Right-wing loyalists in Israel are afraid of the potential impact: "Once the Arab pupils are taught that the establishment of Israel was a disaster, they might infer that they should be fighting against us," said Limor Livnat, Knesset member and former Education Minister from the Likud Party.
...Because pretending the nakba view doesn't exist has worked so well?
When Livnat was asked in a 2004 interview with Haaretz what she would propose for a new education system in Iraq, she stated:
"My proposal for Iraqi schools is exactly what I am doing here. To teach heritage, to teach democratic values and ideas, to make sure that there is freedom of speech, freedom of thought, that there is room for a variety of ideas and to teach the children to be independent and part of the democratic free world."
Anyone who has stated such objectives should applaud the Israeli government's recent decision: it is a small, but symbolic, step toward free and democratic discussion by expanding access to alternative opinions on what is perhaps the #1 most emotional and controversial issue in the region's history.
4 comments:
Well, the point is that in the end the Israeli gov't approved textbooks showing the Palestinian side.
I won't be holding my breath for the Palestinian Authority to implement textbook reform to show the Israeli side of the story.
Agreed. Reform needs to occur on both sides, and this is an important step.
Your comment suggests that both sides are equally to blame and are equally indoctrinating their children. This is false. Under pressure from Europe and the US, Palestinians have recently made some improvements to their textbooks. However their campaign to indoctrinate their children to commit violence has not abated. The Hamas mickey mouse figure on Palestinian children's TV is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Palestinian brainwashing. Palestinian children are bombarded with violent anti-semitic propaganda from the time they are born. The ultimate proof for this is Palestinian children lining up to blow themselves up. Palestinian children are certainly suffering under Israeli occupation, however children don't naturally blow themselves up when faced with conflict. A calculating political machine raises them to be potential suicide bombers from day one.
On the other hand, Israeli secular society teaches tolerance and peace. The Israeli equivalent for the Hamas mickey mouse simply does not exist - (Jon Stewart had to make up a show about a racist bagel on the Daily Show). My point is that saying that both sides are equally bad paints an inaccurate picture. This is all to common when someone tries to tell a "balanced" story.
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