The New York Times · 7 December 1969

CP-1969-025

Palestine Schoolbook Problem Grows

By DANA ADAMS SCHMIDT, Special to The New York Times

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Transcribed from the clipping

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Dec. 2—In spite of intervention by Dr. René Maheu of France, director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Arabs and Israelis have reached an impasse over the textbooks to be used in United Nations Relief and Works Agency schools in the occupied territory on the west bank of the Jordan and in the Gaza Strip.

As a result of the dispute, Palestinian schoolchildren in the camps operated by the United Nations agency are faced with an acute shortage of books. The Israelis have banned 127 titles—two-thirds of the texts previously used in the west bank and all but eight in the Gaza Strip. When Dr.

Maheu visited Israel in August the Israelis agreed in principle to introduce texts approved by a UNESCO commission of experts if the Arabs would withdraw the texts that the commission designated as offensive. In Jordan, Dr. Maheu found the Arabs willing to discuss the texts that the commission had said should be withdrawn or amended.

They told him that they would see about withdrawing offensive texts when the Israelis issued import licenses and permitted use of the texts that the commission had found inoffensive. In fact nothing has happened.

The Israelis are waiting for the Arabs to move, the Arabs are waiting for the Israelis to move and the Palestinian refugee children and the United Nations groups are caught in the middle. Expurgated Versions Planned The dispute goes back to the weeks following the June, 1967, war.

The Israelis complained to the United Nations relief agency about textbooks being used in the refugee camps, and they banned 127 titles.

How this transcription was made

Transcribed from the slide scan by a reader working off magnified crops, not by optical character recognition. The newspaper is printed on the clipping, in the credit line “Special to The New York Times” beneath the byline and again under the sidebar. The page number 24 and the edition mark L+ are printed across the top, but the masthead line itself is cut away, so no date is printed. The date is derived from two datelines on the clipping, “BEIRUT, Lebanon, Dec. 2” on the main story and “JERUSALEM, Dec. 6” on the sidebar, the later of which puts the issue on 7 December at the earliest; the year is fixed by the UNESCO commission’s own dates, which the article gives as November 1968 to February of the year of writing. 7 December 1969 was a Sunday. Two printed errors elsewhere on the clipping are noted rather than repaired: a crosshead reading “Depicted as Vitims” and the word “poltical”.

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