HonestReporting recently exposed the anti-Israel bias of two children’s primers from BBC and Knight Ridder.
FrontPage magazine now has an article entitled ‘Textbooks for Jihad’ that finds that prestigious American textbook publishers such as Prentice-Hall, Simon and Schuster, TCI, and others are educating children to the “Arab point of view” and its aspirations of world domination:
The content of TCI’s book and resource material for its Modern Middle East curriculum unit is blatantly anti-Israeli. High school teachers are instructed to require class “exercises” designed to pit some students in roles as advantaged Jews against other students as disadvantaged and unfairly treated Palestinian Arabs. The teachers, representing a world power, are instructed to intentionally and unfairly side against Arabs to suggest the existence of favoritism to Jews. The course material is quite shocking and clearly biased.
Furthermore, the TCI material turns Middle East history on its head. It does not present the history of Arab terrorism against Israel much less outline its extent over the last 55 years. The theme is constantly implied, stated and reiterated that Israel is a foreign entity that stole the Palestinians’ “country.”
If you have a child in high school in North America, take a look at his/her world history or world events textbook. As we stated regarding the BBC and Knight Ridder material:
By distorting the history of the region, ignoring the legacy of Arab rejection of Israel, denying the reason for peace failings, and omitting Palestinian terrorism, these news agencies do a great disservice not only to Israel, but to our young people, the decision-makers of tomorrow.
