The Arab World Studies Notebook
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 Pagliuso’s daughter’s 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 — it’s 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 Pagliuso’s lead and protest directly to school officials.
What do you think?
4:35 pm
There are all sorts of revisionist textbooks in U.S. schools. Parents of children in every grade need to pay attention to the books their kids are being forced to read today. It’s shameful.
10:53 am
I agree, we must remain vigilant in protecting our children from propaganda. My question is and many others also, how did this material get in to the schools without it being checked for accuracy? Please check with your schools for this pack of lies!
8:56 pm
Thanks for the info. These things do not always come to the attention of the press and to reach an intelligent conclusion you need valid information.
12:00 am
Six million Jews,that’s six thousand thousand innocent human beings who were murdered during the second world war.Alright,I could be wrong with my figures,maybe it was more like seven million.Who cares,one innocent victim is one too many.I was born and bred in a country of which fought for Freedom and Democracy and if my forefathers were to see how we in the free world were treating the most dear,loving and peaceful people [Jews] ever to inhabit the earth,they would be feeling most sad and cheeted.What I am writing now would never get the time of day from my media outlet unless I was a muslim sympathiser.May I also declare that I am not of Jewish descent,do not dabble in Middle East propaganda unlike the terrorist neighbours surrounding GODs “Land of Milk and Honey” Israel.What motivated me to explain my anxt to the world was the four part series “The Promise” of which was shown on SBS a free to air channel.It was one of the most fictitious propaganda series that I have ever witnessed.The precurser to this piece of rubbish was a suppossed “witnessing”of events from unknown people.Series such as this has a common cause whilst coming out of such an insignificant media group that is noted more for its soft porn movies,but it becomes serious when the young and gullible watch it and can’t decipher the fact that it never happened.I normally don’t watch this nonsense t.v channel,but the television ratings are in holiday mode so I decided to give it one more chance.It didn’t surprise,it still shows the same propaganda.Well my Israel friends,all of my life I have stood up for and fought for what I have beleived to be right and this is no exception….Shalom.