CNN

INSIGHT

Palestinian Textbooks

Aired January 7, 2004 - 17:00:00   ET

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0401/07/i_ins.00.html

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JONATHAN MANN, CNN HOST: The peoples of the book. After decades of conflict, Israelis and Palestinians try to make school books less provocative and more peaceful.
Hello and welcome.

Most of us can take the books our children read at school for granted, but in the Middle East where land, security, even legitimacy constantly are at stake, books are a small battleground as well.

Israeli and Palestinian children learn about their communities, their history and their identity from their textbooks. Israelis in particular have complained that Palestinian children are also learning hate.

On our program today, the Middle East conflict by the book.

We have two reports from CNN's Chris Burns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The morning ritual at Samila Halilia (ph) school in Ramallah on the West Bank. A few lines from the Koran, a little exercise, the Palestinian National Anthem, then it's off to class. The ABC's for the younger ones, but a more somber atmosphere for the older class, with posters students put up of two Palestinians killed by the Israelis and of two suicide bombers.

It's the morning after another Israeli incursion in Ramallah in search of militants and the students are angry and frightened.

Hayat Salim (ph), who lived 10 years in the United States, says school instruction here hardly reflects the reality outside.

HAYAT SALIM (ph), STUDENT: The textbooks say things that are not true. We see things more differently here than we read.

BURNS: It's all teacher Amad Oda (ph) can do to try to keep her students' minds off the street.

(on camera): If someone comes to you and says, "I want to be one of these people, I want to be a suicide bomber," what do you tell them?

AMAD ODA (ph), TEACHER: I can't tell them anything. I will distract from the subject.

BURNS (voice-over): From the school hallway a reminder of Israeli occupation, the West Bank Jewish settlement of Tagut (ph). The same view from the Education Ministry.

(on camera): How do you try to stay neutral in teaching?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, this is not easy. First, we don't like to use any kind of propaganda in academic things.

BURNS (voice-over): The ministry is issuing new history books with what they say is just the facts. One book we saw says the second intifada began in 2000 because Israel continued expanding the settlements, peace talks broke down and Ariel Sharon, now the Israeli prime minister, provocatively visited Haram-e-Sharif or Temple Mount.

A controversy also debated a half-hour away in Jerusalem, at Hebrew University Secondary School. Many Israelis content the Palestinians used Sharon's visit as a pretext for the uprising against Israeli occupation. But one history book we checked doesn't go as far as the second intifada, though it includes the controversy over Jewish settlements.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We deal with the facts. We will not deal with any propaganda.

BURNS: Not all students are satisfied.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The government writes books, so the government will write what they want the children to know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's being a bit unfair. I think the Israeli government all in all is not exactly the apartheid. It's not like they don't let things out.

BURNS: Like on the Palestinian side, teachers say they can't rely on textbooks only to manage the outrage against the violence. They have to improvise.

(on camera): So once they have expressed themselves emotionally, then what do you do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I try to begin not from the Israeli position, not from the Palestinian position. I try to begin with a moderate position.

BURNS: To describe both sides.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes, yes.

BURNS (voice-over): And students like Israeli-Arab Ruba Kleja (ph) say the best education happens when both sides meet one another. Her school has an exchange program with a predominantly Arab school in the Israeli town of Nazareth.

RUBA KLEJA (ph), STUDENT: They'll have more tolerance and they'll see Arabs as people and not just the enemy.

BURNS: An exchange that has yet to come to this Palestinian school in the middle of the conflict, where hope, like other things, is in short supply.

Chris Burns, CNN, Ramallah, on the West Bank.

(END VIDEOTAPE)


 

MANN: Even with the Palestinian Authority issuing some new textbooks, dropping some inflammatory passages, some Israelis say the books are still inciting violence.

For their part, Palestinians say that Israeli textbooks could use some updating of their own.

Once again, here's Chris Burns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BURNS (voice-over): Could this kind of carnage be the tragic byproduct of Palestinian classroom curriculum? At a recent U.S. Senate hearing, the Israeli-based Palestinian Media Watch shows what it says is helping create the next generation of suicide bombers, glorifying shahid (ph) or martyr in Palestinian textbooks and TV programs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For example, the "Poem of the Shahid" (ph) appears in textbooks on four grade levels and extols yearning for death.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Israeli cities are still being portrayed to the children as Palestinian; they will liberate it through their stone and the knife.

