MESSAGE
| DATE | 2023-11-14 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] Gaza and the UN
|
https://forward.com/opinion/566841/hamas-schools-indoctrination-antisemitic-textbooks-gaza/
The roots of Hamas' terror attack can be found in Gaza’s schools
Samuel Breslow
6–7 minutes
Palestinian students attend a national education lesson at the Dar
Al-Arqam school in Gaza City, founded by Hamas, in 2006.
Palestinian students attend a national education lesson at the Dar
Al-Arqam school in Gaza City, founded by Hamas, in 2006. Photo by Abid
Katib/Getty Images
At the core of the tragedy unfolding in Gaza is a question: When Israel
withdrew from the coastal Palestinian enclave in 2005, why did the
romantic vision of it as a place that would function as a fit home for
its citizens turn into the hellish reality of a failed state run by a
terrorist organization? The easy and popular theories — a military
blockade by Israel, a civil war between Palestinian political factions —
miss a fundamental point. The roots of this generation of Hamas
terrorism resides in ideas fomented in Gaza’s education system for
decades.
While serving in Congress between 2001 and 2017, I studied what goes on
in Palestinian schools. I reviewed their textbooks, met with educators
and diplomats, and introduced legislation and amendments compelling the
Department of State to monitor antisemitism in foreign classrooms. I saw
firsthand that a generation of Palestinian children were being taught at
an early age to reject living peacefully with Israel. They read about it
in their schoolbooks and heard about it from their teachers. They were
raised on a steady curriculum of violent rejectionism. My colleagues and
I in Congress were unable to change that reality.
Now, as the world reels from the devastation of Hamas’ terrorism,
understanding how Palestinian children are taught is essential to any
discussion of the future in the region.
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A startling 47% of the population in Gaza is under 18. A European human
rights group recently reported that 91% of these children “suffer from
some form of conflict-related trauma,” having grown up in impoverished,
unsafe conditions and lived through multiple devastating rounds of
warfare with Israel. This is a recipe for radicalization, supercharged
by the fact that Hamas has sought to directly cultivate antisemitic
attitudes in its education system.
The children of Gaza have three education options: Those classified as
refugees attend schools run by the United Nations Reliefs and Works
Agency. Most others attend schools run by Hamas, the de-facto governors
of Gaza. And there are a handful of private schools.
A 2013 New York Times article said that Gaza schools run by Hamas and
the U.N. both use the Palestinian Authority curriculum that is also
taught throughout the West Bank, but that “Hamas has added programs,
like a military training elective” and other teachings to “infuse the
next generation with its militant ideology.”
This curriculum “includes references to the Jewish Torah and Talmud as
‘fabricated,’” the Times reported, and a description of Zionism as a
racist movement whose goals include driving Arabs out of the entire area
between the Nile in Africa and the Euphrates in Iraq, Syria and Turkey.”
This is a curriculum designed to indoctrinate and radicalize its
students in support of Hamas’ terrorist aims.
Even the comparatively moderate Palestinian Authority textbooks are
problematic. In 2020, the European Union’s Parliament adopted three
resolutions condemning the authority “for continuing to teach hate and
violence in its school textbooks,” following a study confirming
incitement in the curriculum. To teach physics, a textbook showed
students “a picture of Palestinians hitting Israeli soldiers with
slingshots,” the study found, while another “promotes a conspiracy
theory that Israel removed the original stones of ancient sites in
Jerusalem and replaced them with ones bearing Zionist drawings and
shapes.”
UNRWA schools in Gaza, too, are replete with antisemitism. A 2018
article in The Times of Israel cited examples including the lionization
of Dalal al-Mughrabi, who led a 1978 attack on a bus in Tel Aviv that
killed more than 30 people, as a “heroine and martyr of Palestine,” and
the description of the victims of an attack in Psagot, a settlement in
the occupied West Bank, as “a barbecue party.”
When I hear Israeli survivors of the massacre describe the sheer hate
and absence of humanity in the eyes of their attackers, I’m unsurprised.
Those eyes were forced open to a false, hate-filled view of Jews for
years.
Now, the children of Gaza — who have grown up in poverty, lost family
members due to the ongoing violence, and been taught to hate the Jewish
people — will be tasked with rising from the ashes of a brutal war
triggered by Hamas’ indiscriminate murder of innocent Israeli civilians.
Hamas has failed all of Gaza, yet those who have suffered most are the
children.
Israel, the United States and other regional partners must work to build
a better future for these children. That means an education system that
abolishes hate from its curriculum. That means a government that teaches
children how to build, not blow up. That means free and fair elections.
That means an end to Hamas’ reign of terror, and schools that do not
teach students to hate their neighbors.
Related
opinionAn Israeli airstrike just destroyed my family home in Gaza. I
refuse to be consumed by hate and revenge
opinionHamas is guilty of inhuman violence. What about the
Palestinians who cheered them on?
Rep. Steve Israel represented Long Island in the United States
Congress from 2001-2017. He now directs the Brooks Institute of
Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University. You can
follow him at -at-repsteveisrael.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the
author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the
Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion.
On Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 10:45:39PM -0500, Ruben Safir wrote:
> The contention that the schools in Gaza are not teaching anti-semetism
> is laughable if it wasn't so sad.
>
>
>
>
> The U.N. Is Central to Life in Gaza. Now Its Mission There Is
> Collapsing.
> Jared Malsin and Anas Baba
> 7–8 minutes
>
> Your browser does not support the audio tag.
>
> This article is in your queue.
>
> RAFAH, Gaza Strip—Huddled in classrooms and crouching under tarps slung
> up in the courtyard, Palestinians seeking refuge from the fighting
> raging in Gaza have crowded into a United Nations-run school here near
> the Egyptian border.
