Agency Says Arab Textbooks Advocate War, Show Contempt

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UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. (AP) — Some Arab textbooks advocate war on Israel and show contempt for Jews and should be banned for U.S.-operated schools for the children of Palestine refugees, a U.N. agency suggested Sunday. Fourteen of the 127 books used in the schools fell into that category in a survey conducted by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization—UNESCO.

The books are used in schools operated jointly by UNESCO and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency—UNRWA. They are printed in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt and are used by Arab refugees' children in Lebanon, Jordan and two Israeli - occupied areas — Jordan's West Bank and the Gaza Strip in Egypt.

American, French and Turkish experts named by UNESCO read the 127 books and recommended that 48 of them be kept, 14 withdrawn and 65 modified for future use.

They measured the books against provisions in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that say education should promote respect for human rights, human development, and "understanding, tolerance and friendship." Some of their findings: —The Israeli-Arab conflict was implicit in virtually all the textbooks studied,"except for a few science or English conversation textbooks." —Contemptuous terms such as liar, cheat, usurer and idiot were applied to Jews in some passages and, as "part of the deplorable language of international anti-Semitism, cannot be tolerated." —Some Arabic readers referred to "the duty . . . to liberate Palestine" and some Arabic grammars contained sentences such as: "The Palestine army was created as the vanguard of the Arab armies which are struggling to evict Israel." —Many history textbooks contained "appeals to violence" in their treatment of Palestine, and some purported "to show that the Arabs, after having been the victims of the Crusaders, the Moslems and the Ottoman despotism, are now the victims of international imperialism and Zionism." —In some geography books, "the term Israel is never used and is never featured on any map to designate a state entity." —Moslem religious textbooks "usually (but not always) emphasize the religious significance of Jerusalem to Christians and Moslems, but make no mention of its symbolic importance to Jews—a regrettable omission." —Some civics textbooks were primarily concerned "with political indoctrination," a subject not "likely to foster the proper intellectual and moral education" of the children entrusted to the U.N.'s charge.

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

THE SIXTH HEADLINE, and the second of six that attributes: 'Agency Says Arab Textbooks Advocate War, Show Contempt'. Two words — 'Agency Says' — are the whole difference between this headline and s099_1's 'Arab Textbooks Advocate Waging War with Israel'. Identical copy, identical claim, and one desk put the attribution in and the other did not.

Final tally for the AP UNESCO dispatch of 18-19 May 1969 as it appears in this batch — six printings, six headlines: ATTRIBUTES THE CLAIM (2) s102_1 The Times-Picayune, New Orleans: 'U.N.

Agency Suggests Ban of Arab Textbooks' s103_2 (labelled Southwest Times Record): 'Agency Says Arab Textbooks Advocate War, Show Contempt' ASSERTS IT AS FACT (4) s103_1 (labelled Sarasota Herald Tribune): 'Banning Of Some Arab Textbooks Urged' + kicker "'WAR ADVOCATION' CITED BY U.N." s099_1 (labelled Seattle P-I, probably Warren Times Mirror): 'Arab Textbooks Advocate Waging War with Israel' s099_2 Seattle Post-Intelligencer (folio-confirmed): 'Arab Schoolbooks Advocate War, Anti-Semitism' s112_2 (labelled The Albuquerque Times, probably a Connecticut paper): 'UNESCO Would Withdraw 14 Anti-Jewish Textbooks' Two of six held the attribution.

Four dropped it, and two of those four attached 'anti-Jewish' or 'anti-Semitism' to a list on which 'the duty . . . to liberate Palestine' is one item among seven. That is the answer to Maria's slide-112 question, and it is an answer with a denominator.

Cite this clipping

"Agency Says Arab Textbooks Advocate War, Show Contempt," Southwest Times Record, 19 May 1969. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1969-033. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1969-033