CAIRO, March 11, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News
Agencies) Israels education curricula aim at psychologically mobilizing
youngsters for war, inciting hostility, grudge and hatred against Arabs
and tarnishing the Arab image, according to a new study.
Israeli school textbooks aim at implanting the desire
for war in the souls of students as a sole means for defending what they
believe legitimate and historic rights with the objective of mobilizing
the Israeli public opinion for a constant state of war, Safa Abdel Aal,
an education expert, was quoted by Reuters as saying Thursday, March
10.
In her book Racist Education in Israeli
Curricula, Abdel Aal said Israel has been mobilizing youngsters to
be ready to give sacrifices on war as did the first Zionist generations to
regain what they believe their legitimate rights.
With such an attitude, she maintains, Israel aims at
getting students to give their souls for liberating the lands of the
Jewish predecessors and for establishing the Kingdom of
Israel.
Israel remains one of the most militarized societies
in the world, according to The Christian Science
Monitor.
Young Israelis are educated about the army as early as
the 11th grade, with five days of training that includes learning how to
shoot.
A year later, school students receive counseling from
a young soldier about draft procedures.
Serving in the Israeli army, which comprises 190.000
elements and 450.000 reservists, is mandatory.
Graduating from high schools, Israeli males serve
three years while females serve a year less.
Hatred & Enmity
In her book, the education expert analyzes the content
of a group of Israeli history and geography textbooks in the primary
education.
These textbooks hamper attempts to achieve peace or
to establish an independent Palestinian state, Abdel Aal said.
The main tasks of the Israeli education system are
meant to implanting the seeds of hatred and fear from the other in the
Israeli youngsters and tarnishing the image of Arabs in the eyes of the
current and future Israeli generations, she stressed.
She further noted that the gravity of such an Israeli
racist education system lies in the fact that the Israeli children, since
their prime years, are being fed with hatred, grudge and superiority
against Arabs, in particular, and others, in general.
Anti-Arab Sentences
The Israeli textbooks also focus on attaching mean and
derogatory descriptions to Arabs, the education expert told
Reuters.
The Arabs are given mean descriptions in the Israeli
textbooks such as thugs and thieves, she said, citing two examples of
anti-Arab sentences in the Israeli textbooks to prove her case.
One such clause speak about the sacrifices made by
early Jewish generations, despite a harsh climate and an environment full
of the Arab embezzlers, thieves and terrorists.
A second refers to the city of Taparia as a place
which is suffering from insecurity and fear from the Arab
killers.
The Israeli textbooks also include anti-Arab sentences
such as Arab thieves, Arabs are bastards thirsty for the Jewish
bloods, and underdeveloped Arabs.
Negotiations are under way to translate the book into
other languages in order to reveal the Israeli racist stances on the Arab
peoples.
Negotiations are under way with a European publishing
house to translate the book to let the sympathizers with Israel know how
the Israelis are implanting enmity and hatred against the Arabs and
non-Jewish, Mohamed Rashad, the book publisher, told
Reuters.
Racist Ideologies
Similar assessments were echoed by Hamed Ammar, an
Egyptian education expert.
The racist education is dominating the Israeli
mentality and there seems a keenness to consolidate such a racist tendency
in the coming generations, said Ammar in his introduction to Abdel Aals
book.
He described the Israeli education system as extremely
dangerous because of its influences on enhancing such racist
ideologies.
Ammar dismissed that Israel would give up its racist
ideologies, especially in terms of relations with the Arab
world.
Thus, it is proven that the Israeli claims on being
willing to establish a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East are
groundless.
Israel has been complaining that the Arab education
curricula are inciting hatred against Jews.
However, respected US and European research institutes
found Palestinian textbooks free from any incitement to hatred, The
International Herald Tribune reported December 18, 2004.
Disregarding the Israeli racist stances on the Arabs,
US President George W. Bush signed October 17, 2004, into law a
controversial bill on combating the so-called global
anti-Semitism.
The law commits the US State Department to document
acts of physical violence against Jews, their property, cemeteries and
places of worship abroad, as well as local governments responses to them
and take note of instances of anti-Jewish propaganda and governments
readiness to promote unbiased school curricula.
