Israel: Principal faces hearing for using an unbiased book, talk about fucking censorship!

[Starpluck]

[IMG]http://d.yimg.com/a/p/ap/20101001/capt.2bd899a742d244da9154df32ba95f442-2bd899a742d244da9154df32ba95f442-0.jpg?x=400&y=315&q=85&sig=qPCwCI4XKN9EV..jo08xrw--[/IMG]

[I]FILE - In this November 4, 1948 file photo, Arab refugees stream from what was then Palestine, on the road to Lebanon in northern Israel to flee fighting in the Galilee region in the Arab-Israeli war. An Israeli high school principal has been summoned for a hearing by the country's Education Ministry for using a textbook presenting the Palestinian narrative about events surrounding Israel's creation in 1948, officials said Friday, Oct. 1, 2010. Israeli Jews celebrate 1948 as the year of their independence, while Palestinians and Israel's Arab citizens mourn what they call 'al-naqba', the catastrophe, the year of their defeat and mass exodus.[/I]

[URL="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101001/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_textbook"]Source[/URL]

[quote=Associated Press]JERUSALEM – An Israeli high school principal has been summoned for a hearing by the country's Education Ministry for using a textbook that presents the Palestinian narrative about events surrounding Israel's creation in 1948, officials said Friday.

The controversy at the school in southern Israel reflects how charged the events surrounding the Jewish state's birth remain more than six decades later. Israeli Jews celebrate 1948 as the year of their independence, while Palestinians and Israel's Arab citizens mourn what they call "al-naqba" — the catastrophe — the year of their defeat and mass exodus.

The principal of the Shaar Hanegev high school has been told to report next week to clarify with Education Ministry officials his school's use of an unapproved textbook, ministry spokesman Hagit Cohen told The Associated Press.

[highlight]The textbook in question gives the Israeli narrative of the country's founding next to that of the Palestinians, with blank space in the middle for students to insert their own thoughts, according to a report this week in the daily Haaretz.[/highlight]

An unnamed teacher at the school told Haaretz that the ministry instructed the school to pull the book two days after the academic year began this month.

Cohen, the ministry spokeswoman, said the book was rejected by the Education Ministry five years ago, not during the term of the current Israeli government. The ministry's policy has always been to summon principals for clarification whenever unauthorized materials are used, she said.

"This is not about the content of this particular textbook," Cohen said.

She would not say what steps the Education Ministry might take.

Michal Shaban-Ketzer, a spokeswoman for the local government with jurisdiction over the school, confirmed that the principal had been summoned. School officials would not comment further until after the hearing, she said, and officials at the school could not be reached directly for comment.

[highlight]Last year, Israel's education minister ordered references to the Palestinian "catastrophe" removed from a textbook for Arab third-graders.[/highlight]

Teachers were free to discuss the personal and national tragedies that befell Palestinians, Education Minister Gideon Saar, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud party, told Parliament at the time. However, he said that "no other country in the world, in its official curriculum, would treat the fact of its founding as a catastrophe."

The third-grade textbook had been approved by a dovish education minister two years earlier.

The war around Israel's creation effectively began in 1947, with the United Nations decision to partition the British-controlled territory of Palestine into Jewish and Arab countries. It intensified in 1948, when Arab armies invaded the nascent Jewish state, and ended with a victory for the Jewish forces. The Israelis seized territories beyond what the U.N. had allotted to their new state, while Egypt and Jordan occupied what was left of the territories the U.N. intended for a Palestinian state.

More than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from areas that came under Israeli control.

Official Israeli histories of the country's establishment, especially those written for schoolchildren, have typically focused on the heroism of Israeli forces and glossed over the Palestinian flight, attributing the mass exile to voluntary escape if mentioning it at all.

The Israeli historian Benny Morris has written that while the Israeli leadership never issued a general order to expel Arabs from areas under Jewish control, in many cases Israeli forces did force Palestinians out. In other cases Palestinians left of their own volition. In almost all cases, those who left were not allowed to return.

Those who remained became an Arab minority inside Israel. Today, those Arabs make up about a fifth of the country's population of 7.5 million.

