The 2011 report on Palestinian Textbooks...

The Palestinians need to end their continual incitement...

The organization reviewed 118 textbooks currently used in Palestinian schools – 71 of which are for students in grades one through 12, and 25 that are taught in religious schools in the West Bank and issued by the PA Ministry of Wakf and Religious Affairs.

IMPACT-SE also examined 22 teacher guides distributed by the PA Ministry of Education and Higher Education. While all of the reviewed textbooks were approved by the PA, they are also taught in schools in Gaza.

While respect for the environment and sustainable energy resources are taught to Palestinian students, IMPACT-SE found that textbooks blame Israel for all environmental problems.

“There is generally a total denial of the existence of Israel – and if there is an Israeli presence it is usually extremely negative,” said Eldad Pardo, an IMPACT-SE board member, and head of the organization’s Palestinian textbook research group. “For the next generation, there is no education at all about collaboration and no information about the many collaborations that already exist between Israelis and Palestinians in environmental and other areas.”

In geography textbooks, Israel usually does not appear in maps of the Middle East, instead “Palestine” is shown to encompass Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Jaffa is also shown on maps of Palestine, but Tel Aviv and other predominantly Jewish cities, such as Ramat Gan, kibbutzim and moshavim, are not displayed.

One of the Palestinian textbooks reviewed by IMPACT-SE, History of Ancient Civilization, published in 2009 and used to teach fifth-graders, states that the Levant consists of the states of Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Israel is not mentioned.

Other textbooks read for the study asked students to “color the Negev Desert on the map of Palestine,” and to solve the following mathematical word problem: “An independent Palestinian state was declared in 1988. How many years have passed since the declaration of independence?”

Another textbook included a map of the Old City of Jerusalem – which did not contain the Jewish Quarter. Meanwhile, in an additional example, a textbook printed a British Mandate postage stamp, but erased the Hebrew inscription “Palestine: The Land of Israel” that appeared on the original.

In addition, some textbooks described the Canaanites as an Arabic-speaking people whose land was stolen by Jews, and stated that Jews came from Europe to steal Palestine after the British conquered it in 1917.