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Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education
Each year, Israel's young men and women are drafted into compulsory military service and are required to engage directly in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This conflict is by its nature intensely complex and is played out under the full glare of international security. So, how does Israel's education system prepare its young people for this? How is Palestine, and the Palestinians against whom these young Israelis will potentially be required to use force, portrayed in the school system? Nurit Peled-Elhanan argues that the textbooks used in the school system are laced with a pro-Israel ideology, and that they play a part in priming Israeli children for military service. She analyzes the presentation of images, maps, layouts and use of language in History, Geography and Civic Studies textbooks, and reveals how the books might be seen to marginalize Palestinians, legitimize Israeli military action and reinforce Jewish-Israeli territorial identity. This book provides a fresh scholarly contribution to the Israeli-Palestinian debate, and will be relevant to the fields of Middle East Studies and Politics more widely.
280 pages, Paperback
First published October 25, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 9, 2019
In addition to bringing to light the suffering of our Palestinian brothers and sisters, the book goes into analyzing some of the root causes that result in the abundant racism of the Israeli society. I learnt from this book a great deal about education and idea making. I will not be looking at any piece of print or a text book the same way I used to.
January 7, 2024
“Palestinian resistance is always described [in the media] as out-of-the-blue violent outbursts, connected to nothing that preceded it.” The school books reviewed by the author “promote a Jewish territorial and national identity which is largely based on the denial of Palestinian identity.” One textbook writes, “The Arabs refuse to live in high-rise buildings and insist on living in land ridden houses.” Another writes, “the Arabs are unwilling to give anything for the general good” [namely give up their lands].
Israel’s “Nakba Law aims to prevent public commemoration of the catastrophe – or Nakba in Arabic – that befell the Arab population of Palestine during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 which enabled the establishment of the State of Israel.” Yiftachel in 2006 writes, “Israel never sought to achieve equal citizenship between Palestinian Arabs and Jews, nor did it seek the consent of its Arab citizens for the forceful ideological imposition of a Jewish state.” A vaguely progressive textbook writes, “Deir Yassin became a myth in the Palestinian narrative […] and created a horrifying negative image of the Jewish conqueror in the eyes of Israel’s Arabs.” – Naveh et al. 2009. “82% of the religious students and 39% of the secular ones believed Palestinian citizens should be denied civil rights.” Jim Crow redux, anyone? “Since Palestinian-Arabs can seldom obtain permit to build or expand, either on municipal or personal land, the houses or annexations they manage to build for their children are treated as illegal and are immediately demolished.”
“As a rule, Arabs and Palestinians don’t do much in Israeli school books except for lurking, attacking in all sorts of ways and multiplying. The few transitive verbs I came across included ‘poison’, ‘attack’, ‘refuse’, ‘evade tax payment’ and ‘thank Israel for the progress it brought into their life’.” Then there’s textbook demonization: “The Prime-Minister saw in Arafat the embodiment of Hitler.” “The goal of the Jews was not to kill Arabs systematically [like being done now from 10/23 into 2024], but to establish, as much as possible, a state with as few Arabs as possible, and this by means of expulsion, by frightening them away, and by preventing them from coming back through the complete destruction of their villages and by closing the borders.” Basic settler-colonialism.
A demo for Israel’s sociopathic Hannibal Directive [intentional Friendly Fire] made an early surprise appearance in 1974: “On the 16th of May 1974, 90 school-pupils were taken hostage in the course of a Palestinian terrorist attack. Following a concept that there should not be any negotiations [by the occupiers] with terrorists [the illegally occupied], an IDF force attacked the terrorists. In the course of the attack 16 children were killed.” Netanyahu calls the IDF the most ‘moral’ army in the world. Yet here was Israel killing its own children – that’s what Goebbels did in 1945 – but according to Netanyahu for some reason you can’t get more ‘moral’ than that.
This book shows the Deir Massacre was like a Candy Gram sent to other Palestinians – if you stay after this, you are next. Five days after the massacre, the Etzel radio reported that “most of the other villages were evacuated thanks to their action in Deir Yassin.” Mission Settler-Colonialism Part One Accomplished! How wonderful for rogue nation of Israel to have its very own “founding crime”. The Mafia call this same activity of killing humans for power within the syndicate “making your bones”. Israel’s first president Weitzman called it a miracle – Pop Quiz: where in the Torah or Bible, is a Massacre of the innocent considered a ‘miracle’? All the textbooks checked for this book showed that the Deir Yassin Massacre “enabled the establishment of a coherent Jewish state.” One textbook said of the Qibya Massacre, “the slaughter of Palestinians in their homes brought about some confidence to Jews in their homes [AHH] while another textbook added, “and brought morale and dignity to the IDF” [50 Years 2004; Face 2006: Naveh et al. 2009]. A third textbook [Domka et al. 2009] said of the Qibya Massacre that it “restored the feeling of security and the morale of the citizens of Israel.” Killing others to boost your morale – Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy would have given a hearty thumbs up to that boldly sadistic concept.
