Israeli Textbook states Arab View
When I saw the headline, I thought it was good news. While the saying goes that history is written by the victors, the truth is that it is written by the survivors. If only the winners wrote histories, we'd probably have a far better view of the Huns, Mongols, and Vikings. Instead, the history we have was written mostly by their victims, and their image has suffered accordingly.
It's far from a secret that Arabs have a far different view of the history of Israel than the one the Jewish population has, and that's even quite understandable. Even in North America, the populations of Quebec or the American South have different views on the French and Indian Wars or the US civil war than the rest of their respective countries. To understand that difference in viewpoint is generally a positive thing as it leads to fewer misunderstandings.
But that is not what is happening in Israel. The text giving some statement to the Arab view is only to be used in Arab Israeli schools, not in schools for Israeli Jews. (What about Jewish Arabs?) Basically, they're institutionalizing teaching two different versions of the same events and splitting the teachings on racial lines.
This does nothing to foster understanding, it sharpens the differences between the two peoples. There is a whole other discussion regarding what Palestinian children are taught, but to teach different versions of history within Israel itself seems foolish to the extreme.
This reminds me of efforts in the US and Canada to teach more "culturally sensitive" history courses that give greater emphasis to minorities like blacks or women. While I'm generally of the view that more information is always better, that's only true when the information is widely distributed. If the courses are structured in such a way that only the minority itself learns the information, it causes an even wider gap in world-views, and that helps no one.
UPDATE: The attached story is a good example of a one-sided view of Israel's creation. I have no reason to believe that anything in the story is false, mind you, but there is a preponderance of facts showing what the Jewish population was doing and nearly none about Arab actions. The result is a skewed viewpoint. While I generally feel that the discussion in North America generally favours the Israelis to too large an extent, this article goes too far the other way.
As with many contentious issues, people tend to take sides, and once they do, they tend to overlook the worst excesses of their chosen side. The truth is somewhere in between, and neither side comes out looking very good.
