Israel's Schools for Arabs

Send this clipping to somebody

Transcribed from the clipping

Benyamina, Israel. The census completed by the Israeli authorities at the beginning of October shows that the population of the occupied lands is just over 1,000,000, of whom 300,000 are of school age. Whatever the ultimate outcome, at the moment Israel is responsible for the education of these Arab children, and this poses several problems.

First there is the fact that both in Jordan and Egypt compulsory education is on paper only. Not only the Beduin (so numerous in Jordon and even on the West Bank) but also many children from the rural areas never go to school, or do so belatedly, and nobody cares.

Statistics show that on the West Bank last year (before Israel occupied it), only 24 per cent of the 6-year-olds went to school. The Beduin in Israel are tending more and more to settle, but in Jordan they are still purely nomadic, which makes schooling impossible.

The whole of Palestine in Mandatory Times had one Beduin school; now the Israeli Beduin have fifteen elementary schools, free, of course. The teachers are mainly from Northern Israel. In Syria there is no compulsory education; but the population on the Golan Height (occupied by Israel) is mainly Druze, friendly to Israel and eager to have schooling for their children.

In Israel there has always been compulsory free education for Arabs and Jews alike. The second problem is the teachers. On the West Bank and in Eastern Jerusalem only a minority have reported back for work at the beginning of the school year. It seems that this is due to instigation from Amman, by radio.

Still, where the children have come in, teachers have been found from the Israel side, and slowly, in Eastern Jerusalem, in the Gaza Strip, on the West Bank and at long last even in Nablus, a hotbed of resistance, a good many schools have opened. Attendance varies, from 50 per cent to 90, but it is constantly growing. The third problem is that of the schoolbooks.

Except for the French and English textbooks which are printed abroad, nearly all schoolbooks are geared to an education in hatred unparalleled anywhere, including Nazi Germany.

The history books teach, for example, that "It is difficult to know how the Hebrews came to Palestine and settled there," and "Israel is a cancer in the eye, a bone in the throat," and "The Arabs in 1948 attacked the Jews and killed off those in the kibbutzim and in Galilee, until these places were clean of them." The grammar and mathematical exercise books for elementary schools contain such things as "The Jewish enemy is a trickster and a traitor" and "The Jews are wicked criminals." The foregoing examples are taken from a brochure issued by the Israel Information Office of the Education Ministry, which reprints the Arab text in full, translating into English only certain gems.

It gives chapter and verse for every item. A sidelight is the information that these same textbooks are also in use, or were until now, in UNRWA schools. These books were taken out of circulation in the schools of the occupied areas and replaced by hastily printed copies of the textbooks in use in Israeli Arab schools. Some teachers protested volubly.

Despite these difficulties a majority of the elementary schools and a good many high schools have been opened.

How this transcription was made

Date and publication rest on the collector's slide label; no masthead, folio or printed dateline appears on this clipping.

Context added by this archive

SCHOOLBOOKS THREAD — and the clearest case in the batch of the American press printing a government handout as reporting, with the admission sitting right there in the text.

The writer lays out the textbook quotations — 'Israel is a cancer in the eye, a bone in the throat', 'The Jewish enemy is a trickster and a traitor' — and then says where they came from: 'a brochure issued by the Israel Information Office of the Education Ministry, which reprints the Arab text in full, translating into English only certain gems.' The word 'gems' is the writer's.

She notices that the Ministry translated selectively, prints the selection anyway, and draws from it the sentence 'nearly all schoolbooks are geared to an education in hatred unparalleled anywhere, including Nazi Germany.' That comparison is the sharpest language anywhere in the batch, and it is not a quotation — it is the writer's own, unattributed, in a signed piece.

Who is censoring: the Israeli Education Ministry; books 'taken out of circulation in the schools of the occupied areas and replaced by hastily printed copies of the textbooks in use in Israeli Arab schools.' Is any Palestinian quoted: no. Palestinian teachers appear in six words — 'Some teachers protested volubly' — and the protest is given no content.

Nablus is 'a hotbed of resistance'. The non-attendance of teachers is explained away as 'instigation from Amman, by radio', never as a decision the teachers made. VOCABULARY for the 1967-69 tally: 'the occupied lands', 'the occupied areas', 'before Israel occupied it', 'the Golan Height (occupied by Israel)', 'Arab children', 'the Beduin', 'Israeli Arab schools'.

The writer uses 'occupied' plainly and repeatedly, with no hedge — which is worth noting precisely because the piece is otherwise entirely sympathetic to the occupying authority.

Cite this clipping

"Israel's Schools for Arabs," The New York Times, 4 November 1967. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1967-067. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1967-067