Zionist Racism: “The books studied here present Israeli-Palestinian culture as superior to the Arab-Israeli one, Israeli-Jewish concepts of progress as superior to Palestinian-Arab way of life, and Israeli-Jewish behavior as aligning with universal values.”
In conclusion, this book has lots of dense fancy-assed lingo that will make the average reader fall asleep while trying to follow the author, stuff like: hypertextuality, hypertexts, hypotexts, multimodal texts, toponomyc silences, existentialization, intertextualization, the power of color as a semiotic resource, punctuation of semiosis, frames can be diegetic [who knew?], a proleptic account, and covert taxonomy. Some sentences start normally and then head south fast, stuff like: “Success in school history is dependent on a student’s control of the lexicogrammatical resources and text structures that realize the arguing genres.”
I bought this book thinking it would be similar to Frances Fitzgerald’s amazing “America Revised” which amply showed how US textbooks neatly followed US propaganda du jour. But instead, this book blew its chance by being intentionally dense like this: “A taxonomy in which the superordinate is only indicated […] inferred from such similarities as the viewer may perceive to exist between the subordinates. The proposed equivalence between the subordinates is visually realized by a symmetrical composition [...] For participants to be put together in a syntagm which establishes a classification means that they were judged to be members of the same class and are to be read as such.” What does any of this have to do with Zionist textbooks? And I thought post-modernism was unreadable. Translate this other pearl of wisdom [from page 46] for me: “Pedagogic communication is often viewed as a carrier, a relay for ideological messages and for external power relations.” And here’s another pearl of obfuscation: “The simple yet profound fact of temporal sequence and its effects are to orient us towards a world of causality. [p.201]” What?
This book was okay, as you can see, I learned some stuff, but the author would have done much better if he read Frances Fitzgerald’s America Revised and transferred it’s template onto Zionist settler-colonialism to show readers how Israeli textbooks propagandize their young into continuing the settler-colonial project with impunity. As it is while there are parts that are very helpful, there’s also way too much fancy talk - where readers will say, what did this and that sentence actually mean? Fans of Talcott Parsons will love this book however, because his schtick was making everything so technical and obtuse, you’d assume he must have been brilliant. Either way, I’m glad I did read this because, as I said, I did learn something, just not much. I think this book is two stars, but I’ll give it three stars because the author is clearly not a fan of Israel’s incessant law breaking, unchecked settler-colonialism, denial of equal rights for Palestinians, its war crimes, and faux moral superiority.
Israel’s “Nakba Law aims to prevent public commemoration of the catastrophe – or Nakba in Arabic – that befell the Arab population of Palestine during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 which enabled the establishment of the State of Israel.” Yiftachel in 2006 writes, “Israel never sought to achieve equal citizenship between Palestinian Arabs and Jews, nor did it seek the consent of its Arab citizens for the forceful ideological imposition of a Jewish state.” A vaguely progressive textbook writes, “Deir Yassin became a myth in the Palestinian narrative […] and created a horrifying negative image of the Jewish conqueror in the eyes of Israel’s Arabs.” – Naveh et al. 2009. “82% of the religious students and 39% of the secular ones believed Palestinian citizens should be denied civil rights.” Jim Crow redux, anyone? “Since Palestinian-Arabs can seldom obtain permit to build or expand, either on municipal or personal land, the houses or annexations they manage to build for their children are treated as illegal and are immediately demolished.”
“As a rule, Arabs and Palestinians don’t do much in Israeli school books except for lurking, attacking in all sorts of ways and multiplying. The few transitive verbs I came across included ‘poison’, ‘attack’, ‘refuse’, ‘evade tax payment’ and ‘thank Israel for the progress it brought into their life’.” Then there’s textbook demonization: “The Prime-Minister saw in Arafat the embodiment of Hitler.” “The goal of the Jews was not to kill Arabs systematically [like being done now from 10/23 into 2024], but to establish, as much as possible, a state with as few Arabs as possible, and this by means of expulsion, by frightening them away, and by preventing them from coming back through the complete destruction of their villages and by closing the borders.” Basic settler-colonialism.
A demo for Israel’s sociopathic Hannibal Directive [intentional Friendly Fire] made an early surprise appearance in 1974: “On the 16th of May 1974, 90 school-pupils were taken hostage in the course of a Palestinian terrorist attack. Following a concept that there should not be any negotiations [by the occupiers] with terrorists [the illegally occupied], an IDF force attacked the terrorists. In the course of the attack 16 children were killed.” Netanyahu calls the IDF the most ‘moral’ army in the world. Yet here was Israel killing its own children – that’s what Goebbels did in 1945 – but according to Netanyahu for some reason you can’t get more ‘moral’ than that.
