[Note: This
paper prompted a critique from the “Center for Monitoring the Impact of
Peace.” The critique and my response are
available on the web here.]
Democracy, History, and the
Contest over the Palestinian Curriculum
By
Nathan J. Brown
Professor
of Political Science and International Affairs
The
George Washington
Prepared
for Adam Institute, November
2001[1]
Almost
any discussion of education in the
The external
and internal critics may be placing an unrealistic burden on what any
curriculum and cadre of teachers can accomplish. Palestinian political and economic realities
are often grim, and schools hardly have a monopoly on communicating ways to
interpret such realities, especially in matters that are so deeply felt and
encountered on a daily basis. Still, the
critics charge, the Palestinian educational system, and especially the
curriculum, exacerbates existing problems.
This
paper is devoted to an examination of the Palestinian curriculum, especially as
it approaches issues of history and identity.
More specifically, the paper is broken into four sections:
1.
First, it will be
necessary to clear up some misconceptions prevalent about the curriculum and the
textbooks: the Palestinian curriculum is
not a war curriculum; while highly nationalistic, it does not incite hatred,
violence, and anti-Semitism. It cannot
be described as a “peace curriculum” either, but the charges against it are
often wildly exaggerated or inaccurate.
2.
Second, the
treatment of history in the Palestinian curriculum will be examined in some
detail. The purpose will be to present
patterns both in what it covers and what it declines to cover.
3.
Third, the goals
that motivate this coverage of history will be examined. Two primary goals—inculcation of identity and
respect for authority—will receive special attention. While the curriculum can thus be presented as
authoritarian in some respects, it will also be observed that it is simultaneously
democratic in its determination to reflect the national consensus rather than
develop an elitist approach.
4.
Fourth and finally,
the paper will examine an alternative educational vision that has been
crystallizing among Palestinian educators and the effect of that alternative on
the existing curriculum. That
alternative vision—that the educational system should promote the development
of active learners, critical thinkers, and democratic citizens—has yet to
approach issues of identity directly. Yet it is increasingly influential and has had
some impact on the current curriculum.
Before
turning to these four sections, a brief overview of the history of the
Palestinian curriculum is necessary in order to clarify the context in which
current efforts are occurring.
Introduction: A Brief overview of
Palestinian Education
After
1948, the
The
The incitement charge
Any
treatment of Palestinian education must confront at the outset the oft-repeated
claims that Palestinian textbooks instill hatred of
Then
where do persistent reports of incitement in Palestinian textbooks come
from? Virtually all can be traced back
to the work of a single organization, the “Center for Monitoring the Impact of
Peace.” The Center claims that its
purpose is “to encourage the development and fostering of peaceful relations
between peoples and nations, by establishing a climate of tolerance and mutual
respect founded on the rejection of violence as a means to resolving
conflicts.”[2] Critics charge that the Center’s real purpose
is to launch attacks on the Palestinian National Authority, and it would be
difficult to contest such a conclusion.
They point to the identity of the Center’s first director, Itamar
Marcus, to support their suspicions.[3]
The
Center’s own reports suggest such suspicions are well-founded. The Center began operation by issuing its
first report in 1998 on Palestinian textbooks that might best be described as
tendentious and highly misleading. When
the PNA issued a new series of books for grades one and six in 2000, the Center
rushed out its second report that passed over significant changes quite quickly
before presenting its allegations of “delegitimization of Israel’s existence,”
implicit “seeking of Israel’s destruction,” “defamation of Israel,” and
“encouraging militarism and violence.”
However, in contrast to the alarm and alacrity with which it studied
Palestinian textbooks, the Center’s work on Israeli textbooks showed a far more
generous spirit and proceeded at a far more leisurely pace, taking years rather
than months. The report on Israeli books
followed a very different method: rather than quoting example after example of
offending passages with little historical context or explanation (a method that
would have produced a very damning report indeed), the report on Israeli
textbooks is nuanced and far more careful.
Incendiary quotations are explained, analyzed and contextualized in the
report on Israeli books; they are listed with only brief and sensationalist
explanations in the reports on Palestinian books. In short, the Center is fair, balanced, and
understanding for Israeli textbooks but tendentious on Palestinian books.
The
Center’s work has been widely circulated: its reports are the source for
virtually any quotation in English from the Palestinian curriculum. Indeed, its influence has begun to be felt in
policy circles, and has informed congressional and presidential statements in
the
While
often highly misleading and always unreliable, most of the contents of the
Center’s reports are not fabricated.
Clearly false statements are rare, though when they do occur they are
far from minor. For instance, the
Center’s first report on Palestinian textbooks, issued in 1998, included the
statement that: “PA TV is a division of the Palestinian Authority Ministry of
Education,” which allowed the report to saddle the Palestinian educational
establishment with any statement broadcast on Palestinian television. The statement was false, however. In its second comprehensive report on
Palestinian textbooks, issued in 2000 on the new books for the first and sixth
grades, the Center claims that “the PA has rejected international calls” to modify
books for the other grades. In fact, as
will become clear, the plan to replace the textbooks in question was as old as
the PNA itself and was proceeding according to a well-published schedule when
the Center’s report was issued. Several
lesser errors occur throughout the Center’s work.
But
the real problems with the Center’s reports lie elsewhere. In particular, three sets of flaws
characterize its work (and much of the public debate about Palestinian
textbooks more generally). First, the
Center generally ignores any historical context in a way that renders some of
its claims sharply misleading. In its
1998 report, the Center adduced numerous incendiary statements about
By
sharp contrast to the Egyptian and Jordanian books, the 1994 National Education series, actually
authored by the PNA, verged on blandness.
The first generation of books made no mention of any Palestinian area
within the 1967 borders (the second generation of books—written after the
Center’s first report—reversed this policy).
Indeed, the 1994 books went to some length to avoid any controversial
matter whatsoever. An organization
claiming to “monitor the impact of peace” might be expected to compare the
older, non-Palestinian books with the newer, Palestinian ones. Indeed, such a task would seem basic to its
mission. The Center goes beyond failing
to live up to its name; its reports are written to obfuscate the distinction
between the old and new books. It does
not simply fail to note the change, but, in one of its rare falsehoods, the
Center claims that in the 1994 series,
The
second problem with the Center’s work is its prosecutorial style. Its reports offer little more than brief
themes and then list statement after statement purporting to prove the point. Any evidence that contradicts the Center’s
harsh message is ignored, obscured, or dismissed, such as maps that clearly
draw Palestinian governorates as covering only the
The
primary terrorist organization operating against
In
essence, the Center provides a context for the mention of al-Qassam that, while
accurate, is irrelevant to the text: it deliberately obscures how the text
itself presents al-Qassam or how Palestinians would understand a reference to
him. Al-Qassam was killed at the
beginning of his attempt to organize a rebellion against the British
mandate. Subsequent generations of
Palestinians have been able to read various dimensions into his short career:
for mainstream nationalists, he is a rebel against the British, for Islamists,
a warrior for Islam, and for leftists, he is a mobilizer of the popular
classes. To imply that mentioning
al-Qassam is an implicit endorsement of suicide attacks and bus bombings is
thus based on a hostile, inaccurate, and even dishonest reading—what matters is
not whether the textbooks cite him but how they present him. Palestinian texts mention him only as a
martyr in the struggle against British imperialism.[8]
In
short, the purpose is clearly to indict the textbooks and the PNA rather than
analyze and understand the content of the books. Were the Center to take a similar approach in
other countries, including
The
final and perhaps the largest problem with the Center’s work lies not simply
with the reports themselves but in how they have been read. The Center’s conclusions may be unsupported
by the evidence it presents and undermined by the evidence it overlooks. But it does include some qualifications and
elliptical wording that usually prevent its reports from outright
falsehood. When its reports gain wider
circulation, however, the buried qualifications get lost. The Center’s 2000 report actually admitted
that changes had occurred in the Palestinian-authored books but then attempted
to undermine its own admission:
A
few changes were noted in the new PA books.
