Demand that Donor Nations ask for Changes in Palestinian Authority books Used by UNRWA and the PA

Background

The following is a list of changes that UNRWA must introduce into the Palestinian Authority textbooks it uses in its schools in order to make them compatible with the UN Agency’s commitment to peace in the Middle East. It is based on a 15 years of research done by Dr. Arnon Groiss*, who reviewed hundreds of Middle Eastern schoolbooks, including those issued by the Palestinian Authority used in UNRWA schools.

De-legitimization of the State of Israel

  • Every map that shows today’s political boundaries in the region should mark Israel’s pre-1967 territory by the name “Israel”. Such a territory shall not be left un-named and certainly is not to be named “Palestine” as that constitutes a distortion of the present situation on the ground.
  • Israel should be mentioned as an ordinary sovereign state in every text mentioning the region’s states currently.
  • Every reference to a region, settlement or site within Israel’s pre-1967 lines must not describe such a region, settlement or site as exclusively Palestinian.
  • Every discussion in the books of the holy places in the country should refer to the Jewish holy places alongside the Muslim and Christian ones. Any reference to a place which happens to be sacred to Jews (such as the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem) should state that fact.
  • Any discussion of subjects related to population and demography issues in the country should include the 6 million Jews living there. Any map that shows cities in the country should include the important Jewish cities as well (such as Tel Aviv, Eilat, Ashdod, etc.).
  • The books should not use circumlocutions such as “the lands of 48”, “the Interior” or “the Green Line” instead of the phrase “Israeli territory”.
  • Historical documents should not be falsified (the British Mandate stamp, for example).

Demonization of Israel

  • Schoolbooks in use in UNRWA schools should not include pieces with virulent demonization of Israel, or de-humanization, or any description that goes beyond the presentation of Israel and/or the Jews as an ordinary adversary with its own rights, interests and positions.
  • It is much desired to add to the books the still non-existent pieces that deal with Israel and the Jews objectively (for example, pieces that talk about the Israeli government structure, economy, science and technology, the Hebrew culture, Jewish history, etc.) that would balance the enormous anti-Israeli critical material in the books.
  • It is crucially important to stress in the books that, in spite of the war, the Jewish/Israeli individual is also a human being, apart from being an adversary, and should be treated accordingly.

UNRWA Books should emphasize peace and not endorse the “armed struggle”

  • The Islamic ideas of Jihad and martyrdom should be mentioned in historical context only and not as ideals to strive for.
  • Any discussion of what is termed “Nakbah” should stress the fact that the Nakbah was a direct result of a war initiated by the Arab League, and not as Jewish aggression, contrary to what is said today in the books.
  • Within this context, Palestinian Arab children should be taught to recognize their own party’s shared responsibility for past events and not restrict that to the adversary alone. Example: the so-called “Separation Wall” which was built for defending the Israeli population against bombing attacks by Palestinians.
  • The so-called “Right of Return” should be presented as a demand representing the PLO position only, regarding “the Refugee Problem” while the solution itself will be attained in the framework of the negotiations between the two parties and on the basis of mutual agreement only.

*About Dr. Arnon Groiss

Dr. Arnon Groiss is an Arabic-language journalist who worked for the Voice of Israel Arabic Radio for 42 years (between 1973 and 2015). He is also an expert on Middle Eastern affairs having earned his Ph.D. degree from Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies, as well as an MPA degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Groiss taught for several years at the Hebrew University in the 1990s and 2000s. Between the years 2000-2010 Dr. Groiss served as chief researcher and, later, as Director of Research at the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE, formerly known as the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace – CMIP), a non-political NGO committed to studying the attitude to the “other” and to peace in the Israeli and in other Middle Eastern curricula. During his work there, and in later years, Dr. Groiss studied hundreds of textbooks of various school subjects and authored over ten reports on Palestinian, Egyptian, Syrian, Saudi Arabian, Iranian and Tunisian schoolbooks. The reports are available on the Institute’s Web site http://www.impact-se.org. A summary of his research of this subject is to be found in “De-legitimization of Israel in Palestinian Authority Schoolbooks”, published in Israeli Affairs, Vol. 18 (2012), Issue 3, pp. 455-484, where he compares the PA schoolbooks with other Arab and Middle Eastern ones, including their Israeli counterparts. Dr. Groiss has presented his findings since 2000 to both policy makers and people of the press on numerous occasions in various places, including the US Congress, the European Parliament, the UK House of Commons, the Israeli Knesset, the Canadian Parliament, the French Assemblée nationale and elsewhere. On the basis of his experience in this field, Dr. Groiss was appointed as a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) of the Palestinian-Israeli Schoolbook Research Project commissioned by the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land (CRIHL). The project was funded by the US State Department and ended in February 2013. Dr. Groiss’ evaluation paper of this research project is to be found at http://israelbehindthenews.com/library/pdfs/EVALUATIO1-1.pdf

 

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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