Would you really accept a racist chapter in your kid’s textbook?

Read More

In his recent opinion piece, entitled “No, Palestinian textbooks are not antisemitic,” Dr. Assaf David railed against a study published by the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research on the Palestinian Authority’s textbooks. Like Don Quixote tilting against windmills, David set out to do battle against an imaginary “conservative” conspiracy whose goal is to tarnish the image of the occupied Palestinian people, apparently by scrutinizing its textbooks.

In the process, he also shot arrows at the Israeli research institute IMPACT-se, accusing it of “generalizing and exaggerated conclusions based on methodological shortcomings” – his confused translation of criticism that appeared in GEI’s report.

LISTEN: How Netanyahu poisoned Israel’s vaccination well

IMPACT-se, which David described as a “conservative” institute, analyzes textbooks from around the world based on international standards set by UNESCO for educating toward peace, tolerance and accepting others. It then submits its policy recommendations to decision makers. Its focus on textbooks stems from the widely accepted axiom that the education children receive at school is key to nurturing a generation that believes in peace and tolerance – or, alternatively, in hating the other.

The many studies IMPACT-se has published over the course of decades about textbooks in Israel, the PA, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and many other places were conducted in the belief that resolving disputes peacefully is a supreme value that contributes to advancing human rights, tolerance and educating toward the acceptance of others. Consequently, the studies are quoted every year in U.S. State Department reports and also by other governments and major media outlets around the world – including Haaretz, more than once.

In addition, IMPACT-se cooperates frequently with leading academic and research institutes worldwide, including the aforementioned GEI, which it assisted in conducting a comparative study of textbooks in Israel and Tunisia.

The values IMPACT-se represents aren’t the exclusive property of the right wing, or of any other political bloc. Slapping the label “conservative” on an organization whose only crime is informing the public of uncomfortable facts attests to intellectual laziness.

Academic integrity means seeking the truth, even if it isn’t what we would like it to be. The fact that David never met with any of the women and men on IMPACT-se’s staff before making up his mind about its political brand also does him no honor.

No, Palestinian textbooks are not antisemitic

When Palestinians are represented positively in history lessons, Israeli students’ trust in them grows

In Israeli textbooks, the Palestinians are all but invisible

New Palestinian textbooks ‘indoctrinate for death and martyrdom,’ report says

David’s article is rife with mistakes and inaccuracies, some of them horrifying. He praises comparative studies of Israeli-Palestinian textbooks, like the one conducted by researchers Adwan, Bar-Tal and Wexler, for presenting a balanced picture, in contrast to the allegedly “one-sided” studies by IMPACT-se and others. But had he actually bothered to read the study in question, he would see that this isn’t the case at all.

In fact, that study found no symmetry between educational content in Israel and the PA. The “problematic” Israeli examples cited by the research team were taken from the ultra-Orthodox school system – which IMPACT-se has also criticized. And the Palestinian texts surveyed were all removed from use in 2016.

Germany’s Georg Eckert Institute was commissioned by the European Union to conduct a study of PA textbooks. Its decision to focus on Palestinian rather than Israeli education has nothing to do with “political considerations” or conspiracies. Rather, it stemmed from the simple fact that EU countries finance Palestinian textbooks, coupled with the fact that IMPACT-se and others have found a solid and convincing body of evidence showing that these books systematically and unambiguously violate international standards of education for tolerance. Had David read through one our studies or contacted us, he would have seen this for himself.

The GEI report did find antisemitic content in Palestinian textbooks, as David himself admitted. This content ranges from depicting Jews as traitors and deceivers to claiming that they have fabricated their origins to promote Zionism.

In response, EU Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the entire British government all acknowledged that Palestinian textbooks – which, as noted, are funded by their countries – contain some intolerable antisemitic content. Moreover, the Palestinian Education Ministry itself has never denied that its textbooks teach hatred of Jews.

If so, why does David assert that these textbooks “are not antisemitic”? Is there a numerical threshold that, if the number of antisemitic statements falls below it, makes these statements acceptable? Would he be willing to accept a single racist chapter in his children’s textbooks?

It’s clear that David made up his mind in advance about the Palestinian textbooks, which he views as “the response of the occupied population to the violence of the occupier,” even before he perused them or read any of the many studies conducted on this topic – which, to be clear, isn’t his field of expertise. We at IMPACT-se think otherwise.

Human and civil rights, tolerance and nonviolence are universal values. As the very name “human rights” indicates, these principles apply to all people equally and without exception. If there are special dispensations, exemptions or shortcuts in applying them, then there’s ultimately no degree of violence and hatred and no atrocity that can’t be justified.

Marcus Sheff is the CEO of IMPACT-se, a research and policy organization.