Arabian Children Will Find Many School Changes

By ROBERT DIETSCH / Scripps-Howard Staff Writer

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Transcribed from the clipping

GAZA, Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip—Next month children here will hear a sound familiar to youngsters everywhere: School bells ringing out the start of another term. But when—and if—the Arab children return to classes, the'yll find many changes. Their land now is ruled by Israel, not Egypt.

The Gaza Strip—a Manhattan-sized finger of sandy land along the Mediterranean between Israel and the Sinai Peninsula—was overrun by Israel the first day of the war in June. Gaza children may see the same teachers but they'll be supervised by Israeli education officials. There will be many new textbooks, printed by Israel.

Israeli officials say the old textbooks used in Gaza and other Arab lands now occupied by the military victors were filled with propaganda against the Jews and Israel.

An Israeli supervisor and one arithmetic text included this problem: "If there were 10 Israeli soldiers and four were killed by Egyptian forces, how many soldiers were left?" GRAMMAR BOOKS USED in Gaza and in the west bank area (Jordanian territory west of the Jordan River now occupied by Israel) included expressions like these: "The Arabs will not rest until their paradise (Israel) is returned to them." "Our army has routed the enemy." "Holy war is a duty." Yosef Gadish, Israeli education official, said in Jerusalem that "every second textbook in Gaza and the west bank has been rejected as unsuitable." He said texts used in schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) "were no less offensive than those used in Arab government schools." Gadish also maintained that "hate propaganda was found in history, geography and literature books." The Israeli Educational Ministry in Jerusalem is rushing to printers new books to be used in Arab schools next month.

MANY SCHOOLS WERE damaged during the June fighting. They are being repaired or new buildings are being obtained. Israeli education staffs generally have found school supplies to be adequate. In El Arish, one Israeli official said he found "one million pencils, all made in Red China." El Arish, the largest city on the Sinai Peninsula, is about 30 miles west of Gaza.

A major question is whether Arab teachers will co-operate with Israeli authorities. Israeli officials are optimistic, but on the west bank Arab teachers are being urged by the Jordanian government (through radio broadcasts) not to work next month. Israeli offciials say they intend to employ as many former Arab teachers and supervisors as are willing to return.

On this point, Gadish said: "Of course, the teachers must recognize there will be changes. All teaching of the hatred of peoples and destruction of states, including the state of Israel, must be eliminated.

Those teachers who refuse to accept this principle will be asked to leave." SCHOOL NEVER HAS been compulsory in the Gaza Strip, which came "under Egyptian administration" as part of the U.N.-sponsored armistice agreement of 1949 but was not formally annexed by Cairo.

Most of the inhabitants are refugees who fled their homes in Palestine during the fighting that followed the creation of Israel the previous year. They have never been allowed to travel freely into Egypt, even the nearby Sinai Desert.

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 Bridgeport Telegram”. Legibility fair; any passage that could not be read is omitted rather than reconstructed.

Context added by this archive

SCHOOLBOOKS THREAD — the richest single clipping on it, and the only one in the batch where the censoring authority is named, quoted at length, and states the penalty for refusal. Who is censoring: the Israeli Educational Ministry in Jerusalem, through 'Israeli education officials'; Yosef Gadish is named.

What was removed: 'every second textbook in Gaza and the west bank'; grammar-book example sentences ('Holy war is a duty.'); 'hate propaganda … in history, geography and literature books'. Whose voice: mixed, and the mixing matters. The claim that the old books 'were filled with propaganda against the Jews and Israel' is attributed ('Israeli officials say').

But the dateline itself — 'GAZA, Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip' — and the phrase 'other Arab lands now occupied by the military victors' are the reporter's own, and 'the military victors' is an unusually candid formulation for 1967 American copy. Is any Palestinian quoted: NO. Not one.

The piece runs on Israeli officials throughout; Arab teachers appear only as a management problem ('A major question is whether Arab teachers will co-operate with Israeli authorities'), and Palestinians appear as 'Most of the inhabitants are refugees who fled their homes in Palestine during the fighting that followed the creation of Israel the previous year.' The Khan Yunish High School for Girls is named at the end as a place where 'there is evidence that even art lessons will change' — the piece appears to continue past the bottom of the clipping under a subhead beginning 'Sci… and Medici…'; that continuation is not in the scan.

Cite this clipping

"Arabian Children Will Find Many School Changes," Bridgeport Telegram, 19 May 1969. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1969-036. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1969-036