Israeli Textbooks Incite Racism, Hatred

(IslamOnline.net & News Agencies)

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“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,”

“The racist education is dominating the Israeli mentality and there seems a keenness to consolidate such a racist tendency in the coming generations,”

The Israeli textbooks also include anti-Arab sentences such as “Arab thieves”, “Arabs are bastards thirsty for the Jewish bloods”, and “underdeveloped Arabs”.

– 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, March 10.

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 the 11th 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 comprises 190.000 elements and 450.000 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 December 18, 2004.

Disregarding the Israeli racist stances on the Arabs, US President George W. Bush signed October 17, 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.