DUBAI (Al Arabiya)
Israel's ministry of education recalled all copies of a history school book to censor passages about the "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians during the 1948 war, which the author decried as "unnecessary," press reports said on Monday.
The secondary school textbook was removed from shelves because, for the first time in Israel, it sought to present Arab perspectives on the mass exodus of some 750,000 Palestinians during the fighting that erupted after the creation of the Jewish state, Haaretz newspaper reported.
The book, titled "Nationalism: Building a State in the Middle East," contained both versions of the events side-by-side but the ministry was irked by passages like: "The Palestinians and the Arab countries contended that most of the refugees were civilians who were attacked and expelled from their homes by armed Jewish forces, which instituted a policy of ethnic cleansing, contrary to the proclamations of peace in the Declaration of Independence."
" The Palestinians and the Arab countries contended that most of the refugees were civilians who were attacked and expelled from their homes by armed Jewish forces, which instituted a policy of ethnic cleansing, contrary to the proclamations of peace in the Declaration of Independence " A passage from the book The book, which was initially approved by the ministry, is now being collected from all bookshops that carry the issue and will be republished with "corrections."
"Collecting the books from the shops is an unnecessary [form of] censorship," Dr. Tsafrir Goldberg, who wrote the chapter on the war, was quoted by Haaretz as saying.
"The process of approving the text was completed in serious fashion from both the pedagogic and the historic points of view. The fact that the education minister changed does not mean that it is possible to bypass this procedure," Goldberg added.
According to the ministry officials quoted by Haaretz there were "a great many mistakes, some of them serious" in the book and consequently "it was decided that the original version of the textbook must be withdrawn and returned to the stores only after being corrected."
Goldberg said editors at the publishing house, Shazar Center, were initially asked to replace the original Palestinian text, written by Walid Khalidi, for one "closer to reality." The author said one of the demands was the rephrasing of the term "ethnic cleansing," which he changed to "organized policy of expulsion." |
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Censorship is good " Presenting Israel's claims as being equal to those of Arab propagandists is exactly like presenting the claims of the Nazis alongside those of the Jews " Israeli history teacher For one history teacher quoted by Haaretz the move is positive as "presenting Israel's claims as being equal to those of Arab propagandists is exactly like presenting the claims of the Nazis alongside those of the Jews."
The Palestinians and Arabs in general have always said they were violently expelled by Jewish forces while Israel has maintained they were ordered to flee by invading Arab states or alarmed by inflammatory Arab radio reports.
The fate of the refugees and their descendants, who now number some 4.6 million and are scattered across the region, has been one of the most divisive issues in the decades-old Middle East conflict.
Since assuming office in March, Israel's right-wing government has sought to force Israel's Jewish identity, including by instituting a plan to change traffic signs to display only Hebrew place names.
Israel's former dovish Education Minister Yuli Tamir sparked controversy in December 2006 when she said school textbooks should show Israel's borders prior to the 1967 Six Day war, during which it invaded Egypt's Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the West Bank including east Jerusalem.
Israel returned the Sinai under a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979 and annexed the Golan and east Jerusalem, a move not recognized internationally. The Palestinians seek a future state in the occupied West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza. |
