High school curriculum spreads lies about Israel

Posted: 1/17/2012 7:04:00 PM

Author: Amichai Farkas

A Boston-area newspaper, the Newton Tab, recently reported that local parent Tony Pagliuso was horrified
when his daughter, a freshman at Newton South High School, brought home an article on women in the
Middle East that claims Several hundred [Palestinian women] have been imprisoned, tortured, and killed
by Israeli occupation forces since the latest uprising, Intifada, in the Israeli occupied territories.
The article, which was distributed to Pagliusos daughters class by her world history teacher, makes it
sound like Israel arbitrarily imprisons innocent Palestinian women. What it fails to mention is that
Palestinian women have been responsible for carrying out some of the most horrific terrorist attacks
against Israeli civilians. For example, Dalal Mugrahbi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization,
carried out the 1978 coastal road massacre in which 38 civilians were murdered, including 13 children.
On top of this, the accusation that Israel tortures female prisoners is simply false. Palestinian female
prisoners serving in Israeli jails enjoy full prisoner rights as stipulated by the Third Geneva Convention. In
Israeli jails, Palestinian prisoners male and female are given decent living quarters, food, clothing,
medical care, religious and physical activities, newspapers, phone calls, visits from friends and family, and
a canteen where relatives and friends deposit money for their use inside the prison.
The article refuting these truths was taken from a controversial textbook called The Arab World Studies
Notebook. In 2005, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) prompted many schools across the U.S. to ban
the book from their high-school curriculum. In its critique, the AJC said that the book is replete with
factual errors, inaccuracies and misrepresentations about Middle East history. The textbook goes so far as
to suggest that students repeat Arabic phrases that are confessions of belief and proposes that Muslim
faith statements be transmitted to others, concludes the AJC report. The textbook even makes the claim
that Muslims discovered America prior to Columbus. Unbelievable!
This textbook is not about genuine learning its a propaganda tool meant to shape the minds of
American high school students to adopt false and radical views of the Middle East. No school in the U.S.
should allow impressionable young people to be subject to this propaganda. Find out if The Arab World
Studies Notebook is part a high-school curriculum near you and, if it is, follow Tony Pagliusos lead
and protest directly to school officials.