But the issue of return remains explosive, as Palestinians demand the right to repatriate the surviving refugees and more than 4 million descendants to their original homes in Israel.

Israel rejects the demand, saying that would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Israel says the refugees should receive compensation and be resettled where they now live or in a Palestinian state. [/quote]

tl;dr Principal uses a textbook that says both, the Israel and Palestinian narrative, then it gives the student a moment to think about who's right.

Apparently mentioning the Palestinian narrative/expulsion is illegal in Israel. Deleting the past, and brainwashing kids at a young age sounds familiar.

I now understand why most Israelis who defend Israel refuse to change their viewpoint, despite the evidence. Not naming anyone on these boards.

[Jeep-Eep]

How utterly unsurprising.

[Kade]

I'm getting soo bored of all this Israel/Palestine stuff. I'd prefer a peaceful settlement between the two obviously, but to be perfectly honest I wouldn't care if they frikkin obliterated each other. Just so long as they, and anything related to muslim/jew relations in the area, get the fuck out of my news. If they can't be arsed to be tolerant of each other then fuck em both.

[JDK721v5]

Not surprised at all. This has been going on forever, and it's no wonder that there are so many Israeli nationalists.

[Shadowstone]

[QUOTE=Kade;25177024]I'm getting soo bored of all this Israel/Palestine stuff. I'd prefer a peaceful settlement between the two obviously, but to be perfectly honest I wouldn't care if they frikkin obliterated each other. Just so long as they, and anything related to muslim/jew relations in the area, get the fuck out of my news. If they can't be arsed to be tolerant of each other then fuck em both.[/QUOTE]

This. Their arguments are just getting stupid to be honest.

[JDK721v5]

[QUOTE=Kade;25177024]I wouldn't care if they frikkin obliterated each other.[/QUOTE]

Yeah who cares about millions of innocent people being murdered.

[Kade]

[QUOTE=JDK721v5;25177077]Yeah who cares about millions of innocent people being murdered.[/QUOTE]

Not me evidently.

[Starpluck]

[QUOTE=Kade;25177384]Not me evidently.[/QUOTE]
Herp derp :downs:

"I hope millions of people die so they can no longer on news that I don't have to read".

Shut up.

[Itachi_Crow]

everyone's favorite twelve year old ITN israeli coming in 3....2....1....

[acidcj]

To be honest, if I had a textbook presenting the creationist story of the universe next to the scientifically accepted theory, and they were treated as equal, I wouldn't be happy.

[TH89]

[QUOTE=acidcj;25177702]To be honest, if I had a textbook presenting the creationist story of the universe next to the scientifically accepted theory, and they were treated as equal, I wouldn't be happy.[/QUOTE]

How is that similar to this in any way?

[Kade]

[QUOTE=starpluck;25177599]Herp derp :downs:

"I hope millions of people die so they can no longer on news that I don't have to read".

Shut up.[/QUOTE]

I didn't say I hope they die. I just said I'd rather they fight it out then keep shitting in my news for the next few decades.

[Starpluck]

[QUOTE=acidcj;25177702]To be honest, if I had a textbook presenting the creationist story of the universe next to the scientifically accepted theory, and they were treated as equal, I wouldn't be happy.[/QUOTE]
I fail to see how you can relate this to creationism and evolution.

[QUOTE=Kade;25177769]I didn't say I hope they die. I just said I'd rather they fight it out then keep shitting in my news for the next few decades.[/QUOTE]

OK, you'd rather them die so you can read your news without seeing anything related to the conflict.

[Dr.C]

I really wish the US didn't support these people

[Ecarnacion]

[QUOTE=starpluck;25177814]I fail to see how you can relate this to creationism and evolution. [/QUOTE]

Because one is based on fact and the other is a complete fabrication.

[Kade]

[QUOTE=starpluck;25177814]I fail to see how you can relate this to creationism and evolution.

OK, you'd rather them die so you can read your news without seeing anything related to the conflict.[/QUOTE]

I'd [I]rather[/I] they sorted it out diplomatically, but they're not doing that are they?