This book shows the Deir Massacre was like a Candy Gram sent to other Palestinians – if you stay after this, you are next. Five days after the massacre, the Etzel radio reported that “most of the other villages were evacuated thanks to their action in Deir Yassin.” Mission Settler-Colonialism Part One Accomplished! How wonderful for rogue nation of Israel to have its very own “founding crime”. The Mafia call this same activity of killing humans for power within the syndicate “making your bones”. Israel’s first president Weitzman called it a miracle – Pop Quiz: where in the Torah or Bible, is a Massacre of the innocent considered a ‘miracle’? All the textbooks checked for this book showed that the Deir Yassin Massacre “enabled the establishment of a coherent Jewish state.” One textbook said of the Qibya Massacre, “the slaughter of Palestinians in their homes brought about some confidence to Jews in their homes [AHH] while another textbook added, “and brought morale and dignity to the IDF” [50 Years 2004; Face 2006: Naveh et al. 2009]. A third textbook [Domka et al. 2009] said of the Qibya Massacre that it “restored the feeling of security and the morale of the citizens of Israel.” Killing others to boost your morale – Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy would have given a hearty thumbs up to that boldly sadistic concept.
Zionist Racism: “The books studied here present Israeli-Palestinian culture as superior to the Arab-Israeli one, Israeli-Jewish concepts of progress as superior to Palestinian-Arab way of life, and Israeli-Jewish behavior as aligning with universal values.”
In conclusion, this book has lots of dense fancy-assed lingo that will make the average reader fall asleep while trying to follow the author, stuff like: hypertextuality, hypertexts, hypotexts, multimodal texts, toponomyc silences, existentialization, intertextualization, the power of color as a semiotic resource, punctuation of semiosis, frames can be diegetic [who knew?], a proleptic account, and covert taxonomy. Some sentences start normally and then head south fast, stuff like: “Success in school history is dependent on a student’s control of the lexicogrammatical resources and text structures that realize the arguing genres.”
I bought this book thinking it would be similar to Frances Fitzgerald’s amazing “America Revised” which amply showed how US textbooks neatly followed US propaganda du jour. But instead, this book blew its chance by being intentionally dense like this: “A taxonomy in which the superordinate is only indicated […] inferred from such similarities as the viewer may perceive to exist between the subordinates. The proposed equivalence between the subordinates is visually realized by a symmetrical composition [...] For participants to be put together in a syntagm which establishes a classification means that they were judged to be members of the same class and are to be read as such.” What does any of this have to do with Zionist textbooks? And I thought post-modernism was unreadable. Translate this other pearl of wisdom [from page 46] for me: “Pedagogic communication is often viewed as a carrier, a relay for ideological messages and for external power relations.” And here’s another pearl of obfuscation: “The simple yet profound fact of temporal sequence and its effects are to orient us towards a world of causality. [p.201]” What?
This book was okay, as you can see, I learned some stuff, but the author would have done much better if he read Frances Fitzgerald’s America Revised and transferred it’s template onto Zionist settler-colonialism to show readers how Israeli textbooks propagandize their young into continuing the settler-colonial project with impunity. As it is while there are parts that are very helpful, there’s also way too much fancy talk - where readers will say, what did this and that sentence actually mean? Fans of Talcott Parsons will love this book however, because his schtick was making everything so technical and obtuse, you’d assume he must have been brilliant. Either way, I’m glad I did read this because, as I said, I did learn something, just not much. I think this book is two stars, but I’ll give it three stars because the author is clearly not a fan of Israel’s incessant law breaking, unchecked settler-colonialism, denial of equal rights for Palestinians, its war crimes, and faux moral superiority.
January 3, 2015
The most boring book I have ever come across!
I thought this was going to be something new,and there are not many books in this particular field of text books of Israel!So despite incredibly high price of 17 USD for Kindle,I got the book!
The book is very academic type,very very boring,monotonous and derives from other researchers' works,long passages of other people's work start off the book,instead of getting to the point,she builds on this epitome of boredom a hate manual vs Israel!
Israel is a tough society and she has to be,being surrounded by a sea of darkness,23 hostile neighbors and countries like Pakistan where people viscerally hate Israel and those 'Zionists' (The irony being,99% of those terrorist supporting/creating Pakistanis never meet a single Jewish person their whole lives let alone a Zionist,yet somehow they miraculously manage to hate the 'Zionist entity' this much!Hence the term 'Visceral' hatred as opposed to rational hatred.),from KKK supporters and supremos like David Duke to far lefty lunatics like Chomsky and all most all looney British leftists,they all might not share one 'value' but they all hate Israel.Ask any Muslim terrorist organization like Al Qaeda and Boko Haram or ISIS or Hamas or PLO or Hezbollah or LeT/JuD of Pakistan,all of them hate Israel!All of them support this false 'cause' of Anti Zionism!With so much hate people tend to blame themselves and boring books such as this one come into fruition!