The open calls for
Another
change is that certain overtly anti-Semitic references defining Jews and
Israelis as “treacherous” or ‘the evil enemy’, common in the previous books,
are likewise not present. However, given the books’ portrayal of
In
short, the new books removed the earlier offensive material, but the Center
acknowledged the change only by denying its significance. Thus it is not surprising when public
references to the textbooks based on the Center’s report lose any subtlety and
make erroneous claims about the new books.
Charles Krauthammer claimed that since the signing of the Oslo Accords,
the Palestinians had “intensified the propaganda, the antisemitism, in their
pedagogy and in their media” and that while
The
Palestinian textbooks were such a politically attractive target that even those
who were better informed as to their content criticized them. Hillary Clinton, running for the U.S. Senate,
criticized Palestinian textbooks in a way that buried her acknowledgement that
the new first and sixth grade books, authored by the PNA itself, were
different: “All future aid to the
Palestinian Authority must be contingent on strict compliance with their
obligation to change all the textbooks in all grades—not just two at a time.”[14] After her
election, her comments lost even this subtlety: in June 2001 she joined with
her fellow senator from New York, Charles Schumer, in a letter to President
George Bush, introducing the false charge (clearly based on a Center report):
“A book that is required reading for Palestinian six graders actually starts
off stating, ‘There is no alternative to destroying Israel.’”[15] As the second
intifada took on diplomatic as well as violent dimensions, the Israeli
government cited textbooks as evidence of Palestinian bad faith and hostile
intentions. Others held international
donors responsible for not forcing changes or even for funding new sources of
incitement.[16]
The Center’s
reports were the clear source for most of these charges, whether cited or
not. A member of the United States
Congress wrote to The New York Times:
According
to the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, today’s sixth-grade
Palestinian students are required to read the textbook “Our Country Palestine,”
which has a banner on the title page of Volume I that reads, “There is no
alternative to destroying
The
charge was false, though it was widely repeated and even displayed in an
advertising campaign by an organization calling itself (with unintended irony)
“Jews for Truth Now.” No textbook
included such a phrase. The member of
Congress and others had read the Center’s carelessly-written report in a
careless manner. The original report had
actually claimed: “An old book introduced into the PA curriculum is filled with
virulent anti-Semitism.” It then claimed
that there is a banner on the title page stating “There is no alternative to
destroying
It
was not merely members of Congress who were misled by careless reading of the
Center’s reports. Even sloppy academics
were led astray. One analysis of
Palestinian textbooks reproduced quotations from the Center’s reports (without
attribution), mistakenly claiming that all the texts came from
Palestinian-authored books (whereas most came from the Egyptian and Jordanian
books being phased out).[19] An equally
groundless, though far more bizarre analysis of Palestinian textbooks begins
with wholesale (though unattributed) borrowings from the Center’s reports and
then adds:
Public
acclaim, a non-ending orgy of sex and all the booze you can drink, constitute a
powerful combination of incentives for igniting the imagination and motivation
of pubescent youth, aged 12 and up.
Along with the emotionally charged scenes of actually stoning Jews and
Jewish property, what more is needed to convince them that killing Jews is a
worthy and honorable vocation? The PA is
certainly preparing a huge army for the future that, socially and
psychologically, will be trained to commit unmitigated violence against
The
vitriolic and often inaccurate criticisms of Palestinian textbooks should not
obscure that those books do treat
Indeed,
the textbooks often take on the same kind of awkwardness adults often assume
when addressing subjects they would prefer to avoid. In explaining the concept of species, one of
the new books explains that animals that are not alike cannot “marry” and have
children—a rather Victorian presentation.
Discussions of sensitive political topics often show a similar reticence
to sensitive topics.
This
is most marked in the matter of the borders and geographical nature of the
state of
And
the texts do not help sort out the ambiguous geography of the maps. Pre-1948 cities are mentioned as Palestinian
cities, but often in connection with the past (a large picture of
In
short, far from inciting schoolchildren, the books generally treat sensitive
political questions as tangential.
There are some exceptions to this rule, but not in any sustained way.
Palestinian educators have decided not to supply either a coherent narrative or
a set of conceptual tools for understanding such issues. History is presented with very different ends
in mind.
History in the palestinian curriculum
The
sensationalist charges against the Palestinian curriculum are based more on
hostility than analysis. But the
curriculum that has been written might trouble more progressive educators in
far more subtle ways. To date, the
Palestinian National Authority has produced interim textbooks for “national
education” and comprehensive textbooks for four grades (first, second, sixth,
and seventh). The need to develop a new
curriculum provoked extremely active and fundamental debates among Palestinian
educators that occasionally spilled over into public view. Yet despite those debates (to be discussed in
more detail below), a fairly coherent view of the past has emerged in the
textbooks produced thus far. As they
move to very recent history, some signs of controversy and debate appear, and
much of the coherence is lost. But for
the most part, the Palestinian curriculum has produced a vision of history that
makes sense of the present by concentrating on three different periods: the
ancient history of the
The Ancient Past:
The Canannite Heritage
And
the timelessness is not merely ethnic but also territorial: a sixth-grade unit
on “The Arabs before Islam” includes a map of the Arab world that follows the
current borders of
The
timelessness takes on unintended ironies when dealing with
The
focus on the eternal nature of Arab and Palestinian identity, in both ethnic
and geographic terms, is generally not based on any active or hostile denial of
other versions of history. Alternative
versions are not refuted but merely ignored; non-Arab populations generally receive
almost no attention. Because Jews and
Muslims lay common claim to some figures (Abraham, David, and Solomon), the
texts show some awkwardness in dealing with such figures. David and Solomon in particular receive only
passing mention. The history of Jews
(either inside or outside of
The Islamic Past: Conflating National and Religious Identity Palestinian
textbooks show little interest in history after the time of the Canaanites
until the dawn of Islam. At that point
the focus shifts from national to religious identity, though the Islam
presented to students has an Arab nationalist coloration at points.
Islamic
religious education often is centered around the origins of the religion and
the life of the prophet, and Palestinian educators have therefore followed a
standard pedagogical technique by beginning their religious instruction in such
a way. The authors rely heavily on the
life of the prophet and the history of the early Muslims to explain Islamic
history, doctrine, and creed. And that
leads them to include the relations of the Jews of Medina with the prophet and
the early Muslims. The 2000 texts are
less timid than their 1994 predecessors in this regard but they are no less
ambiguous. Both books mention conflicts
between the early Muslims and the Jews.
But the implications for contemporary Palestinian-Israeli relations are
less clear: students are instructed that Jews broke early agreements with
Muslims but that Muslims are bound to keep agreements as long as the other side
observes them as well. The analogy
between Islam in the seventh century and the current conflict is made more
directly at one point: students are instructed to mention incidents of violence
that “our people” have been exposed to from enemies and then asked how the
enemies and occupiers have dealt with the inhabitants of occupied
countries. The following question asks
how Muslims dealt with those countries that they won control of—implicitly
condemning Israeli and European imperial practices but still holding up
tolerance and coexistence as an Islamic norm.[27] The authors of
the books on Islamic education are far less reticent than their colleagues
writing on history, national education, civic education, and geography to
address sensitive issues, but they still seem to find ambiguity useful.
Seventh
grade Palestinian history students are exposed to the “middle ages” which is
almost entirely encompassed by the Crusades and the Muslim states that defeated
them. Medieval
Most
notable perhaps in both these periods is the insistence of the books on
conflating Arab and Muslim identity.