This kind of perpetual simmering and fringe warfare will take more lives over the next hundred years then any relatively quickly fought war would. I'd rather them get it over with and leave the whole area under one or the others total control than leave the area fraught with tension for the next who knows how long. Look at Germany and France and the Rhineland - they fought over that for centuries. Then BAM, big war. Since then nothing. No one gives a fuck about the Rhine anymore. I'm joking with this point of course, but I'd still rather a short sharp solution to this problem, whatever the cost, then to drag it out.

[Sporkfire]

[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NE-72ZXux-g/TANcfa-W7mI/AAAAAAAAOMo/9AEKMndbgW8/s400/flag_Israel_Nazi_0.gif[/img]

They should like go take all the biased textbooks and throw them in a bonfire. Sad to see this level of brainwashing though, I honestly thought they'd be above this.

[POLOPOZOZO]

Gee I'm so glad to live in the US where all the textbooks never ever have injected political ideologies in them. :downs:

[A Dead Guy]

"Cohen, the ministry spokeswoman, said the book was rejected by the Education Ministry five years ago, not during the term of the current Israeli government. The ministry's policy has always been to summon principals for clarification whenever unauthorized materials are used, she said."

[B]"This is not about the content of this particular textbook," Cohen said.[/B]

I think this is kind of out of context, but I wouldn't resist if someone proves me otherwise.

[Billiam]

[QUOTE=Kade;25177024]I'm getting soo bored of all this Israel/Palestine stuff. I'd prefer a peaceful settlement between the two obviously, but to be perfectly honest I wouldn't care if they frikkin obliterated each other. Just so long as they, and anything related to muslim/jew relations in the area, get the fuck out of my news. If they can't be arsed to be tolerant of each other then fuck em both.[/QUOTE]

There's gonna' be the same amount of news on Israel and Palestine regardless of whether they obliterate one another or settle peacefully.

[Mister Cool]

Why are middle eastern countries always assholes to eachother?

[Antdawg]

Was this thread deliberately created to troll BurnEmDown?

But still, news is unsurprising

[FunnyBunny]

Hey as long as we're on the Israel discussion can someone sum up why everyone here despises Israel?
I'm not saying I disagree, but at the moment I know hardly anything about what's going on over there, and I like to be informed before I take a stance on something.

[Sporkfire]

[QUOTE=FunnyBunny;25206995]Hey as long as we're on the Israel discussion can someone sum up why everyone here despises Israel?
I'm not saying I disagree, but at the moment I know hardly anything about what's going on over there, and I like to be informed before I take a stance on something.[/QUOTE]

I "despise" Israel because they've turned reality upside down by portraying themselves as the victims when they're the ones who are doing most of the oppressing. And the West just eats it up, which pisses me off even more.

[FunnyBunny]

Yeah, so I've heard.
Can you post some specific examples that I could use to hold up my side in an argument, however?

[Nannak]

Israel is Nazi Germany part II.

[imasillypiggys]

[QUOTE=Nannak;25212224]Israel is Nazi Germany part II.[/QUOTE]

well they both dont like jews. poor jews everyone hating on them

[Afgman]

I think you guys just executed burn em down.

[Sporkfire]

[QUOTE=FunnyBunny;25211478]Yeah, so I've heard.
Can you post some specific examples that I could use to hold up my side in an argument, however?[/QUOTE]

Well the most recent example would be with what happened to the "Freedom Flotilla". Although in that case there was a lot of public outrage our govt (don't know if you're an American) blocked that UN inquiry for a national investigation, because we thought it would be "unfair". Then with all the bullshit Israel spews about the flotilla itself, that it's no biggie they murdered 9 people because they had "terror ties" and that the humanitarian mission was never one to begin with anyways.. yeah right.

Can you imagine the reactions if anyone else did this?

[Melkor]

[QUOTE=acidcj;25177702]To be honest, if I had a textbook presenting the creationist story of the universe next to the scientifically accepted theory, and they were treated as equal, I wouldn't be happy.[/QUOTE]

That's because one is a widely accepted scientific theory backed by mountains of evidence, while the other is religious scripture. Which isn't the same as what's happening here. This is over a history book, to tell the Palestinian Narrative wouldn't necessarily be an endorsement of their views.