Start with textbooks

(January 11) - Diplomacy and security alone cannot bring us the type of warm peace we are seeking. It is up to the Middle East's education ministers to ensure that their peoples comprehend the need for peace. Education for reconciliation must become part of each nation's core curriculum.

Are our peoples ready to learn to accept one another? Will pupils be able to cooperate with each other, instead of perpetuating stereotypes of each other?

I call on the education ministers of the region to establish a forum for promoting peace. Let us meet and create a core curriculum for a new subject called "peace education."

Israelis and Arabs have so much in common: We originate from the same region, enjoy similar Semitic backgrounds, have similar languages. More than 50 percent of Israelis have roots in Moslem countries. What we have in common is greater than what has divided us.

So how can I persuade the Arab ministers of education - my counterparts - to rid their textbooks of the anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish hatred, bias, and stereotypes that plague their curricula and are hampering our joint efforts to create an atmosphere conducive to "education for peace"?

Since becoming education minister last July, I have made a concerted effort in this direction by purging our textbooks of anything resembling anti-Arab bias and stereotypes and initiating a free discussion of less positive events in Israeli history.

I'm not suggesting our textbooks are full of harmful references. But they do contain occasional stereotypes about Arabs, and it is my job to get rid of them.

And now, my fellow education ministers, I call upon you to put an end to your textbooks' vicious attacks and blood libels against Israel and Jews.

As for history, the truth may hurt, but it must be told. A couple of months ago, I told Israeli teachers to teach the lessons of a brutal massacre of 47 Israeli Arabs in the village of Kafr Kassem, committed by border policemen in 1956. I did this because I felt that our youngsters - our future soldiers - must understand the need to identify and disobey a clearly illegal order, such as the one given that day in Kafr Kassem.

I also felt that to enable reconciliation between Israelis and Arabs both sides must acknowledge their mistakes. It may be painful, but sometimes the first step toward healing is acknowledging the pain.

My directive concerning Kafr Kassem was reported around the world. Yet some very narrow-minded people twisted this initiative and falsely - and maliciously - claimed I was trying to cover up similar Arab atrocities committed against Israelis. These same ill-informed people claimed that by teaching Israeli pupils about our mistakes we are creating a generation of Israelis who will be ashamed of themselves and so have less national pride.

What nonsense! There is nothing more honorable than acknowledging one's mistakes, and a nation's readiness to admit its shortcomings is a sign of strength, not of weakness.

At a special Knesset Education Committee meeting there were those who contended that until the Arabs acknowledge their many massacres of Israeli Jews, Israel has nothing to acknowledge. I responded: I want to be better. Our level of morality and values does not depend on the behavior of others.

Another issue, which has attracted media attention worldwide, has been our decision to offer new, controversial, and revealing accounts of Israel's struggle for independence. Some are by controversial and often critical historians who have portrayed the 1948 struggle as including some awful things Israel did, or may have done, to the local Arabs.

My ministry does not view this as "new history," as the world media have termed it. We see it as offering a more balanced, truthful account. This new, open attitude does not weaken us but empowers us by exposing us to the entire truth. I want the Arabs to adopt this approach, too.

And that is how I see the future of education in the Middle East: Israelis and Arabs learning to live with each other, with education as a bridge to peace; textbooks free of hate, bias, and stereotypes; history told truthfully and openly, enabling Israelis and Arabs to confront their past and hopefully learn a lesson for the future.

Is this a tall order? Yes, indeed. But it is also the best chance pupils in the Middle East have to stop the cycle of violence and hostility. Let's not pass up this chance.

(The writer is education minister.)

Last changed: August 16, 2004

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