations of the most important concepts employed in political debates about the region's future. There are entries, for example, on "Yasser Arafat", "Ahmed Yassin", "Emile Habibi", "Edward Said", "nakba", "massacre", "democracy", "PLO", and "apartheid wall".

Dr Ghanem said an initial print-run of 72,000 copies was being sent to Arab homes rather than schools because of problems getting approval from the Education Ministry. The Ibn Khaldun Association, which Ghanem heads, and the Center Against Racism devised the booklet, asking a panel of some 20 leading academics and intellectuals to contribute entries. It has won the backing of the monitoring committee for Arab education, the heads of Arab municipalities and the national Arab parents' association.

<snip>

On hearing of the booklet's publication, Livnat said: "The Education Ministry is the only body authorized to determine the content of the education system, and no other body, including the monitoring committee, has the authority to distribute any materials in schools in the Arab sector." She said she would be seeking the attorney general's advice about whether publication of the booklet was legal.

Meanwhile, the Education Ministry has issued an instruction to all schools, including Arab ones, to begin teaching the "legacy" of Rehavam Ze'evi, the leader of the extreme-right Moledet party who was assassinated by Palestinian gunmen in October 2001. Ze'evi had repeatedly called for the "transfer - or expulsion - of Palestinians from the occupied territories and "inducements" to "encourage" Arab citizens to leave the region.

http://www.amin.org/eng/uncat/2005/dec/dec19-0.html

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bemildred

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Tue Dec-20-05 09:20 AM
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1. The natives seem to be restless.

Did you see the story about the Arab MK in Lebanon who started going on about the Zionists and how it's going to be a long struggle? Maybe they will whip up an Israeli Arab separatist movement, you know like Quebec or something.

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Coastie for Truth

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Tue Dec-20-05 11:18 AM
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2. JPost story

Provocative' terms in new booklet for Arab schools. ; Livnat: Committee has no authority to distribute materials in the Arab sector;

Translating some of the booklet's terms into Hebrew during an interview with Galei Tzahal, said the entry on , the spiritual leader of Hamas, described him as a refugee who founded Hamas, was involved in the conflict with the Israeli occupation, and was killed by Israel "for his involvement in activity that Israel defines as terror." The booklet, of which 72,000 copies have been printed, will be distributed by the associations that produced it to homes in Arab towns and villages. Among the other 21 authors who contributed to the booklet are Dr. Mohammed Amara, of Bar-Ilan University's English department, Dr. Mustafa Kabaha, a historian at the Open University, and the writer Salman Natur. Other terms included in the booklet are Eduard Said, Emil Habibi, the Higher Monitoring Committee, and Jaffa. "Ahmed Yassin," "Yasser Arafat," "nakba" and "PLO" are some of the 100 terms included in a new booklet written for Israeli-Arab school children.

The booklet, "Belonging and Identity," was formerly presented Tuesday at a press party in Nazareth. It was composed by Israeli- Arab academics and writers and produced by the Ibn Khaldun Association, which is devoted to studying and initiating social change in the Arab sector, and by the Center Against Racism. The booklet was also supported by the national committee for heads of Arab municipalities, the monitoring committee for Arab education and the national parents association of Arab students.

The booklet purports to offer an alternative narrative to the Education Ministry's official booklet "One Hundred Terms concerning Heritage, Zionism and Democracy," which is distributed in three different versions designed for Jewish, Arab and Druse students.

For example, the Education Ministry's booklet contains the term "War of Independence," in which it defines the war of 1947-8 as a war initiated by the country's Arab population against the Jews, and followed by the invasion of five Arab countries. By contrast, "Belonging and Identity" describes the events of '48 as the "Nakba," and defines it as the year during which the Palestinian people was expelled from its land to create a Jewish state.

Dr. As'ad Ghanem, who is the director of the Ibn Khaldun Association, also chairs the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Haifa.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, Ghanem said he did not doubt that at least some terms in the booklet would appear provocative to Israeli Jews - including the entries on Arafat and Yassin, the term "nakba," the term "racism fence" (which refers in the booklet to Israel's security fence) and the term "massacre," which the booklet defines as the intentional killing of hundreds of unarmed Arab civilians by armed Jewish forces before, after, and during 1948, in order to cause Palestinians to abandon their villages and cities and pave the way for the creation of a Jewish state.

Translating some of the booklet's terms into Hebrew during an interview with Galei Tzahal, Ghanem said the entry on Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, described him as a refugee who founded Hamas, was involved in the conflict with the Israeli occupation, and was killed by Israel "for his involvement in activity that Israel defines as terror." The booklet, of which 72,000 copies have been printed, will be distributed by the associations that produced it to homes in Arab towns and villages. Among the other 21 authors who contributed to the booklet are Dr. Mohammed Amara, of Bar-Ilan University's English department, Dr. Mustafa Kabaha, a historian at the Open University, and the writer Salman Natur. Other terms included in the booklet are Eduard Said, Emil Habibi, the Higher Monitoring Committee, and Jaffa.

"The Education Ministry and the schools were never the place where our children received a national education," Ghanem said. "But we believe parents can have an equal influence in shaping national consciousness." According to Ghanem, the Ministry systematically ignores key terms and values that are a formative part of Palestinian and Israeli-Arab history, in order to downplay the national identity of Israeli Arabs.

Part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ghanem also said, was a conflict about how to define the past, based on the assumption that such definitions will influence the future.

Education Minister Limor Livnat responded to the publication of the booklet by announcing that "The Education Ministry is the only body authorized to determine the content of the education system, and no other body, including the monitoring committee, has the authority to distribute any materials in schools in the Arab sector." Livnat also said she would turn to the attorney general to examine whether the publication of the booklet was in itself illegal.

- have to register and pay for full article]

Not to refute - just to enable DUers to "compare, contrast, anayze" in the traditional classical LIBERAL education pradigm.

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Name removed

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Wed Dec-21-05 06:16 AM
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3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Violet_Crumble

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Thu Dec-22-05 01:51 AM
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4. Most liberals realise JPost is conservative crap...

There's really nothing to compare and contrast when it comes to this stuff...

Violet...

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