This is part of a broader pattern in the books. Sixth grade students are explicitly
instructed that love of the homeland is a duty of all Muslims and that various
loyalties—family, town, province, state, and Islamic world—are best understood
as a series of concentric circles rather than competing in any way. Students are taught to say: “I am a
Palestinian Muslim. I love my country
Recent History: Teaching and Avoiding
Accordingly
the textbook authors avoid such a sustained account. In the first set of texts issued in 1994, the
formative political events in twentieth-century Palestinian history—the British
mandate, 1948 and 1967 wars, the intifada, and the Oslo Agreements—received
only passing mention. For instance, only
68 words were devoted to the 1967 war in all six books of the series.[29] The first mention
comes in the fourth grade in the midst of a discussion of historical places in
The
1994 books—and especially the description of the Palestinian coast—were often
lampooned by Palestinians who noted that those who came from towns including
Jaffa, Haifa, and Acre were not Palestinian according to the geographical
vision implicit in the books. The
silence of the 1994 books extended beyond matters of history and geography: the
Palestine described in the series was devoid of any political problems—there
were no settlements or checkpoints, and refugee camps were simply described
along with cities and villages as normal places Palestinians might live—the
origin of the camps or the existence of a refugee problem were not mentioned.
The
more recent textbooks—those for grades one, two, six, and seven, issued in 2000
and 2001—break some of the silences of the earlier books, but they still fail
to develop any sustained or coherent explanation of the Palestinian
present. The issue of borders is not
even raised, and the books give no clear message on the subject. Almost all in-depth descriptions of
The
trip from
The
trip the book describes—a bus excursion for students from
Some
elements of an explanation are beginning to emerge, to be sure, but they are notable
for their gaps. On areas where a clear
national consensus exists among Palestinians, or where the Palestinian
leadership has given clear and authoritative declarations of a position, the
textbook authors lose all bashfulness.
But
those issues that remain ambiguous or hotly contested among Palestinians—such
as borders, the nature of a final settlement with
The ends of History
In
many ways, the Palestinian curriculum is based on an unexceptional view of
history. The distant past is harnessed
to serve current national needs; religious and national identities are
consciously and carefully merged; and the recent past is approached gingerly
with several divisive and sensitive topics avoided altogether. In this respect, Palestinian education
follows patterns that are common both among the PNA’s Arab and non-Arab
neighbors. It stands out only because it
stakes out such positions in a sharply contested international context.
Identity Indeed, it is that international context that explains
the special emphasis on national identity.
The official curriculum plan, submitted by the Ministry of Education to
the PNA cabinet and approved by the Palestinian Legislative Council, explains
the importance of national identity in precisely such terms: “Never has the
identity of a people been exposed to dangers of vanquish or demolition as the
Palestinian one has. The preservation of
this identity from dissolution remains the basic indication of the existence of
this people and a guarantee for its survival at the present and in the
future.” Accordingly, the Ministry
proclaimed,
[T]he
Palestinian curriculum must reflect the dimensions of the Palestinian identity
and its special features. It should also
reflect the Islamic affiliation, endeavor to achieve the unity of the Arab and
Islamic worlds, work for its freedom, realize its independence, act
constructively with other nations, and participate in the development of human
ideas, and in humanitarian, political, economic, and cognitive issues.[38]
The
Ministry approach is that the best way to protect the Palestinian national
identity is to constantly affirm it without even acknowledging any possible
challenge or alternative.
The
earlier National Education series
focused exclusively on “national education” by teaching students that the role
of the individual citizen was to identify with and contribute to Palestinian
society. Indeed, the fifth grade student
was told, upon opening the book, that this is the essential purpose of national
education: “Dear male/female student; the chief goal of learning National Education is to work to prepare
and raise an upright citizen and to strengthen his sense of belonging to his umma and his homeland.”[39]
The
new 2000 and 2001 books have actually increased the emphasis on
nationalism. Given the opportunity to
write a comprehensive curriculum for the first time, the authors inserted
nationalist symbols in every conceivable location and illustration. Every school is pictured flying a Palestinian
flag, homes have pictures of the Dome of the Rock, classrooms have nationalist
slogans on their blackboards, computers display Palestinian flags, a school bus
carries the name “
Oddly,
it is precisely such unswerving nationalism that leads to the only appearance
of Hebrew in the Palestinian textbooks.
Under the Oslo Accords, the PNA may not issue its own currency. In seeking to show a coin with the word “
Authority The purpose of history in the
Palestinian curriculum goes beyond inculcating a sense of Palestinian identity
to supporting the authoritative structures in Palestinian society. God, government, school, and parents are all
to receive respect and obedience from children.
The 1994 series included a passage in which a father quotes from the
Qur’an so that God,
‘Abir said to her father: I heard the announcer say that the Palestinian people are distinguished by education and elevated culture. What does that mean, father?
The
father said, “Yes, this statement is true.
Our people love education because God commanded reading and
writing. The Exalted said, ‘Read in the
name of your Lord who created, He created humanity from a blood clot, read by
your Lord the most noble, who taught with the pen, He taught humanity what it
did not know.’ Our first ancestors
strove in their love of learning in order to preserve heritage and transmit it
to the generations after them.”[42]
The
purpose of the new Palestinian curriculum is unabashedly supportive of existing
authority. But it is not merely that
religion, state, school, and family are authoritative structures; beyond this,
the authority of one of these is virtually indistinguishable from the authority
of the others. The texts work to create
a seamless web of authoritative structures and often elide effortlessly among
these: parental authority affirms and is based on religious truth; good family
life is necessary to cultivate wider social virtues. As finally approved, the “intellectual basis”
of the entire curriculum is said to be faith in God.[43] Other sources of
authority are joined to this religious faith.
First grade students are taught in Islamic Education:
I
love my mother who bore me, and I obey her/I love my mother who nursed me, and
I obey her/I love my mother who teaches me, and I obey her
I
love my father who provides for me, and I obey him/I love my father who teaches
me, and I obey him,
I
love my mother and my father, and I obey them.[44]
Duty
to God and to parents are specifically linked.[45] Sixth graders are
taught that a “society free from crime” depends on family, school, and other
institutions.[46] The books betray
a clear mission of instilling loyalty to God, homeland, school, and
family. Moral lessons intrude on
virtually every subject, sometimes supported by a Qur’anic verse. First graders studying Arabic language are
taught a story of an honest boy who returns some money dropped by a vendor at
school; the story is followed with a Qur’anic verse to memorize and further
lessons on the value of cleanliness.[47] Sixth-grade
Arabic education begins by warning students that the best gift bestowed by God
is the mind, but that those who do not use it will turn toward evil and
destruction.[48] A sixth grade
science book uses verses from the Qur’an to buttress its teachings on human
races and natural forces (such as wind); it adduces a scientific justification
for neat and proper behavior (such as sitting up straight).[49] Religion, school,
science, and parents all stand in positions of overlapping authority.
To
be fair, the message is sometimes qualified.
There are several concessions to a less authority-centered approach
currently developing among Palestinian educators (to be discussed more fully
below). Occasionally the texts address
the tension between “imitation” and “creativity” directly: sixth-grades are
taught as part of their “national education” that imitating a teacher is good
but imitating youth in things “not appropriate for our genuine Arab culture and
our traditions and customs” can be bad.
Creativity is good when it leads to innovation and progress.[50] And sixth graders
are also asked to confront the situation in which parents instruct their
children to do something wrong. (The
problem is addressed in a book by Salih, a righteous Muslim who instructs his
family on religious matters each day after evening prayers. He explains that children are required to
obey their parents except in such circumstances.) This lesson is followed by a discussion of
the rights of children in Islam and an invitation for students to give their
opinions on some difficult situations (in which a father forbids his son from
continuing his studies or his daughter from playing sports because she is a
girl).[51]
A Democratic Vision The stress on identity and authority may seem completely
contrary to any democratic ideas of education.
