It also dedicates an entire chapter to tolerance and pluralism, giving examples of racism in Israeli society, such as soccer games.Ī poll on whom Jews and Arabs wouldn’t want to live next to notes: “If the results of the survey are a correct reflection of Israeli views, then there is a difficult problem of intolerance.” It also features the Superland amusement park racial discrimination case and actively encourages students to research coexistence initiatives, such as Tag Meir, and debate how they contribute to better relations.ĩ2 pages on Jewish state, 117 on democracy (Flash90)Īt the same time, the textbook spotlights the 1956 Kfar Kassem massacre (in which Israeli border police shot to death 49 Arab Israelis), including President Reuven Rivlin’s 2014 apology for the “terrible crime.” It notes the gaps in education and economic status between Israeli Arabs and Jews and the deep mistrust that characterizes their social ties. It also says, in what could be perceived as patronizing stereotyping, that Arab Israelis live in hamulot, or clans, while Druze are characterized by “hospitality, religious tolerance and loyalty.”Ĭhristian students, teachers and education workers, protest in front of the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, September 6, 2015. The textbook has also been criticized for marginalizing Arab Israelis, while needlessly dividing between Israel’s Muslim, Christian, Aramean and Druze segments and focusing more attention on the latter’s army service than on the largest subgroup: Muslim Israeli Arabs. “The fight is not about the book, it is one of the expressions of the fight.” On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Jewish-Arab ties “The book is a trigger, the reflection of what’s happening in our society - the terrible divide between right and left - the state, and its character,” she said. In response, one of the authors of the textbook, Varda Ashkenazi, told Army Radio last Tuesday that Ya’ari was “more preoccupied with his personal opinions and ideological positions” than copy editing during his tenure.Īnd the author staked out the main issue at hand: the controversy over Israel’s civics textbook, she said, is merely symptomatic of Israel’s deeply fractured society. But the final text provides two opposing opinions on the role of incitement in the 1995 murder and leaves students to decide it is not compared to the Altalena. The book allegedly maintained that the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was not a result of right-wing incitement, and compared it to the Altalena incident (the violent confrontation between Israeli’s fledgling army and the Irgun paramilitary group). Fueling the debateĪll the points of contention that fueled the debate in recent months were not ultimately included in the final edition.
Many critics have charged that the book is partisan, aimed at molding, or at least informing, the political views of a new generation of voters toward the right. The textbook - one of three civics books available to Israeli schools for the mandatory matriculation exams, but the only one that will be translated into Arabic - had not been updated since 2000 the new edition was started six years ago under the leadership of former Likud minister Gideon Sa’ar.
0 kommentar(er)