BURNS: Palestinians argue that the decades-old nationalistic poem should simply be seen as a call to resistance against Israeli occupation.

At the hearing, the Palestinian response.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We condemn suicide bombing. I am opposed to it. I am against it. And this is the official policy also of the Palestinian National Authority. Mr. Marcus (ph) lives on a settlement on the West Bank. It is stolen from the Palestinian people. It is (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that has been taken away from the Palestinians in violation of the policy of the United States government.

BURNS: With international help, the Palestinian Authority is issuing new textbooks to replace the old Egyptian and Jordanian editions.

(on camera): What do the textbooks say about the history of the conflict?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, mostly at this stage we are talking about the facts, what happens exactly since 1948.

BURNS: For example?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For example, we say that Israel established in 1948 the Palestinians went as refugees outside.

BURNS (voice-over): A closer look at a geography textbook shows a map with no demarcation between Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israeli critics say that's claiming all of it as Palestinian. Palestinians argue the final borders have yet to be drawn.

But a history book notes the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords stating.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) between PLO and Israel.

BURNS: Some researchers say the books don't promote peace, but that they don't necessarily incite violence either.

Still, the Middle East Media Research Institute, an Israeli-American group, notes a new Palestinian textbook titled "Islamic Culture" says, quote, "The Islamic nation today is in urgent need of reviving the spirit of jihad in its sons by using all types of jihad," unquote, or holy war.

Physical jihad, it says, is to fight the enemy with, quote, "weapons and with actual participation in the battle and with self-sacrifice for the sake of Allah."

Israeli textbooks have also come under criticism, but for different reasons. One study by an Israeli-Palestinian professor concludes the curriculum for Jewish students, quote, "corresponds to the Jewish Zionist narrative with no expression of the Palestinian or Pan-Arab alternative," unquote.

The study also says textbooks written for Israeli-Arabs foster, quote, "a civic culture in which the Arab citizens are a separate but equal component," something it says leads to, quote, "the deepening of group alienation."

Israel's education minister rejects that argument.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that everybody should be close to their heritage, and still this is a Jewish state, but a democratic state.

BURNS: Israeli curriculum varies. Experts say that while ultra- Orthodox schools center on religious study, other schools have history books. This one shows Israel and in the lighter shade of yellow the land it occupied in the 1967 war.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The national claim of the Palestinians is legitimized in these new textbooks.

BURNS: But she also argues it's difficult for the Palestinians to write a neutral historical account amid conflict.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are the occupiers and they are the occupied. So it has to be taken into account.

BURNS (on camera): While of course it matters what's in these Israeli and Palestinian textbooks, analysts say there's also the unavoidable influence of the street, that the situation on the ground can speak louder than words.

Chris Burns, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)


 

MANN: We take a break now. When we come back, we hit the books with a Palestinian and Israeli scholar.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MANN: Welcome back.

There's a German organization that studies the books people use to teach their children worldwide. The George Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research looked closely at Israeli and Palestinian textbooks and said this. "When they mean the same thing, they use different terms. When they use the same names, they mean different places."

The United States government paid a Jerusalem think tank, the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information, to prepare its own report on Palestinian textbooks. It's done similar research on Israeli books as well.

A short time ago, two of those scholars spoke to us, Salem Maways (ph), a visit professor at the University of Florida, and Gersham Baskin (ph), co-director of the Israeli Palestine Center

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GERSHAM BASKIN (ph), SCHOLAR: The main problem on the Israeli side is that there aren't history textbooks that have been written in the last 10 years. There was a history textbook that was put out about 10 years ago, but the current Ministry of Education in Israel vetoed the textbook so that our children in Israel are not studying anything that's happened in the last 10 years, including the peace process with the Palestinians, the Oslo Agreements and, of course, everything that's happened good and bad on the peace front.

On the Palestinian side, it's a bit more complicated. Palestinian textbooks are all centralized. They use single textbooks in all the schools in Palestinian. And there is very problematic issues of non-relationship to Israel, to the peace process, and negative references to Israel as an occupying power. They have a bad experience with Israel and it's reflected in the textbooks.

But Israel is basically ignored in the Palestinian schools and the message that's given to Palestinian children, perhaps, is that Israel shouldn't exist. This is where the problem lies.