Israel is a tough society,thriving among hostile nations,as a reaction to that nationalism acts as a counter balance.It's a need of time!If by some miracle all leftists and Muslims stop hating Israel she won't have to be so tough and nationalistic!(I don't hope KKK will come around even by this miracle though so let them be).And it is important to have a strong identity about one's nation esp among this level of hatred and hostility.Yet unlike Palestine territories text books and media Israel textbook seem pretty balanced!One might read this book in hope of finding fuels to fire of their hatred of Israel,but this book would actually make him/her slight pro Israel!
If the book was long enough for 17 USD (Like you know 850/900/1000 pages)it would have been still worth it,instead what we get is a mere 224 pages of me/my/my/he said/she said type of book,just 224 pages!The book has too many me/my/mine type of sentences and the rest is filled up with boring paragraphs after paragraphs about what other authors said about Israeli textbooks and how the minority should be portrayed,how Israel should be self critical(Like all this Islamic and far leftist/rightist hatred of the Jewish people and Israel is not enough!Heh #Fail),let's check the implications of that:a 15 years old Israeli girl is studying her history and let's hypothetically be self critical and go all the way,teach young Israelis this self loathing self defeating 'Narrative' of 'Nakba',what good will it do?Will Palestinians stop their hate of Israel?Will they be happy and peaceful and live side by side to Israelis?NO!That's a lot wishful thinking and by same logic,pigs can fly too!
I dare the author or any1 to compare textbooks of Israel vs Palestine and measure the hate-fest!Israel would come out better (much less hateful to the 'other') slam dunk!There's no comparison possible!
Think of it,let's think in terms of education!The most 'educated' leaders of Palestine,Abbas wrote a thesis on Holocaust denial!Yeah,that's the guy who is a darling of Israeli and international left!And the US too!Saeb Arakat also,seems 'educated' but such leaders,what do they tell you about Palestine as a society to you?Holocaust denial as a thesis?#Fail
Over 94% of Palestinians deny Holocaust!As per the latest research!94%!After all,I would want to know origins of my 'oppressors' if I was one of them!Who wouldn't?Yet they dont,if they do which is 6% of them,they still end up comparing the Holocaust with their 'Nakba' which are not comparable!This leftist tendency of 'Listening to the other narrative' is really self defeating!Look at the implications,esp in early Israel we had Holocaust survivors in almost all Israeli homes,even some 72 years latter,almost all households have relatives who were affected by the Holocaust,many Israelis have parents who were affected by this horror,and yet 94% Palestinians DENY it!It means they DENY humanity of Israel!They deny Israelis as people altogether!If Palestinians can't even accept this as an event on human level,how can they claim their Nakba narrative?Simple,they cannot!Instead what we read in their textbooks are 'Jews are apes and pigs' style of portrayal of Israelis!By this comparison Israelis come out as a nice people to a fault!
I would have given this book a better review/rating if the book had explained the context,also if it had a review of Palestinian text books which seem like straight out of 'Elders of Zion' and Mein Kempf!(Both being middle east best sellers!),such context and balance would have been a welcome addition despite a terrible style of presentation!
The fact is,Israeli textbooks are exemplary!They don't portray Palestinians as barbarizing hating enemies at all!They don't portray those suicide bombers and Islamic Jihadists as hallmarks of Palestinian 'resistance',while Israel actually could do just that,coz after all it's a reality and IDF soldiers would have to face THIS reality soon after school for real!Israel is a proud democracy and doesn't deserve suicide bombers and Islamic Jihadist hatred,leftist loathing or right wing anti semitic racism!
All countries in the world teach national heritage as history!What's wrong with that?Such textbooks form one's character and love for nation,last thing a 15 YO gurl or boy needs is self loathing and leftist self hatred!Israel has achieved a lot and without a shadow of doubt one of the best countries in the world!Israeli kids deserve to know the glorious history of Israel,her struggles and the miracle of her thriving in face of terrible mind boggling hatred!Israel is a liberal oasis,a proud nation and a light to the world!Definitely wayy better than MENA countries around her!The only outpost of democracy surrounded by a sea of hatred and tribalism!Israeli kids deserve to have a healthy self respect and self esteem,to counter the hatred by stupid world around them!
This book might have been written to paint Israel in a bad way,but after reading it,I came out even more pro Israel than before!One tip to the publisher/author would be to reduce the price of the book too,this book should be priced at 2.99 USD and not a whooping 17USD for Kindle!I would suggest avoiding this book to other well meaning readers as I did and earned boredom of your share too(boredm of a life time to be frank with ya),also for Israel haters,you freaks have many outrageous 'Joos are bad' type of Garbage books available online and on Amazon for 1/2/3/4 USD!Dont waste your time/money on this one!
