History textbooks and Israel
Here is a summary: This attitude was enforced on the secular part of society, Jews and Palestinians alike including
Druze, Bedouin and other ethnic, national, religious and cultural minorities who were forced to enter schooling where
only the official narrative was tolerated. It was realized by allowing and encouraging at schools - and within outdoors
educational agencies such as youth movements - textbooks, literacy and art which will tell only one story: the story of a
nation without land returning a land without its people. Within the framework of this "from exile - to redemption"
narrative, all textbooks and educational programs where articulated in the official and hidden curriculum alike, aiming at
contributing to the production of the new Jew: from lessons at schools to visiting memorial sites, inventing
"national" dances, developing archeological sites and myths as manifestations of the essential Jewishness of the land
and its history to its educational/political implications, and many other methods. The world in general and The Land of
Israel in particular was presented as a text that has to be de-coded and re-articulated within the framework of the Zionist
teaching. Naming and renaming Palestinian named villages, rivers or animals and rewriting their history was of outmost
importance, along with renaming the Jewish immigrants, giving them Hebrew names, teaching them the Hebrew
language and (re)inventing their moral-political imperatives. The Zionist curriculum until 1967 is not to be considered
only as a reflection of a gigantic effort of normalizing education and its violence. It should be seen
also as an educational effort which enabled the necessary violence to conquer the land, protecting it and developing it
within a context of bloody national and cultural conflict with the Palestinians on the one hand and with the non-Zionist
Jewish Diaspora and its diverse and reach histories, identities and interests, on the other.
Ronald Hilton - 4/25/02
Tom Grey has sent me a reference describing how language and history were used as tools to build a new nation, Israel.
History can be, but should not be, dough in the hands of historians. The problem is that the Palestinians, trying to build
their state, will likewise make the facts fit their case. The shows how history can be used for nation-building, and the
dangers involved. If a similar use of history is employed in building the new Afghanistan, and if it involves making all
kinds of claims which the neighboring states reject, the result will simply be more international tension. Here are the urls
of the source mentioned by Tom Grey: http://construct.haifa.ac.il/~ilangz/liter5.html
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