MANN: Salem Maways, Israelis have made no secret of their deep distaste for Palestinian textbooks. How do Palestinians feel about them and about the Israeli complaints?

SALEM OWAYS (ph), UNIV. OF FLORIDA: I believe that the Palestinian textbooks should be viewed within context. You know that Palestinian is an emerging democracy and in such cases the focus should be on national identity and religious identity of the Palestinian people. And I agree with Gersham (ph) that there are some elements, some dimensions of the history that is kind of biased a bit and that the Israeli narrative and the Jewish narrative is not clearly presented.

But I believe that once a peace agreement is reached, things will be much better. You know, we have to remember that the curricula is transitional in nature, and the Palestinians are doing it to fit the current state of affairs, and once things are clarified at both sides, once a comprehensive peace agreement has been reached, I'm sure that the textbooks will reflect all the narratives, both the Palestinian and the Israeli.

MANN: Well, let me jump in on that very thought, because lessons taught to young children last for a long time, even after transitional periods are over, and our correspondent, without doing too much research, was able to find a fourth grade textbook with poetry that celebrates martyrdom, violent death in wartime. That's not a message that even after a transitional period a child is likely to forget, and it's certainly not something that a child who actually wants to become a martyr is going to easily able to correct later in life.

OWAYS (ph): I agree with you, that things tend to stick with the children, but remember that martyrdom is presented here in different context.

There are many things that are presented in a historical context, at the time of Islamic invasions and conquers, and explorations. But you know, history and poetry and literature are part of the culture.

MANN: Gersham Basem (ph), go ahead.

BASKIN (ph): This is very problematic in the context that we're living, where martyrdom is reflected by posters on the streets of Palestinian, celebrating as heroes people who have blown themselves up in Israeli cafes and buses. So it's very problematic to find in a Palestinian textbook a poem that praises martyrdom.

It's not praising martyrdom in the context of historic Islam but in the modern-day struggle between Palestinian and Israel. This is a very problematic message.

MANN: Now the experts don't agree on every point, but the experts don't write the textbook alone. Inevitably, introducing textbooks is a political process. Even if people like yourselves could agree on what should be in the books, how much of a fight is there inevitably in both of your communities when people like you try to change the way children are taught?

OWAYS (ph): You know, in the Palestinian context.

BASKIN (ph): Well, it's very, very difficult.

MANN: Gersham Baskin (ph), why don't you go ahead.

BASKIN (ph): Go ahead -- Salem -(ph).

OWAYS (ph): OK. I'm talking about the Palestinian context. I don't know much about the Israeli context.

In the Palestinian context, I'm sure there are some conflicts there. The people at the ministry are sometimes at a loss at some of the comments that they receive and the feedback. You know, people tell them that they need to be more open-minded to these things, but they are, in my mind, they are more open-minded than before.

And let's wait until the rest of the textbooks are published, and then we can pass judgment on their utility and on the mindset that we are trying to instill in our students for the future peace.

MANN: Gersham Baskin (ph), educators versus politicians?

BASKIN (ph): Well, in Israel it's a very pluralistic educational system and virtually anyone can write a textbook at a university, any academic institution, or even any textbook company. They have to present it to the Ministry of Education and have it approved.

But we have this situation where several years ago the Ministry of Education vetoed a textbook that had already been tested and introduced because the current Ministry of Education didn't think the textbook presented a strong enough case for Israel and it left out some key portions of Jewish history in the eyes of the minister.

On the Palestinian side, there's definitely a lot of political intervention in the textbook writing. If you take, for instance, the example of the maps. None of the maps in the Palestinian textbooks indicate Israel. The maps that say Palestinian include cities that are in Israel. Just this year in one of the textbooks they put in the green line, showing that there is some kind of border, but Israel isn't mentioned.

Now I know that educators in Palestinian and people in the education department writing the textbooks wanted to write Israel, wanted to write different text under the maps, but they were told by the highest level politicians in Palestinian that that was not acceptable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MANN: Gersham Baskin (ph) of the Israel Palestine Information and Research Center and Salem Oways (ph) at the University of Florida, speaking to us just a short time ago.