Such a critique has indeed been launched by Palestinian educators, as
will be discussed more fully in the following section. But before that critique is presented, it is
important to note that there is something profoundly democratic about the
current Palestinian curriculum: it is based on a clear national and popular
consensus. In other words, the existing
textbooks are very much products of prevailing values in Palestinian
society. It is not imposed by a
patronizing leadership but developed by those who have worked to translate
national consensus into an educational program.
It
is precisely because the curriculum is responsive to popular values and
pressure that it emphasizes national identity and various forms of authority so
consistently. And the same
responsiveness explains the awkward silences, gaps, and inconsistencies in
matters connected with recent history and current realities. Palestinians are united on the centrality of
The progressive alternative and its
limits
While the
goals of the existing curriculum focus on national identity and authority, a
very different set of goals has been advanced by a group of leading Palestinian
educators. This section will present
this progressive alternative to the officially-sanctioned approach. First, the progressive alternative itself
will be described. Second, the impact
that the progressives have had on the new curriculum will be presented. Third, the limitations of the progressive
approach—especially in areas such as history, national identity, and religion
will be considered. In short, the
progressive alternative has achieved some influence, but it is likely that the
last area it will seek to address will be the tremendously sensitive issues of
the meaning of the past, the meaning of
A Different Image of Democracy In the 1990s, even before the construction of the PNA, an alternative education vision, concentrating on ideal citizenship and democratic practice, arose within the Palestinian educational community. Deeply critical of existing educational practices, advocates of the new vision have provoked surprisingly little opposition and increasingly dominate public discussions of education. The core of the alternative vision is to recast the question around which the educational system—especially pedagogy but also the curriculum—is based. Rather than ask, “What body of knowledge should students be taught?” newer approaches ask, “What kind of citizen do we want?” The effect of posing this question is to justify a profound critique not merely of the substance of the existing curriculum but even more of prevailing educational methods.
The
new educational vision emerged among three distinct (and hardly coordinated)
groups. First, some Palestinian
intellectuals, generally secular and often on the left, were attracted to
educational issues because of their desire to build a more participatory and
democratic national culture. Such
intellectuals often had a strong interest in educational issues but were not
academic specialists in education—nor did all speak respectfully of educational
specialists, especially those employed in the Ministry of Education. While nationalism was often their point of
entry to educational issues, their focus broadened to democracy, especially
after the creation of the Palestinian National Authority. This was the case with Ibrahim Abu Lughod, a
Palestinian political scientist with an American Ph.D., who taught for many
years at
A
second group of Palestinian educational reformers consisted of educational
specialists. While most shared general
Palestinian nationalist aspirations, it was not the nationalist cause alone
that motivated them. Many received
graduate training overseas, especially in American schools of education, and
had a strong professional and international orientation. The idea of a Palestinian-designed curriculum
had strong attraction, of course, but their major focus was educational: to
turn Palestinians into a community of active and critical learners, based on
the most recent developments in educational theory.[54] In developing
their ideas, these educators not only shared a highly critical view of existing
educational practices but also often extended this to a broader and quite
trenchant social critique. Already in the intifada, some educators had begun a
reading campaign to compensate for the extended school closings. Munir Fasheh, a specialist in mathematics and
science education involved in the reading campaign, expressed an emerging consensus
among education specialists:
In
my thirty years of experience in various Palestinian educational settings, I
have often seen superficial and symbolic improvement that disguises real
deterioration underneath: Palestinian students acquire diplomas but no learning
abilities; they learn textbook theories but not the ability to construct their
own explanations of experiences and phenomena.
Schools encourage ready-made solutions and discourage experimentation
and innovative ideas. Palestinians build
universities that lack good libraries and that impede students’ development of
the abilities to express, organize, and produce knowledge; and they build
structures and organizations that lack community bonding and community spirit. Enacting visible, but often merely symbolic,
improvement without deeper and longer lasting change deceives people and blinds
them from seeing the opportunities that are being lost, as well as what could
and should be done instead. Palestinians
need to create alternatives in their minds and in their practice to deal with
current challenges and the increasing demands on formal education.[55]
Maher
Hashweh, a specialist in science education at
Firstly,
in Palestinian schools knowledge explained by the teacher and found in one
official textbook is unquestionable and is to be remembered for future use
only. Secondly, the school examination
system focuses on the memorisation of information. Thirdly, there is high esteem in the
Palestinian society for Western scientific knowledge. This might cause the Palestinian teachers to
accept both the scientific knowledge and the empiricist beliefs about its nature
which come with it in the same package.
Finally, mostly male school teachers are usually unchallenged; although
the Palestinian society is probably not as patriarchal as some other Eastern
societies, knowledge is still legitimised by the status of the person who has
that knowledge.[56]
Even
seemingly technical subjects—like mathematics—were not exempt from this
critique. Fasheh denounced existing
education for treating mathematics as a dead subject, divorced form social
reality; he wrote, “this reflects the extent to which we have been conditioned
to be passive participants in the teaching process.”[57]
The
third group developing a vision of educational reform consisted of
teachers. The reforming teachers echoed
rather than repudiated the dim view of existing pedagogy taken by the first two
groups. Complaints about the curriculum
and the physical resources made available for education are fairly common among
teachers. In the 1980s, often during the
extended school closures occasioned by the intifada, some groups of teachers
began to meet to discuss techniques and pedagogy. Ramallah proved an active area in this
regard, and some schools (such as the
The
availability of international funding, especially after 1994, led to new
organizations being founded (and some members of existing ones splitting off to
form their own organizations). In 1995,
some of those involved in Al-Mawrid formed a new NGO, the Teacher Creativity
Center (TCC), that managed to pursue a critique of current practices and build
links to external donors and to the Ministry of Education. Its director criticizes existing pedagogy in
the Arab world as designed only to transmit information from one generation to
the next; such an approach is no longer appropriate. Instead, students must be taught to become
critical and active thinkers. The group
began to print a magazine on education; sponsored by local businesses, it was
distributed to local teachers. A
pamphlet on “The Importance of Dialogue in the Classroom” was also
distributed.
Six
NGOs active in the educational field (including Tamer, Al-Mawrid, and the TCC)
formed and began publishing a bimonthly newsletter on educational issues, Al-multaqa al-tarbawi, distributed as an
insert in the daily Al-ayyam.[60] Authors in the
newsletter, many of them teachers, contribute articles on topics like role of
the teacher, gender in the curriculum, teaching nonviolence, Christian
education, summer camps, and education for children with special needs. The tone of the articles varies but all
express an enthusiasm for change and reform.
An article in December 1999 on education in the coming millennium issued
a harsh and sweeping judgment: the twentieth century was “a lost century for
Arab education.”[61]
Those
who viewed the twentieth century as a lost century were given their opportunity
to ensure that the next one would be different almost as soon as the PNA assumed
responsibility for education. In 1995,
at the beginning of the second school year under its auspices, the PNA
established a “
The
final report of the Abu Lughod committee took one year to produce.[62] A thick volume
(over 600 pages in length), the report is often unsettling reading. It is merciless in some of its prose; it also
replete with terminology far more common in conversations about education in
the
The
Abu Lughod report proposed a comprehensive reformulation of the Palestinian
educational system, covering every aspect of classroom education. Perhaps the most daring ideas centered on
secondary education: the report advocated the complete abolition of the tawjihi examination in order to free
teachers and students from emphasizing memorization and standardization. The longstanding enforced tracking of secondary
students into literary and scientific tracks (based on examination) would be
eliminated as well. Instead, students
would be free to choose between an academic and technical track (with
considerable overlap between the two).
Secondary school students would be allowed an increasing amount of
choice among courses as they progressed in their studies.
