Thou shalt Un-teach it to Your Children 
By Barbara Sofer
Jerusalem Post

(August 20) It's textook-buying season. Every mother who has confronted her
child's assertion that "that's not what it says in the book" or "that's not what
the teacher says" knows the impact of what our kids get in school on their opinions
and thought processes - and how hard it is to override lessons conveyed with
the school's authority.

Likewise, we know as adults how hard it is to un-learn many of the things we
learned incorrectly in school, even on topics that don't have direct impact on
our lives. For example, despite new discoveries in archeology that debunk the
notion that simple worms preceded more complex insects with eyes, we persist
in thinking of Darwin's Tree of Life as the model for life's development. New
research has shown that autism is a somatic disease and not the result of
faulty parenting, but psychologists admit it is hard to give up the notion that
autism has environmental causes.

The sparrow sings the song of its youth. Hence it was with an escalating sense
of despair that I recently read a report on what Palestinian textbooks teach
Palestinian children about Jews and Israel.

I'm not talking about those old pre-1967 textbooks of the
"two-dead-Jews-and-two-more-dead-Jews-make-how-many-dead-Jews" type.
I'm referring to the 140 books, mostly published in Jordan, that have the stamp
of the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education for grades one to 12.

The report on the texts was published by the Center for Monitoring the Impact
of Peace, a private foundation whose director, Itamar Marcus, is also an
Israeli representative on the Wye-mandated committee that monitors
incitement. The report is available in English on the Internet
(www.edume.org).

The textbooks repeatedly weave anti-Israeli propaganda into the fabric of their
lessons. There are language questions like: "Complete the following blank
spaces with the appropriate word: The Zionist enemy........civilians with its
aircraft."

There are also straightforward history lessons: "The clearest examples of
racist belief and racial discrimination in the world are Nazism and Zionism."

Fifth graders are asked, in a comprehension question, why they must "fight the
Jews and drive them out of our land." In a seventh-grade textbook, students
have the following question. "Jaffa is a Palestinian town captured by the Jews.
Name three other Palestinian towns which were captured by the Jews."

Eighth graders get a more complicated passage in a literary text by Dr. Abdul
Halim Khader called "The Greedy Designs of the Jews in Jerusalem," which
blames Israel for burning the Al-Aksa Mosque in 1969 as part of a Zionist plot
aimed at taking control of Islamic holy places.

The questions for discussion and analysis include, "what were the purposes of
the Jews in setting Al-Aksa Mosque on fire?" and "What, in your view, is the
way to liberate Jerusalem, enlightened by its liberation by the Moslems in the
time of Saladin?"

Naturally, the State of Israel doesn't exist on maps. You get the picture.

MARCUS also monitors the media, and has hundreds of unpalatable examples
in the daily press. Take the crossword puzzle whose clue for 7 across is "the
Jewish center for eternalizing the Holocaust and the lies." Answer: Yad
Vashem.

Still, as despicable as the press examples are, the textbooks are more insidious,
since they are aimed at the minds and hearts of the next generation.

The Palestinians are reportedly working on a new curriculum, to be ready in
two years. We can't wait that long. As we move towards new territorial
compromises and possible new political accommodations with other neighbors,
the least we can demand is that Israel's existence be internalized by second
graders. New textbooks are costly; black markers to remove odious passages
come cheap.

We can expect the Palestinians to point their finger back at us, insisting we
check our own textbooks. That's not a bad idea. We should be vigilant, too, not
only about the direct and indirect messages we convey about our neighbors
and minorities, but about how women are presented. Not all the textbooks used
in schools are examined and sanctioned by the Education Ministry. Sometimes
texts are selected by teachers or principals with their own agendas.

In the US, checking textbooks has been women's work. Jewish women
(through Hadassah) took on the task of checking texts for anti-Jewish and
anti-Israel references, reported them, and demanded and got change where
necessary. They didn't sit down and do an organized study like Marcus: The
examples simply popped up while they were helping their children with
homework.

That doesn't seem too hard. As the book covers go on this year's texts, I
suggest that we mothers, Palestinian and Israeli, commit ourselves to an
ongoing project for the upcoming school year. All we have to do is look over
our kids' shoulders periodically, copy out questionable passages we see, and
post them to the curriculum division of our respective education ministries.

The values of our textbooks should reflect the best of our own values.
Un-learning is hard. It's easier to get it right the first time.