#Fail
0 star
I thought this was going to be something new,and there are not many books in this particular field of text books of Israel!So despite incredibly high price of 17 USD for Kindle,I got the book!
The book is very academic type,very very boring,monotonous and derives from other researchers' works,long passages of other people's work start off the book,instead of getting to the point,she builds on this epitome of boredom a hate manual vs Israel!
Israel is a tough society and she has to be,being surrounded by a sea of darkness,23 hostile neighbors and countries like Pakistan where people viscerally hate Israel and those 'Zionists' (The irony being,99% of those terrorist supporting/creating Pakistanis never meet a single Jewish person their whole lives let alone a Zionist,yet somehow they miraculously manage to hate the 'Zionist entity' this much!Hence the term 'Visceral' hatred as opposed to rational hatred.),from KKK supporters and supremos like David Duke to far lefty lunatics like Chomsky and all most all looney British leftists,they all might not share one 'value' but they all hate Israel.Ask any Muslim terrorist organization like Al Qaeda and Boko Haram or ISIS or Hamas or PLO or Hezbollah or LeT/JuD of Pakistan,all of them hate Israel!All of them support this false 'cause' of Anti Zionism!With so much hate people tend to blame themselves and boring books such as this one come into fruition!
Israel is a tough society,thriving among hostile nations,as a reaction to that nationalism acts as a counter balance.It's a need of time!If by some miracle all leftists and Muslims stop hating Israel she won't have to be so tough and nationalistic!(I don't hope KKK will come around even by this miracle though so let them be).And it is important to have a strong identity about one's nation esp among this level of hatred and hostility.Yet unlike Palestine territories text books and media Israel textbook seem pretty balanced!One might read this book in hope of finding fuels to fire of their hatred of Israel,but this book would actually make him/her slight pro Israel!
If the book was long enough for 17 USD (Like you know 850/900/1000 pages)it would have been still worth it,instead what we get is a mere 224 pages of me/my/my/he said/she said type of book,just 224 pages!The book has too many me/my/mine type of sentences and the rest is filled up with boring paragraphs after paragraphs about what other authors said about Israeli textbooks and how the minority should be portrayed,how Israel should be self critical(Like all this Islamic and far leftist/rightist hatred of the Jewish people and Israel is not enough!Heh #Fail),let's check the implications of that:a 15 years old Israeli girl is studying her history and let's hypothetically be self critical and go all the way,teach young Israelis this self loathing self defeating 'Narrative' of 'Nakba',what good will it do?Will Palestinians stop their hate of Israel?Will they be happy and peaceful and live side by side to Israelis?NO!That's a lot wishful thinking and by same logic,pigs can fly too!
I dare the author or any1 to compare textbooks of Israel vs Palestine and measure the hate-fest!Israel would come out better (much less hateful to the 'other') slam dunk!There's no comparison possible!
Think of it,let's think in terms of education!The most 'educated' leaders of Palestine,Abbas wrote a thesis on Holocaust denial!Yeah,that's the guy who is a darling of Israeli and international left!And the US too!Saeb Arakat also,seems 'educated' but such leaders,what do they tell you about Palestine as a society to you?Holocaust denial as a thesis?#Fail
Over 94% of Palestinians deny Holocaust!As per the latest research!94%!After all,I would want to know origins of my 'oppressors' if I was one of them!Who wouldn't?Yet they dont,if they do which is 6% of them,they still end up comparing the Holocaust with their 'Nakba' which are not comparable!This leftist tendency of 'Listening to the other narrative' is really self defeating!Look at the implications,esp in early Israel we had Holocaust survivors in almost all Israeli homes,even some 72 years latter,almost all households have relatives who were affected by the Holocaust,many Israelis have parents who were affected by this horror,and yet 94% Palestinians DENY it!It means they DENY humanity of Israel!They deny Israelis as people altogether!If Palestinians can't even accept this as an event on human level,how can they claim their Nakba narrative?Simple,they cannot!Instead what we read in their textbooks are 'Jews are apes and pigs' style of portrayal of Israelis!By this comparison Israelis come out as a nice people to a fault!
I would have given this book a better review/rating if the book had explained the context,also if it had a review of Palestinian text books which seem like straight out of 'Elders of Zion' and Mein Kempf!(Both being middle east best sellers!),such context and balance would have been a welcome addition despite a terrible style of presentation!