Even
in areas where they settled on recommending only mild reform, the committee
showed a willingness to rethink established procedures in fundamental ways. For instance, elimination of the summer
vacation was seriously considered though ultimately rejected. The committee did advocate a new school
schedule, however. The school day was to
begin earlier and periods were to be shortened for the lower grades (based on
the shorter attention span of younger students) and lengthened for the upper
ones. Primary schooling was to start one
year earlier, at age five. Some subjects
were to be introduced earlier (English, as an international language, was to
begin at the first grade). The committee
even considered some radical reform of religious education—such as greatly
reducing it or switching to an emphasis on comparative religion or ethics
rather than religious knowledge.
Ultimately religion proved to be too controversial a subject for even
the daring Abu Lughod committee to resolve within its year of operation; the
committee reported the various ideas but did not propose its own. The report did emphasize a more complex
national identity than was traditional by including not only specifically
Palestinian and broader Arab and Islamic dimensions, but also international
elements. With a large and diverse
diaspora, and with ambitions to participate in global economic and political
affairs, Palestinian children were to learn that their identity encompassed a
cosmopolitan, global dimension. As if to
underscore this international dimension, the committee studied a large variety
of other curricula (including some from the
Yet
for all its willingness to rethink all aspects of education, the most radical
aspects of the committee’s work lay in two other areas. First, it established a far more open and
participatory method for designing the curriculum than had existed in the past. The committee jealously guarded its autonomy
from the Ministry of Education and other structures of the PNA. In consulting with teachers, for instance,
the committee reached out directly to teachers themselves rather than going
through the Ministry or school bureaucracy.[64] The committee
conducted comprehensive surveys of teachers and studied the results, citing
them in support of its arguments for radical reform. It also scheduled a series
of meetings with teachers. ‘Ali Jarbawi goes so far as to claim that most of
the committee’s ideas came from teachers themselves.[65] The committee
sought out other audiences—students, recent graduates, and religious figures—to
discuss their impressions and present initial ideas. As it began to draw up its proposals, the
committee held a series of “town meetings” (Abu Lughod claims to have
introduced the concept to Palestinians) in the
Second,
the committee’s report focused far more attention on pedagogy than on
curricular content. Implicitly the
committee argued that the realization of Palestinian aspirations depended far
more on how students were taught then what they were taught. In this respect, for instance, the report
denounced two aspects of the current curriculum. First, it treated its subjects as discrete,
paying little attention to connections among various fields of knowledge. In their proposal, members of the committee focused
on the integration of the curriculum.
For instance, the proposal at the primary level suggests:
Teaching
these subjects will be organized in an integrated way so that the teacher will
connect the subjects studied during the instructional process. For instance, the teacher of the class should
connect mathematics during instruction with the other subjects, like science,
history, etc. This will help the
students achieve an integrated, unified, and coordinated view toward the
curriculum and toward the experiences of life as a whole. Arithmetic skills, for example, will develop
as if they are skills connected with the comprehensive ability of the student
to use them in all subjects and real-life situations, and not as if they are
isolated behaviors used only in mathematics.[67]
A
similar sensibility leads to a second major theme in the report: the need to
make education practical and connected to Palestinian reality. The existing curriculum is criticized
mercilessly as arid, abstract, and impractical.
After presenting the results of a survey of social studies teachers, for
instance, the report charges that instruction is “without meaning because it
appears as if it is separate from the external world and unconnected to
reality.”[68] To repair this,
the very basis of instruction must change: teachers must lecture far less and
engage students in exercises and applications far more.
In
their emphasis on practicality and integration, the authors of the report
present their argument primarily in terms of rendering Palestinian education
useful and accessible for the students.
When they add broader social usefulness to this concern for the student,
their vision presents an even greater challenge to existing education. Two elements of this new pedagogy appear consistently
throughout the Abu Lughod report: first, education must be democratic; second
it must foster independent, critical thought.
The (largely unspoken) purpose of this revolution in pedagogy goes
beyond the needs of individual students to the perceived exigencies of a
thoroughly democratic society.
The
first innovation, a democratic classroom, is based on a conception of democracy
(to be examined more fully below) that is related less to majoritarian
governance and more to a model of proper social interaction and
decision-making. For the reformers, a
democratic classroom does not mean that students are to elect their teachers or
textbooks, but they are to discuss in an atmosphere of freedom and mutual
respect. Teachers should transform
themselves from classroom authorities to guides who help students teach
themselves and each other. They are
encouraged to use a variety of instructional techniques (group works,
experimentation, case studies, field trips) that encourage interaction among
the students and between the students and the teacher. Teachers are also enjoined to arrange their
classrooms to foster the same kind of interaction.[69] Such an
atmosphere is to prevail in all areas of the curriculum—even, for instance, in
science and language instruction.
The
second of these pedagogical innovations—the emphasis on critical thought—grows
similarly out of a harsh view of the current instructional approach in which
“the teacher views the learning student as a ‘container to be filled’.”[70] The existing
curriculum places the teacher at the center of the educational process; its
philosophy “relies on the storage of information.” This fails to lead to the development of
“creative, critical thought;” indeed, the goal of the current curriculum is
“not to change but to imitate.”[71] In opposition to
this “traditional” curriculum, the report focuses its proposed methods “on
considering the student the center of the instructional process and on creating
students who are lifelong learners.”[72] The new
curriculum was to:
…make
manifest that truth is not absolute or
final and that definitive canons do not exist. Learning cannot take place by giving the
students information as if it is a
collection of facts that must be
memorized. The curriculum must develop
the critical, analytical sense among the students by concentrating on following
the scientific method, which focuses fundamentally on the importance of verification by the accuracy of information and the
credibility of sources. Free, open,
unshackled inquiry must take the place of receipt of what the curriculum sets
out and arranges. The curriculum must
therefore encourage the process of understanding to take the place of the development of the ability to memorize…What
is important is not obtaining information but how to use it.
The
curriculum must focus as well as
developing independence of thought among the students. This is what makes the individual able to
interact with his environment and surroundings.
The individual is the basis of society, and the independence of the
individual is the basis of the existence of a vital, active society.[73]
This
is the essence of the new curriculum—the shift from teacher’s authority to
student’s individuality, from absolute to relative truth, from receiving
knowledge to discovering it, from uniformity to pluralism, from constituting a
dutiful member of society to fostering an active and freethinking citizen.
Progressive footprinTs in the new curriculum The Abu Lughod
committee’s merciless approach to the existing educational system offended some
education officials; its willingness to make radical proposals led some to view
it as a utopian or overly aspirational approach. Yet the Ministry of Education was forced to
translate the recommendations of the report into a concrete proposal for a new
curriculum. In 1997, it presented a
formal report, which received official approval and became the basis for the
new curriculum, to be developed by a new, reconstituted
Still,
the curriculum and textbooks produced by the new Center, beginning with the
first and sixth grades in September 2000, show some unmistakable influence of
the progressives. New subjects (such as
civic education) have been introduced.
The curriculum now includes material on human rights and democracy. New exercises and assignments were added that
conformed to the pedagogical vision of the groups pressing for innovation and
reform.
Much
of the curriculum showed the signs of unresolved debates or uneasy
compromises. For instance, some
Palestinian educators had criticized older educational material for reinforcing
traditional gender roles. Others
insisted that proper Islamic behavior—deemed to include modesty in dress—be
inculcated in students. While the two
viewpoints were not mutually contradictory, their proponents often regarded
each other as adversaries. The outcome
in the textbooks is an uneasy compromise with something for everyone. A striking number of Palestinian men are
shown preparing food and working in the kitchen. The texts explicitly endorse
women’s sporting activity on Islamic grounds (provided they are properly
clothed and men are not spectators).
Women veiled (in the hijab,
which covers the hair but not the face) coexist happily in illustrations with
those unveiled. In illustrations of
religious life, however, even young girls and women at home wear the hijab. And a husband instructs not only his children
but also his wife on the duty of prayer.[74]
Perhaps
most hopefully for the progressives, the books make concessions to a far more
active pedagogy that qualifies much of the stress on authority. Most often, the new attitude is expressed
indirectly: the texts make a tremendous effort to engage the student actively,
encourage consideration of practical applications, and provoke further
thought. The authors of the books pepper
their lessons with outside activities, essays, questions for reflection and
study, and encouragement of critical thinking.
