Israel Opens Schools For Arab Children

BY ED BLANCHE / Associated Press Writer

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Transcribed from the clipping

TEL AVIV (AP) — Some 235,000 children whose Arab schools were closed by the Middle East war went back to school Monday under Israeli supervision, and with books carefully rewritten to eliminate anti-Zionist propaganda. The educational experiment in Arab territories occupied by Israel is being watched by Israelis, Arabs and the world beyond the Middle East.

Some of the children will have no books. Israeli authorities still are printing thousands of new texts on history, geography and literature. And some will have no teachers. Most of the more than 7,000 Arab teachers have indicated they will work under the Israelis, but many have refused. No Israeli teachers will work in the Arab schools.

"If teachers don't have books, they'll just have to teach without texts or on the subjects for which we have cleared books," an Israeli Education Ministry spokesman said. Arab books were scrutinized by Israeli educators for weeks. Of 134 types of books seized in the Israeli-occupied west bank territory, only 56 were found acceptable.

Only 39 of 129 from the Gaza Strip were cleared as free of anti-Zionist material. The new textbooks are printed in Arabic and generally the Israelis say they have not changed the Arab curricula. Israel does, however, intend to introduce Hebrew gradually into Old Jerusalem, the sector of the holy city seized from Jordan.

Israeli officials said Hebrew will be introduced in other occupied areas "if the parents request it." The 200,00 Arab children on the west bank of the Jordan River and the 100,000 in the Gaza Strip will receive free schooling. But in Old Jerusalem, parents will have to pay fees based on size of family and amount of family income.

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. Filed under the archive’s spelling; the page prints “The Standard Star”.

Context added by this archive

SCHOOLBOOKS THREAD — one of the strongest items in the batch. Who is censoring: named plainly as 'Israeli authorities', 'Israeli educators', 'an Israeli Education Ministry spokesman'.

What was removed: books judged to contain 'anti-Zionist propaganda' / 'anti-Zionist material'; the paper gives the count in its own voice — of 134 types of books seized in the west bank only 56 were found acceptable, and only 39 of 129 from Gaza were cleared.

The paper reports the screening as fact in its own voice ('books carefully rewritten to eliminate anti-Zionist propaganda' sits in the lede, unattributed), and attributes only the operational detail to the ministry spokesman. No Palestinian is quoted anywhere in the piece; the 7,000 Arab teachers who 'have refused' are counted but never given a sentence.

The kicker above the headline reads 'Some Books Rewritten' — that is a kicker, not a deck, so dek left empty. Note the vocabulary: 'Arab territories occupied by Israel', 'the Israeli-occupied west bank territory', 'Arab children', 'the Gaza Strip'. 'Palestinian' does not appear.

Cite this clipping

"Israel Opens Schools For Arab Children," Standard Star, 2 September 1967. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1967-077. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1967-077