The fact is,Israeli textbooks are exemplary!They don't portray Palestinians as barbarizing hating enemies at all!They don't portray those suicide bombers and Islamic Jihadists as hallmarks of Palestinian 'resistance',while Israel actually could do just that,coz after all it's a reality and IDF soldiers would have to face THIS reality soon after school for real!Israel is a proud democracy and doesn't deserve suicide bombers and Islamic Jihadist hatred,leftist loathing or right wing anti semitic racism!
All countries in the world teach national heritage as history!What's wrong with that?Such textbooks form one's character and love for nation,last thing a 15 YO gurl or boy needs is self loathing and leftist self hatred!Israel has achieved a lot and without a shadow of doubt one of the best countries in the world!Israeli kids deserve to know the glorious history of Israel,her struggles and the miracle of her thriving in face of terrible mind boggling hatred!Israel is a liberal oasis,a proud nation and a light to the world!Definitely wayy better than MENA countries around her!The only outpost of democracy surrounded by a sea of hatred and tribalism!Israeli kids deserve to have a healthy self respect and self esteem,to counter the hatred by stupid world around them!
This book might have been written to paint Israel in a bad way,but after reading it,I came out even more pro Israel than before!One tip to the publisher/author would be to reduce the price of the book too,this book should be priced at 2.99 USD and not a whooping 17USD for Kindle!I would suggest avoiding this book to other well meaning readers as I did and earned boredom of your share too(boredm of a life time to be frank with ya),also for Israel haters,you freaks have many outrageous 'Joos are bad' type of
#Fail
0 star
December 24, 2024
Unfortunately the style of this book is very academic and boring, exactly what Jennifer says in her review of this here. With more examples and human experience narratives, this book could have been made much more interesting ethnographically. More, enjoyable is the wrong word because it deals with a tragic conflict, but I can’t think of a word to rather use, maybe interesting is the best word I can think up at the moment.
We are correctly and rightly constantly being told by Israel, mainstream media and the Jewish diaspora how hamas uses kid’s cartoons, activities and camps to indoctrinate Palestinian children to hate Jews.
This brave Israeli woman shows you what the Israeli far-right and the Zionist propagandist machine do not want you to know.
Unfortunately, only school books and no other media has been analyzed, but this book demonstrates how Israeli school children are also indoctrinated, if not to hate LPalestinians exactly, at least to see them as some sort of savage civilization with not much humanity.
Compounding this, the school books also justify Israel in all their actions.
Of course all this indoctrination is done for the benefit of the IDF who needs the child fully moulded when it is time for military service at age 18.
One can only imagine the situation is even worse in schools under the far-right netanyahu regime.
I have interacted with extremists on both sides. I hate them equally.
I feel sorry for everyone else and hope for an eventual two-state solution.
But, until then I have unfortunately become so fatigued by moderates on both sides who still take sides and urge me to unconditionally support one side or the other, and then accuse me of disgusting things if I don’t fully agree with them.
Unfortunately I can do nothing for the innocent people suffering under Israeli bombing in Gaza. I also am not going to tell my Israeli friends are the most moral army in the world because I no longer believe it and think it is just a disgraceful propaganda slogan that is used to justify totally disproportionate and cruel bombing and treatment of the Palestinian people, especially since Israel for years refuses to allow Palestine to have a state.
At the same time, I respect and totally admire the moderate Israeli Left who have incredible courage to criticize the way this war is being fought, and I know that fanatics on the Palestinian side totally do hate and want to kill you anyway.
All it seems to me we normal people can do is just wait and see what happens.
It feels like Iraq all over again. Totally powerless.
But what this brave book must do is for people who read it to share with other people that, taking history into account, in this conflict, both sides have committed significant wrongs and neither Israel nor Palestine can claim total morally good behaviour.
This is just a mess between two blood-stained peoples that will hopefully will eventually be solved.
Having said that, it doesn’t count for much, but, unlike Palestine, Israel at least has freedom of expression, which allowed this brave woman to publish her book, although we are of course seeing the netanyahu regime trying to end this, starting with Aljazeera and Haaretz.
We are correctly and rightly constantly being told by Israel, mainstream media and the Jewish diaspora how hamas uses kid’s cartoons, activities and camps to indoctrinate Palestinian children to hate Jews.
This brave Israeli woman shows you what the Israeli far-right and the Zionist propagandist machine do not want you to know.
Unfortunately, only school books and no other media has been analyzed, but this book demonstrates how Israeli school children are also indoctrinated, if not to hate LPalestinians exactly, at least to see them as some sort of savage civilization with not much humanity.
Compounding this, the school books also justify Israel in all their actions.
Of course all this indoctrination is done for the benefit of the IDF who needs the child fully moulded when it is time for military service at age 18.
One can only imagine the situation is even worse in schools under the far-right netanyahu regime.
I have interacted with extremists on both sides. I hate them equally.
I feel sorry for everyone else and hope for an eventual two-state solution.