Most lessons begin by explaining their purpose to the student. The books make strong efforts to link to
local and concrete applications and examples or make the information more
accessible. In order to make the lesson
on the prophet Muhammad’s life more interactive, for instance, students are
asked to fill in a modern-day identity card for him.[75] Most lessons in
all subjects start with the local and the familiar and build outwards (first
grade national education, for instance, progresses in the following order:
family and house, I and my school, the neighborhood, my town, my
homeland). Far more daringly, the books
even push the students to engage in critical thought when dealing with
difficult and sensitive topics.
Sixth-grade students are asked to evaluate the policies used by
Mu‘awiyya (the fifth caliph and founder of the Umayyad dynasty) in solidifying
his authority and building his state; they are then asked to consider the
hereditary method for selecting rulers—an assignment that is likely to lead
some to question early Muslims and current Arab political practice in some
countries.[76] And sixth graders
are also asked to confront the situation in which parents instruct their
children to do something wrong.
The concessions
to the progressives are real. Science
books claim to take a constructivist approach, for instance, implicitly
undermining the idea that science is a set of fixed and discovered truths to be
taught. Yet despite the attempt to build
a more interactive pedagogy, ultimately the new set of texts do not meet the
central mission of the progressive educational vision: the books are still
generally based on the idea that they impart knowledge from a position of
authority; they may encourage more active learning but their encouragement of
critical, creative, and independent thought is limited.
History and Religion as the
Last Frontiers In sum, the
progressives have had real influence on some areas of the new curriculum. In the areas of history, religion, and
identity, however, they have had little impact at all. This is not accidental: even the progressives
tread carefully in such areas. Indeed,
it is often precisely their boldness in other areas that lead them to reticence
on history, faith, and nationalism. The
Abu Lughod committee deliberately avoided the two most controversial subjects
they had to consider: religion and the history and geography of
With
regard to religion, an emphasis on democratic interaction and critical thought
led some committee members in directions that others did not wish to
follow. Certainly, changing the emphasis
on teaching religious texts as divine revelation would have provoked strong
opposition. And the Ministry of
Education made clear it would not be receptive to such a recommendation,
fearful of the public response.[77] One Ministry
official explains: “Of course, there was no question that the curriculum had to
include religion. This is wanted by all
Palestinians—Muslims and Christians.”[78] Thus, for the
committee to pursue a change in religious education would have divided the
members, embroiled it in more controversy than it wished to stir up, and
ultimately failed. Yet the secularist
bias of the committee came through in a subtle manner: the report called for
separating religion from history and civics and criticized the overlap between
the subjects in the existing curriculum.
This approach stood at odds with the same committee’s constant call for
integration among various parts of the curriculum.
Palestinian
history and geography proved a difficult subject for the same reason. Both Abu Lughod and Jarbawi recalled that they
were asked time and again how they were to approach issues such as borders, the
Arab-Israeli conflict, the refugee issue, and so on.[79] Once again, they
largely avoided such topics; Jarbawi recalls that they were concerned that any
extended treatment would quickly become the object of debate, obstructing a
broader consideration of their proposal.[80] And as with
religion, their brief consideration of such issues seemed to be at odds with
their general approach. The emphasis on
critical thought, free discussion, and the absence of fixed truths gave way to
a recommendation that the curriculum simply stick to the facts. The report acknowledges the importance and
sensitivity of the issue that it summarizes in the form of the question “What
Palestine do we teach?”
Is it
the historical
This might be the most difficult question
but the answer need not be so difficult.
The new curriculum must be a Palestinian creation. It must acknowledge the realities of the situation
without falsifying historical truths and their repercussions in various
dimensions in the context of social science instruction.[81]
This
vague emphasis on “realities” left little to contest—or to guide a textbook
writer. In a public discussion in 1996,
Abu Lughod similarly made the issue of teaching
…the
history of the Arabs has not really been written. There is no Palestinian history. This is the job of Palestinian academic
institutions. Having one book is not
enough. We don’t want one
interpretation—let us rather get the facts at least. Once students are armed with the basic facts,
our teaching of how to think will take over.[82]
The
unspoken argument is that Palestinians must write their own history, but they
cannot unless they are willing to do so in the same spirit of open debate and
critical inquiry that will guide the curriculum as a whole. Because that effort has at best only begun,
and because it would be too controversial to allow students such total freedom
in debating such sensitive national issues, the authors of the Abu Lughod report
fall back on the “realities” and “facts” that they tried to evict from other
parts of the curriculum—hoping that a generation of students trained to engage
in critical inquiry rather than uncritical absorption will allow a future
reform based not simply on dry presentation of the facts but also on attempts
to foster democratic and critical debate.
The
irony is that the advocates of democracy in education lost their boldness not
so much in the face of such difficult topics but because of fear of public opinion. Those who wished to build a democratic
educational system were willing to take up God and
Conclusion
Harsh
external critics of the PNA curriculum and textbooks have had to rely on
misleading and tendentious reports to support their claim of incitement. But a far milder version of such
criticisms—that the curriculum does little to support peace—would be accurate. The Palestinian educational system is designed
to serve other goals, most prominently the inculcation of identity and
legitimation of authority—largely ignoring the sensitive issues connected with
peace. This leads internal critics to
launch a second set of criticisms against the curriculum—that its subject
matter and pedagogy are stale and authoritarian. Such critics have had some impact and
achieved a modest level of reform, but their fundamental charges against the
educational system have not been answered.
Is
there any hope that the internal, progressive critique will begin to transform
the Palestinian educational system in areas such as history and national
identity? Can Palestinian students be
taught not simply who they are but how to think critically about their past and
present? Might this help foster a
Palestinian identity—or set of identities—willing to reinterpret the past with
an eye not only to violated rights and injustice but also toward peace and
reconciliation?
Any
hope for such movement in current political circumstances is probably
unrealistic. With the effects of
conflict felt on a daily basis, what textbooks and teachers say is probably
irrelevant in any case. But in the
longer term, the progressive alternative does offer an attractive vision. The progressive educators argue for an
educational system that does not simply inculcate the values of the past but
prepares citizens to think independently and critically. Students emerging from such a system would,
if the vision is successful, show far greater ability to confront their past
critically, and, more important, interact constructively with those who did not
share their values and identities.
In
the long term, then, the specific content of textbooks on issues of
[1] I gratefully acknowledge the assistance
and comments provided by the late Ibrahim Abu Lughod, Sam Kaplan, `Ali Jarbawi,
Elie Podeh, Lara Friedman, David Matz,Khalil Mahshi, Isma`il Nujum, Maher
Hashweh, Rif`at Sabah, and Fouad Moughrabi.
This research was funded by a Fulbright grant and a grant from the
United States Institute of Peace. The
opinions expressed are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views
of Fulbright or the USIP.
[2] See the Center’s website, www.edume.org
[3] An Israeli resident of the West Bank
settlement of Efrat, Marcus previously lobbied to keep West Bank aquifers under
Israeli control. His work on textbooks
led Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to appoint him to a joint committee with
the Palestinians on incitement. He then
went on to found an organization that searches Palestinian media for anti-Israeli
and anti-Jewish statements, following a similar method to that followed for
textbooks.
For an example of a criticism of the
Center's work that focuses on Marcus personally, see the document submitted by
the PLO to the Mitchell Commission, “Third Submission of the Palestine
Liberation Organization to the Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee,” 3 April
2001, www.nad-plo.org/eye/Response%20to%20Israeli%20Submission.5.pdf, p. 22.
