29 Iyar 5768, 03 June 08 11:38

(IsraelNN.com) The anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda found in Palestinian Authority textbooks in the past two years is worse than before, a committee has found. According to a report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education and the American Jewish Committee, textbooks used in PA schools improved somewhat after the death of former PA head Yasser Arafat, but the progress was quickly reversed following the 2006 Hamas win in the PA elections.

After Arafat died, the committee found, textbooks used in the eleventh grade showed maps that included Israel’s pre-1967 borders and included a mention of Jewish history in the region. Previous textbooks contained no maps including Israel and no mention of Jewish history in Israel. However, after Hamas’s victory new textbooks compared Jews to snakes and encouraged students to fight for “Palestine.”

PA officials responded by saying that textbooks were not a cause of anti-Israel sentiment. PA Arabs dislike Israel due to checkpoints and counterterrorism operations, they said, not propaganda.
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