But, until then I have unfortunately become so fatigued by moderates on both sides who still take sides and urge me to unconditionally support one side or the other, and then accuse me of disgusting things if I don’t fully agree with them.
Unfortunately I can do nothing for the innocent people suffering under Israeli bombing in Gaza. I also am not going to tell my Israeli friends are the most moral army in the world because I no longer believe it and think it is just a disgraceful propaganda slogan that is used to justify totally disproportionate and cruel bombing and treatment of the Palestinian people, especially since Israel for years refuses to allow Palestine to have a state.
At the same time, I respect and totally admire the moderate Israeli Left who have incredible courage to criticize the way this war is being fought, and I know that fanatics on the Palestinian side totally do hate and want to kill you anyway.
All it seems to me we normal people can do is just wait and see what happens.
It feels like Iraq all over again. Totally powerless.
But what this brave book must do is for people who read it to share with other people that, taking history into account, in this conflict, both sides have committed significant wrongs and neither Israel nor Palestine can claim total morally good behaviour.
This is just a mess between two blood-stained peoples that will hopefully will eventually be solved.
Having said that, it doesn’t count for much, but, unlike Palestine, Israel at least has freedom of expression, which allowed this brave woman to publish her book, although we are of course seeing the netanyahu regime trying to end this, starting with Aljazeera and Haaretz.
February 13, 2025
I agree with several of the author's criticisms regarding Israeli elementary school textbooks and how they help perpetuate the image of the "bloodthirsty Palestinian" (whether they are Israeli citizens or refugees in Gaza and the West Bank), prejudices and reinforce the dominant narrative of the State. Okay...
Other parts of the book, especially regarding the images of Arabs and/or their cities and that this would also be stereotypical, I found a bit exaggerated, it seemed more like "nitpicking".
In an image of an Arab (with his kaffiyeh and his blanket) the author claims that it is a stereotypical image of the Arab. In the Arab League meetings themselves, most of the leaders of the Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, dress like this.
Schoolbooks from various countries (including the one I was born in - Brazil), when portraying people and ethnicities of several countries (again, I will use Brazil as a reference) bring "stereotypical" images. I remember that the image of the Italian in schoolbooks always looked like Nintendo's Super Mario, the Portuguese always had a big mustache, the Germans had those weird 19th century clothes, the Japanese were always connected to martial arts. Stereotyped? Maybe so... "examples of blatant racism" as the author wants to convey to me is already an exaggeration.
As a pacifist activist, I find Nurit Peled's work and criticism of Israeli schoolbooks extremely valid. Nurit lost a daughter in a Palestinian terrorist attack, I believe it would be equally valid if the author did some research on Palestinian schoolbooks and how the even more poisonous education of Hamas and the PLO contributes to terrorist attacks that have claimed the lives of thousands of Israelis. That way we would have a counterpoint and impartiality.
Other parts of the book, especially regarding the images of Arabs and/or their cities and that this would also be stereotypical, I found a bit exaggerated, it seemed more like "nitpicking".
In an image of an Arab (with his kaffiyeh and his blanket) the author claims that it is a stereotypical image of the Arab. In the Arab League meetings themselves, most of the leaders of the Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, dress like this.
Schoolbooks from various countries (including the one I was born in - Brazil), when portraying people and ethnicities of several countries (again, I will use Brazil as a reference) bring "stereotypical" images. I remember that the image of the Italian in schoolbooks always looked like Nintendo's Super Mario, the Portuguese always had a big mustache, the Germans had those weird 19th century clothes, the Japanese were always connected to martial arts. Stereotyped? Maybe so... "examples of blatant racism" as the author wants to convey to me is already an exaggeration.
As a pacifist activist, I find Nurit Peled's work and criticism of Israeli schoolbooks extremely valid. Nurit lost a daughter in a Palestinian terrorist attack, I believe it would be equally valid if the author did some research on Palestinian schoolbooks and how the even more poisonous education of Hamas and the PLO contributes to terrorist attacks that have claimed the lives of thousands of Israelis. That way we would have a counterpoint and impartiality.
October 7, 2024
video book review: https://youtu.be/CCjpinLxIFM
Nurit's book is really a category of one. It's a vital book that helps you understand why so many young Israelis unquestioningly swallow the false narrative of their own history: they've been told lies since they were old enough to read.
"[T]he Zionist creed 'know your homeland' means forgetting 2000 years of civilization on this land and seeing present Jewish life in Israel as a direct continuation of the biblical kingdom of Judea." (p. 9)
"The most dominant discourse in Israel with regard to the occupation of Palestine is the discourse of 'security' which legitimates aspects of Israeli behavior towards Palestinians that are denounced in the framework of the discourse of human rights." (p. 29)
Presenting the Palestinian areas as 'controlled by the Palestinian authority' instead of as their native land and the people who live there as foreign workers emphasizes the idea that the Palestinians do not belong where they have lived for centuries." (p. 56)
Nurit's book is really a category of one. It's a vital book that helps you understand why so many young Israelis unquestioningly swallow the false narrative of their own history: they've been told lies since they were old enough to read.