[4] The report’s method of listing large
number of statements from the books led it to include all sorts of material under
the anti-Israel rubric. For instance,
any mention of a Palestinian character to Jerusalem was listed as questioning
the Israeli nature of the city. Since
Jerusalem was designated as a matter for final status negotiations, the idea
that the Palestinians questioned Israeli annexation should have been
unsurprising. What is more
surprising—and unremarked in the report—is that all mentions of locations in
Jerusalem in the Palestinian-authored books refer only to the Old City and a
few Arab neighborhoods. If textbooks are
taken as indications of negotiating positions—an implicit assumption of the
report—then the Palestinians showed far more willingness to compromise on
Jerusalem than Israel.
[5] The Center’s report does include some
excerpts from the 1994 Palestinian-authored books but none can fairly be viewed
as hostile to Israel or to Jews. The
texts are examined in more detail below.
[6] http://www.edume.org/news/news1.htm
[7] My son attended a Tel Aviv school which
celebrated "tolerance day," assuring all students that Israelis can
be religious or secular, light-skinned or dark-skinned, and Jewish or
Arab. Following the Center's
methodology, such a unit might be lambasted for failing to include Palestinians
who do not hold Israeli citizenship and for denying Palestinian identity (by
not mentioning it).
[8] To follow the Center’s methodology, an
American textbook from the late 1930s mentioning Abraham Lincoln might be seen
as carrying a pro-Communist message because of the role of the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.
Certainly the Center’s logic could be used to cite any Israeli textbook
mentioning Yitzhak Shamir as encouraging massacres of Palestinians and
political assassinations of British and UN officials.
[9] The Center eschews such a prosecutorial
approach in its treatment of Israeli textbooks.
Were it to be more consistent in its approach, it could easily (and, to
some extent, unfairly) smear the efforts of Israeli educators. My own son's experience in a fourth-grade
class in Tel Aviv can bear this out. He
was given maps that included all the PNA territories in Israel and none that
excluded them. (With Israel not having
determined its borders or recognized Palestinian sovereignty, this is
understandable, but the Center hardly approaches Palestinian textbooks with
such sympathetic understanding). A unit
on the history of the land included no significant material on the Palestinian
population and the only treatment of Muslims (the Ottomans) was negative. A biblical text (Joshua) was presented that
defined the borders promised to the Jews ambitiously covering much of Jordan
and Syria. While the text itself could
not be changed, the edition given to my son included notes designed to ensure
the students understood the nature of these borders (the same book was reticent
only when dealing with an incident involving a prostitute: the commentary
indicated that the word "prostitute"--an unfortunately common
playground epithet at my son's school--really meant "vegetable
seller." In short, the edition
showed embarrassment when the text mentioned sex, but not when it dealt with
borders.) Perhaps most shocking, my son
was given a song sheet during a unit on the history of the city of Tel Aviv
that advocated beating and even the death of Arabs (the song lauded a guard for
beating up Arabs and quoted him saying, "Get out of here, `Abd Allah, you
should die, God willing, but just not in Tel Aviv.") My point here is not that Israeli textbooks
are racist (my vague impression is that the secular educational establishment
is to be commended for steadily growing sensitivity over how such matters are
to be taught). I only wish to observe
that a report using the same selective techniques as the Center could easily
portray them extremely negatively. (A
completely fair account here should mention that the offensive verse in the
song was not taught to the students in my son's class after my wife and I
complained to the teacher, who apologized profusely and expressed extreme
embarrassment that she had circulated a song with such words.) A full and fair-minded treatment of Israeli
textbooks is forthcoming from Elie Podeh, The
Arab-Israeli Conflict in Israeli History Textbooks (Westport: Bergin and
Garvey, 2001).
[10] Without a hint of irony, Krauthammer simultaneously
denounced the Israeli changes, favorably citing a book that covered the issue
"in rather great and shocking details." See the transcript of remarks delivered at
the American Enterprise Institute, "Is the Israeli/Palestinian Peace
Process Dead, and if so, What's Next," 6 November 2000,
www.aei.org/past_event/conf001106.htm.
[11] Berl Wein, "Illusions," Jerusalem Post, 26 October 2000.
[12] Christina Lamb, "Intifada: The
Next Generation," Sunday Telegraph,
15 October 2000, p. 26
[13] Commission of the European Communities,
"Statement on behalf of Commissioner Patten on press reports regarding
alleged EC funding for text books used by the Palestinian Authority," press release, 27 April
2001. The statement came after a story
in the European Voice on the textbook
controversy.
[14] "Hillary Clinton: Link PA Aid to
End to Antisemitism," Jerusalem Post
26 September 2000.
[15] The text of the letter can be found at
http://www.senate.gov/~clinton/news/2001/06/2001614111.html.
[16] Gerald Steinberg criticized European assistance
and diplomacy for ineffectiveness in 1999, writing that "new Palestinian
textbooks dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict contain the same myths and
hostility." (See The European Union
and the Middle East Peace Process” Gerald M. Steinberg, Jerusalem Letter, No. 418, 15 November 1999. Steinberg's description of the books
published by 1999 is unsupportable even by the tendentious standards of the
Center.
[17] Steve Israel, letter to The New York Times, 10 June 2001,
Section 4, p. 14.
[18] Two Palestinians (Khalil Mahshi and
Fouad Moughrabi) looked for editions in the libraries in Ramallah and found the
editions there--the ones that would have been available to the textbook
authors--did not contain the banner. I
located an edition published in 1991 that also lacked the banner (Mustafa Murad
Dabbagh, Biladuna Filastin, Kafr
Qara`: Dar al-Huda, 1991). In short,
while it may or may not be true that one edition of the book contained the
banner, most editions—including the one authors most probably relied on—do
not. And the Center makes other
mistakes: it claims the book is dedicated to "those who are battling for
the expulsion of the enemy form our land!"
In fact, the dedication is to "those who strove for maintaining the
Arabness of Palestine."
[19] Raphael Israeli, "Education,
Identity, State Building and the Peace Process: Educating Palestinian Children
in the Post-Oslo Era," Terrorism and
Political Violence 12 (1, Spring 2000), pp. 79-94.
[20] Shlomo Sharan, "Israel and the
Jews in the Schoolbooks of the Palestinian Authority," in Arieh Stahv, Israel and a Palestinian State: Zero-Sum
Game (Shaarei Tikva: Ariel Center for Policy Research, 2001), available at
http://www.acpr.org.il/publications/pa/pp58.doc, p. 57.
[21] Principles
of Human Geography (2000), Grade 6, p. 48.
[22] National
Education (2001), Grade 2, Part I, pp. 4-5.
[23] Arab
and Islamic History (2000), Grade 6, Unit I. North African areas are not included. All of mandatory Palestine is included as is
Alexandretta, a district transferred from Syria to Turkey under the French
mandate, a move still regarded as illegitimate by Syria.
[24] Lest an unsympathetic reader
misinterpret my words, I should explain that I do not question the depth or the
passion of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem; indeed, I share it. I seek only to observe that strongly
nationalistic feelings have led some--on both sides--to erase significant
portions of the city's history and population, either through disinterest or
denial.
[25] Arts
and Crafts (2000), Grade 6, pp. 37-45.
The reference to ending the Hebrew occupation of Jerusalem is striking
because it pits the pre-Islamic Arabs against those mentioned in the Qur’an as
prophets, undermining (almost certainly unconsciously) the close identification
between Arabs and Islam that pervade other textbooks.
[26] There is the additional irony, similar
to that of the reference to Nebuchadnezzar, of using the word "jizya:" it places Ibrahim, a Muslim prophet, in the position
of a non-Muslim and the idol-worshipper (as the pre-Muslim Arabs are described)
in the position of a Muslim ruler. See Our Beautiful Language (2000), Grade 6,
Part II, pp. 20-23.
