Palestinians' Chances for Peace

Hagai Mazuz
Hudson New York
24 June '10

In every society, people invest in and cultivate the young, hoping that this up-and-coming generation will accomplish what previous generations have failed to do. Europeans, for example, having been wrenched by two brutal wars, have understood that they must do everything possible so that there would be no more wars; the result has been an education system based on finding peaceful solutions, tolerance, and acceptance of the other as he is. We can already see the results of their efforts: the age of great wars between European powers seems to have come to an end; within Europe's borders, there seems to be peace and quiet. "Soft power" reigns.

The Europeans have since been trying to impose their Soft Power solution on the Middle East in general, and on Israel and the Palestinians in particular. The central problem facing the Europeans in carrying out their strategy for making peace between the two sides is that the Europeans are guilty of "mirror imaging:." They see Israel, justifiably so, as a Western country in every sense of the word; and start with the assumption that both the Palestinians and Israel want to get along with one another the way the Europeans now do. This is Europe's problem. Israel educates its young to pursue peace. Some Israelis have made this their utmost goal, even to the point of ignoring -- or even blinding themselves -- to the Middle Eastern reality in which they live. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have done the exact opposite.

Examining the Palestinian Authority's Educational Curriculum -- both in the West Bank and Gaza -- exposes the bitter truth. In the textbook "Our Beautiful Language," which is used in the first grade, there is a picture on page 142 of a teacher telling her students about the Arab world. The Muslim countries are all colored in green (the color of Islam); and that includes the State of Israel. On page 153 of the 12th grade book, "The History of the Arabs and the World in the 20th Century," all of the names of these countries are listed except Israel, which is listed as "Palestine." This occurs again and again in other educational texts; for example on page 143: on the maps used in Palestinian schools, there is a map of Israel on which is superimposed the PLO flag; and on the Internet home page of the Palestinian Central Statistical Office, Israel is listed as Palestine. This same map, incidentally, is also on the wall of Mahmoud Abbas's office.



"The war over Palestine ended more tragically than any war in history. The Zionist gangs stole Palestine and expelled its residents from their cities, villages, and lands and established the State of Israel on this land…" This is not some Hamas propaganda poster; this is a paragraph (page 104) taken from the educational text, "The Arabic language: Discussion, Literature, and Criticism," used in the 12th grade.

Educational texts used in both the Palestinian Authority and in Gaza indoctrinate and encourage children to prefer death over life and call for jihad:

"Oh heroes, Allah has promised you victory… Don't speak to yourselves about fleeing … Your enemies desire life while you desire death."

" Don't worry about encountering the enemy because the taste of death is not bitter in the faces of the believers…" [See "Discussions and Texts for the 8th grade, Part 2, (2002) Page 16]

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