"[T]he Zionist creed 'know your homeland' means forgetting 2000 years of civilization on this land and seeing present Jewish life in Israel as a direct continuation of the biblical kingdom of Judea." (p. 9)
"The most dominant discourse in Israel with regard to the occupation of Palestine is the discourse of 'security' which legitimates aspects of Israeli behavior towards Palestinians that are denounced in the framework of the discourse of human rights." (p. 29)
Presenting the Palestinian areas as 'controlled by the Palestinian authority' instead of as their native land and the people who live there as foreign workers emphasizes the idea that the Palestinians do not belong where they have lived for centuries." (p. 56)
January 27, 2024
This is an... extremely academic book. Essentially a very long essay (or collection of essays) that looks into various textual theory to then analyse a selection of Israeli textbooks belonging to what was then the latest generation of Israeli textbooks common in schools (covering history, geography etc).
It's not an easy format to read but the scholarship is excellent and the insight is invaluable. Hugely recommended for deeper understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
A minor note - the transliteration of both Arabic and Hebrew in this translation is a little all over the place. Might make it difficult to orient yourself if you're not familiar with various political, military and geographical names.
It's not an easy format to read but the scholarship is excellent and the insight is invaluable. Hugely recommended for deeper understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
A minor note - the transliteration of both Arabic and Hebrew in this translation is a little all over the place. Might make it difficult to orient yourself if you're not familiar with various political, military and geographical names.
September 14, 2025
Saggio che consiglio a tutto il corpo docente, soprattutto a coloro che hanno la possibilità di insegnare materie letterarie.
Ogni volta che in Italia si sostiene quanto la scuola non sia politica, si sta dimenticando l'aspetto politico dei contenuti scolastici. Ci sono diverse analogie tra il sistema scolastico israeliano e quello europeo. Questo saggio analizza l'insegnamento della storia e della geografia nelle scuole israeliane, dell'eliminazione del gruppo palestinese e la costruzione di un passato utilizzabile dal progetto sionista. Insegnare come colonizzare, come essere razzisti, come disprezzare le vite non ebree.
Un saggio davvero puntuale, analitico e pesante come un macigno sulle nostre coscienze.
Ogni volta che in Italia si sostiene quanto la scuola non sia politica, si sta dimenticando l'aspetto politico dei contenuti scolastici. Ci sono diverse analogie tra il sistema scolastico israeliano e quello europeo. Questo saggio analizza l'insegnamento della storia e della geografia nelle scuole israeliane, dell'eliminazione del gruppo palestinese e la costruzione di un passato utilizzabile dal progetto sionista. Insegnare come colonizzare, come essere razzisti, come disprezzare le vite non ebree.
Un saggio davvero puntuale, analitico e pesante come un macigno sulle nostre coscienze.
Currently reading
January 29, 2025-every common ground is construed of "shared assumptions", which are presented as given and irrefutable, they are never submitted for discussion, but rather presented as "known".
-siege mentality.
-as if the writers are not the propagators of ideology
-Israel never sought to achieve equal citizenship between Palestinian Arabs and Jews, nor did it seek consent of its Arab citizens for the forceful ideological imposition of a Jewish state.
-"Israel's Arabs"
-according to Israeli conception, Jewish people have one state, while Palestinians can settle in one of the 21 states.
-Palestinians who are not terrorists are usually called Arabs.
-siege mentality.
-as if the writers are not the propagators of ideology
-Israel never sought to achieve equal citizenship between Palestinian Arabs and Jews, nor did it seek consent of its Arab citizens for the forceful ideological imposition of a Jewish state.
-"Israel's Arabs"
-according to Israeli conception, Jewish people have one state, while Palestinians can settle in one of the 21 states.
-Palestinians who are not terrorists are usually called Arabs.
April 26, 2024
This work reflects tremendous research and concientous seriousness. Reading the book requires a bit of extra attention if one is not accustomed to this type of presentation. A must read for anyone that wants to understand better the views of Palestinians as presented in approved school textbooks.
April 17, 2025
Incredibly academic and quite boring however it takes a very thorough look at the way Palestinians are portrayed in Israeli schoolbooks and analyses everything meticulously so I would say it is worth it!
August 13, 2025
Brutal, preciso y además entretenido. Necesario siempre, pero más en estos tiempos, en los que se hace imprescindible comprender cómo un alto porcentaje de la sociedad israelí apoya el genocidio en Palestina. Ahora comprendo todo mucho mejor.
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