We take a break. When we come back, changes elsewhere in the region.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MANN: The United States and Iraqi Governing Council have made education reform a top priority. Iraq's schoolchildren used to start their day by chanting their allegiance to Saddam Hussein. Now they read textbooks in which all mention of the former leader and his Ba'ath Party have been removed.

The Gulf states are also revising their school curricula as part of a joint effort to combat terrorism and promote human rights. Material describing followers of other religions as infidels and enemies of Islam is being removed.

Welcome back.

The decision to change the ways schools teach is proving quite controversial for some of those Gulf states. In Saudi Arabia, for example, 150 prominent figures signed a petition warning the government not to change Islam-based texts. They blame American pressure aimed at what they call taking the kingdom along the path of infidels.

In Kuwait, Islamist members of parliament called on the government to change their minds during a debate on the subject earlier this week.

Joining us now to talk about the proposed change is Ziad Asali, the head of the American Task Force on Palestine.

Thanks so much for being with us.

We were talking about Israeli and Palestinian textbooks, but this seems to be a trend that goes far beyond just that immediate region. Why are Arab governments changing or thinking about changing the way they teach their children?

ZIAD ASALI, AMERICAN TASK FORCE ON PALESTINE: Well, this is a reflection of the many changes that have taken place in the Arab and Islamic world after September 11.

The education is part and parcel of the many aspects of life that are being reconsidered and needless to say, the textbooks that you refer to did carry a lot of stuff that is basically unacceptable by any international standard.

And the governments, not necessarily under the pressure of the United States, although that may or may not exist, they are responding to the blatant fact that there has been, you know, a tremendous outpouring of anger out of the Arab world directed to the West and that is reflected in the textbooks, among other places.

MANN: Let me ask you about that, in fact. Is it just history and Middle Eastern history that's being revisited, or are other subjects and others questions arising?

ASALI: No, no. Other questions -- the curricula are being reviewed with a sense that they need to produce productive and good citizens across the board, citizens who will be able to function in a global, competitive atmosphere.

So there is a lot of change that is taking place in the technical aspects of physics and math, et cetera, et cetera, and not just in history and religion.

They are in the process of revising, preparing the individual young Arab to an international competitive atmosphere, and that is very healthy, needless to say.

MANN: It's hard to gauge at a distance; how strong is the opposition inside the countries that are considering this?

ASALI: It is right now seems to be based in the Islamic right wing opposition to government in general. So this is an anti-Western, anti- American group of people who think that the West and the United States are out to impose their will and hegemony over the Arab and Islamic world and they are resisting across the globe, not necessarily only in education.

They see this as a means to influence the future of the Arab-Islamic world by changing the minds of the young people. That is why they oppose it.

MANN: Why do they blame the United States? I mean, is there some reasonable or logical basis for this?

ASALI: Well, this is a policy question. The question is, why do they hate us. It is essentially answered by different people differently. My own sense is that the policy of the United States takes the No. 1 seat as to why the Arab and Muslims feel that it has been adverse to their own interest, especially in Palestinian. And of course the support that the United States has given to Arab regimes which have been rather dictatorial, as you might know, and have not responded quite readily to the needs of their people, the negatives of both Israeli and Arab regimes have rubbed off extremely on the attitude of the Arabs on the United States.

MANN: Let me ask you about that very subject. Doesn't changing the status quo in the schools in fact endanger the status quo politically? Aren't Arab regimes that are concerned about their own fragility the least likely to embrace these kinds of changes?

ASALI: Well, I have to say that it is entirely simplistic to state that the change of text or education is essentially a response to pressure from the United States. There is no question that any thoughtful government or people who are in charge of their own destiny or want to be have to understand that the change of the educational system is of essentially great benefit for the future generations.

MANN: Well, let me just jump in. Would the House of Saud really be served by a more liberal education system? Isn't it against their very interest?

ASALI: This is a tough one, because I think the Saudi government is divided, the Saudi people are divided, and there are people who are secular, liberally minded, democratically minded within the government and the Saudi family as well as in the society at large, who see the salvation of the Saudi government and the salvation of society by opening up and liberalization.

They are extremely in support of such a change in the system. Of course, there are opposing forces.

MANN: Interesting to watch the pressures from up high and down below, Ziad Asali, from the American Task Force on Palestine, thanks so much for talking with us.

ASALI: Thank you.

MANN: That's INSIGHT for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. The news continues.

END

TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com