[27] Islamic
Education (2000), Grade 6, Part II, p, 84.
[28] Islamic
Education (2000), Grade 6, Part
I, pp. 66-69.
[29] Dr. Sami Adwan, "Analysis of the
1967 War Narrative in Palestinian History and Civic Education School
Textbooks," Tonsberg: Vestfold College, 1998; http://www.bib.hive.no/tekster/hveskrift/rapport/1998-4/index.html.
[30] National
Education (1994), Grade 4, p. 42.
`Imwas fell in a strategic region near the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem
highway. In 1948 the area saw intense
combat as part of the battle over Jerusalem.
Having occupied the area in 1967, Israel evicted the inhabitants on the
grounds of protecting the highway that ran nearby. The area has been turned into a large park
("Canada Park") and treated by Israel as part of its territory. For many Palestinians, destroyed villages
remain some of the most poignant symbols of their conflicts with the Zionist
movement and the state of Israel. This
makes the brevity of the text and its use of the passive voice especially
striking.
[31] National
Education (1994), Grade 5, p. 34.
[32] National
Education (1994), Grade 5, p. 36.
[33] National
Education (1994), Grade 5, p. 37.
[34] National
Education (1994), Grade 3, p. 31.
[35] The phrase is used in the preface of
each book issued in 2000 and 2001.
[36] Our
Beautiful Language (2001), Grade 2, pp. 60-61.
[37] Our
Beautiful Language (2000), Grade 1, part II, Unit Seven.
[38] Ministry of Education, General Administration
of Curricula (Palestinian Curriculum Development Center), First Palestinian Curriculum Plan
(Jerusalem: al-Ma`arif, 1998), p. 7.
[39] National
Education (1994), Grade 5, p. 2.
[40] The coin is illustrated in Mathematics (2000), Grade 6, Part II.
[41] The stamp is on the cover of National Education (2001), Grade 2.
[42] National
Education (1994), Grade 4, p. 40.
[43] First
Palestinian Curriculum Plan, p. 7.
[44] Islamic
Education, Grade 1, Part I, p. 39.
[45] See, for example, Our Beautiful Language, Grade 6, Part I, p. 19.
[46] Civic
Education, Grade 6, Unit IV.
[47] Our
Beautiful Language, Grade 1, Part II, Unit VI.
[48] Our
Beautiful Language, Grade 6, Part I, p. 4.
[49] General
Science, Grade 6, Part I, pp. 10-11.
[50] National
Education, Grade 6, Unit III, section on “Imitation and Creativity.”
[51] Islamic
Education, Grade 6, pp. 45-61.
[52] Denis As`ad, "The Arab Youth
[Publishing] House…A Significant Educational Experiment," (Arabic), Al-multaqa al-tarbawi Issue 10, December
1999.
[53] "Ramallah: Tourism and Archaeology Opens a Workshop
about the Special Touring Guide for Schools," Al-ayyam 8 September 1999.
The same archaeologists produced the first Palestinian-authored
English-language travel guide, the PACE
Tour guide of the West Bank and Gaza Strip "Palestine" (Ramallah:
Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange, 1999).
[54] For one expression of this orientation,
see Zaynab Habash, Tarshid al-manahij
al-madrasiyya fi al-daffa al-gharbiyya wa-qita` ghazza [Guiding the School
Curricula in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip] (Jerusalem: n.p., 1996).
[55] Munir Jamil Fasheh, "The Reading
Campaign Experience within Palestinian Society: Innovative Strategies for
Learning and Building Community," Harvard
Educational Review 65 (1, Spring 1995), p. 68.
[56] Maher Z. Hashweh, "Palestinian
Science Teachers' Epistemological Beliefs:
A Preliminary Survey," Research
in Science Education 26 (1, 1996), p. 97.
[57]Munir Fasheh, "Is Math in the
Classroom Neutral--Or Dead," For the
Learning of Mathematics 17 (2, June 1997), p. 24.
[58] Isma`il Nujum, director, Al-Mawrid,
personal interview, Ramallah, July 2000; see also Palestine and Education: The "Teaching Palestine Project"
(Ramallah: Al-Mawrid, 1997).
[59] The Al-Mawrid guide included a case in
which a student acts aggressively toward a teacher; the student is expelled
after the teacher threatens to resign but relatives of the students attempt to
mediate the dispute. See Maher Hashweh, Al-Tarbiyya al-dimuqratiyya: Ta`allum wa-ta`lim al-dimuqratiyya min ajl
istikhdamiha (Ramallah: Al-Mawrid, 1999).
The unit was used in some local schools, though one school
administration found the material too sensitive and pulled out of the
project. For an English-language
description of the Center's work (including the democracy project), see Maher
Hashweh and Ismail Njoum, "A Case-Based Approach to Education in
Palestine: A Case Study of an Innovative Strategy," paper presented at the
Selmun Seminar, "Innovative Strategies in Meeting Educational Challenges
in the Mediterranean," Malta, 13-19 June 1999.
[60] The other NGOs were the Early Childhood
Resource Center (Jerusalem), the Educational Information and Coordination
Project (Ramallah), the Young Scientists Club (Ramallah), the Tamir Social
Education Foundation (Ramallah), and the Consciousness and Participation
Foundation (Bethlehem).
[61] Salah al-Subani, "The Problems of
Arab Education and the Conditions of Maintenance and Progress in the Third
Millennium," Al-multaqa al-tarbawi,
Issue 10, December 1999.
[62] Al-manhaj
al-filastini al-awwal li-l-ta`lim al-`amm: al-khitta al-shamila [officially
translated as A Comprehensive Plan for the Development of the First Palestinian
Curriculum for General Education] (Ramallah: Curriculum Development Center,
1996). I have referred to the group as
the Abu Lughod committee rather than its formal name (despite his objection to
me, expressed in a personal communication) to distinguish it from the permanent
Curriculum Development Center that was established after the first body of that
name had completed its work.
[63] Personal interview with Ibrahim Abu
Lughod, Ramallah, October 1999.
[64] `Ali Jarbawi, personal interview,
Ramallah, January 2000.
[65] `Ali Jarbawi, personal interview,
Ramallah, January 2000.
[66] Personal
interview with Ibrahim Abu Lughod, Ramallah, October 1999.
[67] Al-manhaj
al-filastini al-awwal, p. 90.
[68] Al-manhaj
al-filastini al-awwal, p. 449.
[69] Al-manhaj
al-filastini al-awwal, pp. 105-106.
[70] Al-manhaj
al-filastini al-awwal, p. 35.
[71] Al-manhaj
al-filastini al-awwal, pp. 53-54.
[72] Al-manhaj
al-filastini al-awwal, p. 104.
[73] Al-manhaj
al-filastini al-awwal, pp. 455-56 [emphasis original].
[74] Islamic
Education, Grade 6, Part I, p. 49.
[75] Islamic
Education, Grade 1, Part I, p. 57.
[76] Arab
and Islamic History, Grade 6, unit on “The Umayyad Caliphate.”
[77] `Ali Jarbawi, personal interview,
Ramallah, January 2000.
[78] Khalil Mahshi, Director General,
International and Public Relations, Ministry of Education, personal interview,
Ramallah, August 1999.
[79] Interviews with Ibrahim Abu Lughod,
Ramallah, October 1999 and `Ali Jarbawi, Ramallah, January 2000.
[80] `Ali Jarbawi, personal interview,
Ramallah, January 2000.
[81] Al-manhaj
al-filastini al-awwal, pp. 454-55 [emphasis original].
[82] "Education Strategies and the Future
Needs of a Palestinian Curriculum, Roundtable with a Presentation by Dr.
Ibrahim Abu Lughod, Head of the Palestinian Curriculum Development Center"
15 August 1996, Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International
Affairs, Jerusalem, http://www.passia.org/meetings/96/meet28.htm.