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Israeli
Textbooks Incite Racism, Hatred
Despite racist Israeli stances, Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon claims Arab textbooks are inciting hatred
against Jews.
CAIRO, March11 , 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) –
Israel’s education curricula aim at psychologically
mobilizing youngsters for war, inciting “hostility, grudge
and hatred” against Arabs and tarnishing the Arab image,
according to a new study.
“Israeli school textbooks aim at implanting the desire for
war in the souls of students as a sole means for defending
what they believe legitimate and historic rights with the
objective of mobilizing the Israeli public opinion for a
constant state of war,” Safa Abdel Aal, an education expert,
was quoted by Reuters as saying Thursday, March10 .
In her book “Racist Education in Israeli Curricula”, Abdel
Aal said “Israel has been mobilizing youngsters to be ready
to give sacrifices on war as did the first Zionist
generations to regain what they believe their legitimate
rights”.
With such an attitude, she maintains, Israel aims at getting
students to “give their souls for liberating the lands of
the Jewish predecessors and for establishing the Kingdom of
Israel”.
Israel remains one of the most militarized societies in the
world, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
Young Israelis are educated about the army as early as the11
th grade, with five days of training that includes learning
how to shoot.
A year later, school students receive counseling from a
young soldier about draft procedures.
Serving in the Israeli army, which comprises190 .
000elements and450 .000 reservists, is mandatory.
Graduating from high schools, Israeli males serve three
years while females serve a year less.
Hatred & Enmity
In her book, the education expert analyzes the content of a
group of Israeli history and geography textbooks in the
primary education.
“These textbooks hamper attempts to achieve peace or to
establish an independent Palestinian state,” Abdel Aal said.
“The main tasks of the Israeli education system are meant to
implanting the seeds of hatred and fear from the other in
the Israeli youngsters and tarnishing the image of Arabs in
the eyes of the current and future Israeli generations,” she
stressed.
She further noted that the gravity of such an Israeli racist
education system lies in the fact that the Israeli children,
since their prime years, are being fed with hatred, grudge
and superiority against Arabs, in particular, and others, in
general.
Anti-Arab Sentences
The Israeli textbooks also focus on attaching mean and
derogatory descriptions to Arabs, the education expert told
Reuters.
“The Arabs are given mean descriptions in the Israeli
textbooks such as thugs and thieves,” she said, citing two
examples of anti-Arab sentences in the Israeli textbooks to
prove her case.
One such clause speak about the “sacrifices” made by early
Jewish generations, “despite a harsh climate and an
environment full of the Arab embezzlers, thieves and
terrorists”.
A second refers to the city of Taparia as a place which is
suffering from insecurity and fear from the Arab killers.
The Israeli textbooks also include anti-Arab sentences such
as “Arab thieves”, “Arabs are bastards thirsty for the
Jewish bloods”, and “underdeveloped Arabs”.
Negotiations are under way to translate the book into other
languages in order to reveal the Israeli racist stances on
the Arab peoples.
“Negotiations are under way with a European publishing house
to translate the book to let the sympathizers with Israel
know how the Israelis are implanting enmity and hatred
against the Arabs and non-Jewish,” Mohamed Rashad, the book
publisher, told Reuters.
“Racist Ideologies”
Similar assessments were echoed by Hamed Ammar, an Egyptian
education expert.
“The racist education is dominating the Israeli mentality
and there seems a keenness to consolidate such a racist
tendency in the coming generations,” said Ammar in his
introduction to Abdel Aal’s book.
He described the Israeli education system as extremely
“dangerous” because of its influences on enhancing such
racist ideologies.
Ammar dismissed that Israel would give up its “racist”
ideologies, especially in terms of relations with the Arab
world.
“Thus, it is proven that the Israeli claims on being willing
to establish a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle
East are groundless.”
Israel has been complaining that the Arab education
curricula are inciting hatred against Jews.
However, respected US and European research institutes found
Palestinian textbooks free from any incitement to hatred,
The International Herald Tribune reported December18 ,2004 .
Disregarding the Israeli racist stances on the Arabs, US
President George W. Bush signed October17 ,2004 , into law a
controversial bill on combating the so-called global
anti-Semitism.
The law commits the US State Department to document acts of
physical violence against Jews, their property, cemeteries
and places of worship abroad, as well as local governments’
responses to them and take note of instances of anti-Jewish
propaganda and governments’ readiness to promote unbiased
school curricula.
Settler takes
son along to hunt Arabs
Israeli
Textbooks Incite Racism, Hatred
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