http://www.counterpunch.org/adwan03172007.htmlOn February 8, 2007 Mrs. Clinton made an incendiary statement on Palestinian schoolbooks to Itamar Marcus. This is not the first time Mrs. Clinton accused the Palestinian schoolbooks of inciting violent, teaching to hate and de-legitimizing Israel existence. When she was running for a senator seat in New York in 2000, she made almost the same accusation. Questions ought to be raised on the timing of her statements and the resources that she depends on in her statements.
It is very clear from the timing of her statements that she would like to get more votes now to be the future president of the USA, as she got enough votes to be a senator before.
She depended mainly on reports produced by the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP), of which Itamar Marcus was the director. CMIP is a right-wing center that has offices in New York and Jerusalem and is well funded, though if you read the goals of the center one can easily be deceived that it is a peace-oriented center.
CMIP's first report came out in 2000 which was based on analyzing the Jordanian and Egyptian school books that were used in Palestinian schools in West bank and Gaza Strip respectively since early 50s and were fully censored by Israeli Military Commanders in charge of Palestinian education since 1967. The Palestinian Authority by that time only published school books for grades one and six. Even so, CMIP's baseless accusations and allegations were presented as if they are from the newly produced Palestinian school books. The first CMIP report was circulated all over the world causing serious problems for the Palestinian education system because many countries stopped funding the development of the Palestinians school books.
The report was criticized by many scholars like, Nathan Brown, IPICRI, Daniel Bar Tal, Nurit Peled El-Khanan and Ruth Firer and others. All disagreed with CMIP's findings and found many mistakes in its translation, selective analysis, taking phrases out of context and drawing false conclusions.
Most of them concluded that Palestinian school books do not teach hate nor instigate violence, are free from stereotypes and praised them for being highly moderate, even though they were produced in extremely difficult situation-the Occupation. (See Akiva Eldar's articles in Ha'aretz. )
Of course, there are issues related to the political situation, such as borders. Most of maps in the Palestinian school books show the boundaries of Palestinian authority limited to West Bank and Gaza strip according to UN resolutions 242 and 338. Maps in Israeli school books do not show the green line and talk about the Palestinian Occupied Territories of 1967 as Judea and Samaria and as part of Erez Israel (Promised Land) with complete denial of Palestinian existence as people and as a country. That is why Prof. Yuli Tamier, the Israeli Minister of Education requested to put the green line on the maps of the schoolbooks.
Palestinian school books talk about Al-Quds Al-Sharief, which means the Occupied East part of Jerusalem as the capital of Palestinian state, but the Israeli school books talk about all Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
Still, Israeli school books include negative stereotypes of Palestinians. Of course they are called Arab and not Palestinians: primitive, bloodthirsty, backward, a problem, dirty, etc (For more details see Daniel Bat Tal and Nurit Peled's analysis).
CMIP's report completely neglects or purposely fails to include that Palestinian school books teach the values of human rights and democracy, the values of peace between peoples and nations, religious tolerance, encourage pupils to use peaceful means of resolving conflicts and warn them from the disastrous results of wars.
Truth be told, there are no perfect school books. Pupils these days have much access to alternative resources of information, which are more instructive than school books. The best resource of knowledge and experience Palestinian children learn is their reality, where they are forbidden to go to schools and stopped, harassed and humiliated at Israeli military check points, their schools destroyed and sometimes used as military posts. Many pupils are shot while going to their schools or playing in streets; others are jailed. They are daily terrorized and traumatized, seeing their parents humiliated in front of them. Their books were torn apart and their childhoods spoiled. These are facts Mrs. Clinton could not or dared not include in her statements.
She accused Palestinian mothers of not being good mothers, and not loving their children. How did she know this? Has she ever talked or listen to or even met a Palestinian mother. I doubt it because if she did she would never say such a bigoted statement.
Most scholars agreed the analysis of the CMIP was not professionally done and is motivated by a political agenda. Mainly, the purposes of the report are to fight the development and crystallization of the Palestinians identity, to keep the public from sympathizing with the Palestinians' suffering during forty years of continual Israeli Occupation and to cut funds to Palestinian education in general and to the development of the Palestinian school books in particular.
Nonetheless, Mrs. Clinton, and others like Elie Wiesel, Senator Schumer and Barbara Crook, have insisted on using CMIP's report as their only resource without any attempt to check its validity or bothering to look at other work on this subject.
As a result of the serious criticism and mistakes found in the report, Itamar Marcus was expelled or forced to resign as the director of the CMIP.
Who is this Itamar Marcus? Itamar Marcus is originally from New York, moved to live in an illegal Efrata settlement/colony that was built south of Bethlehem in 1982 on the 1967 Occupied Palestinian land. He physically attacked Prof. Siri Nussauba, the President of Al-Quds University while the later tried to enter a building to give a talk in the US.
Again on February 8, 2007 Mrs. Clinton, along with Itamar Marcus, reiterated the same claims to made to degrade Palestinians and their culture. Palestinians did not deny the Holocaust, but they do not talk much about it as many other topics. Palestinian textbooks describe the Nazis as war criminals and racists. Israeli occupation policies and practices on the occupied Territories are racist. One can only do a simple investigation: Palestinians can not move freely, only can use certain roads, different laws applied one for Jews and the other for Palestinians, land confiscation and home destruction are daily practices of the Israeli military. The wall built by the Israeli government is a colonial and apartheid wall. It does not need an expert to realize this. The noble Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu said, "Israeli Occupation exceeded the practices of the Apartheid system in South Africa".
The Palestinian school books are criticized when they talk about Palestinian realities and expose the atrocities of the Israeli Occupation. The American and even Mrs. Clinton and many senators and many many Americans criticized the war in Iraq and considered it as a big mistake and based on fabricated information but when the Palestinian school books say the same thing they draw fire.
What is striking that Itamar Marcus accused Palestinian Public TV of being extreme because it invited a Palestinian lecturer from Bir Zeit University to give his opinion. What Marcus quoted from the Palestinian lecture about Iraqi war is much more humble and restrained compared to what is shown in America.
Religious school books talk about resisting oppression and injustices but they do not call for aggression. Itamar Marcus wants not only to de-legitimize as "extreme" Hamas but also the Fatah movement which signed the Oslo Accord. Many Jews were criticized because they did not fight and resist the Nazis and now Palestinian are criticized because they want to be free as human beings and so that their children can live their childhood and be able to play and to smile.
Itamar Marcus (and his followers) will not be satisfied until he himself writes the Palestinian school books.
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