>
> The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees runs 183 schools
> in the Gaza Strip, most of which have been pressed into service as
> shelters. The agency, which also runs bakeries and clinics and provides
> financial aid, has been central to life in the Palestinian enclave for
> more than 70 years.
>
> As Israel and Hamas, the Islamist militant group that rules Gaza,
> battle, the agency says its ability to cope is fraying. More than 100 of
> its workers have been killed. An Israeli blockade, imposed after Hamas’s
> Oct. 7 attack on Israel, has cut off almost all shipments of food, fuel,
> water and medicine.
>
> On Tuesday, a U.N. spokeswoman said lack of fuel meant the agency’s
> functions would “start gradually collapsing” as ambulances, sewage and
> sanitation systems shut down.
>
> At least 66 people sheltering in U.N. compounds have been killed in the
> fighting, and more than 550 others injured, the U.N. says. Hamas, which
> is designated by the U.S., the European Union and others as a terrorist
> organization, has blamed Israel, saying it is attacking U.N. sites.
>
> Israel’s military says Hamas has built tunnels near some U.N. schools
> and fired rockets from areas close to them. Hamas didn’t respond to a
> request for comment on allegations it builds tunnels under the schools
> or uses them to hide materiel.
>
> Since the Hamas assault on Israel—which included terrorist attacks on a
> music festival and agricultural communities and killed 1,200 people,
> according to Israeli authorities—the country has waged a campaign of
> airstrikes and ground operations it says are aimed at eliminating Hamas.
>
> On Sunday, the U.N. said shelling from an Israeli warship hit a
> guesthouse where the agency’s international workers stay. The Israeli
> military said it “carried out a strike based on operational
> requirements, adjacent to a U.N. building.”
>
> UNRWA said it inspects its schools to make sure that there is no
> military equipment or activity that could compromise their neutral
> status. Spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai said buildings were inspected before
> the war and that the agency had monitored those entering the schools
> since.
>
> Last year, UNRWA identified what it called a man-made cavity underneath
> the grounds of one of its schools in Gaza, in what it said was a
> “serious violation of the agency’s neutrality and breach of
> international law.” The agency protested to the local authorities in
> Gaza, it said.
>
> “We ourselves are very intent on making sure that our schools remain
> neutral U.N. places, but we cannot speak for what Hamas does or doesn’t
> do under our schools,” Alrifai said.
>
> Israeli military officials say Hamas operates in and near civilian
> buildings. The Israeli government also accuses UNRWA of employing Hamas
> militants—an allegation it denies.
>
> “Hamas has taken control of the whole of Gaza including U.N.
> installations. We have done everything we can in this intensive war to
> avoid damage to any international installation,” said a senior Israeli
> military official. He said some were “hit because Hamas put weapons
> inside schools.”
>
> More than three-quarters of a million people have descended on UNRWA
> school shelters since the outbreak of war. The average number of people
> per shelter now is more than 6,250, which the U.N. said is nine times
> higher than the intended capacity.
>
> In times of peace, U.N. schools form a core part of Gaza’s education
> system, teaching about 300,000 pupils, or about half the total number of
> students in the strip. “They come out of here as engineers and doctors
> and lawyers,” said Abu Hisham Subih, a 55-year-old who took shelter in
> the school here after the war broke out.
>
> Israel says the schools’ curriculum, which is shared by those operated
> by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, contains antisemitic
> material and teaches hatred.
>
> The agency’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, said the
> allegation was “false and insidious.” The agency says that it adapts
> textbooks to teach core U.N. principles such as tolerance and
> nondiscrimination.
>
> In times of war, Palestinians flock to the schools for shelter. “It was
> incredible at first the rush to these UNRWA schools with the deep belief
> that the schools are protected,” said Alrifai. “But the reality is that
> in Gaza there’s nowhere safe.”
>
> Across Gaza, more than 11,000 people, more than half of them women and
> children, have been killed since Oct. 7, according to health authorities
> in the Hamas-run enclave. The figures don’t distinguish between
> civilians and militants.
>
> On Monday, UNRWA said it received reports from witnesses that Israeli
> security forces entered one school and two health centers in Gaza City
> and used the installations for military operations.
>
> The U.N. said witnesses reported that Israeli soldiers conducted
> interrogations and arrested some people sheltering in the installations.
> The Israeli military didn’t respond to a request for comment.
>
> U.N. officials say they share the coordinates of all U.N. installations
> in Gaza with both sides each day.
>
> Palestinians say they continue to seek shelter in the schools because
> they have nowhere else to turn. “The people in this school, their homes
> are destroyed. Where are they going to go? In the streets?” said Subih,
> the Palestinian camped out here.
>
> Founded to address the needs of Palestinians who fled their homes during
> the 1948 war at the creation of Israel, the agency now serves both the
> refugees and their descendants, the majority of Gaza’s more than two
> million residents.
>
> UNRWA’s blue and white logo is everywhere in the strip, a symbol of
> stability amid years of political and economic turbulence.
>
> Hundreds of thousands of people remain in northern Gaza, many of them
> still in U.N. schools, with rapidly shrinking supplies, the agency says.
> The U.N. says it hasn’t been able to verify the number of people in the
> shelters in the north since Oct. 12 due to a lack of access and
> communications.
>
> In the south, U.N. schools have become severely overcrowded.
> Palestinians wait in line for hours each day for bread, water and other
> essentials. Brawls and disputes have begun breaking out in the lines as
> frustration builds, according to the U.N.
>
> Officials at the agency are increasingly worried about the spread of
> gastrointestinal and other diseases in the packed facilities, where 160
> people share one toilet and 700 a shower.
>
> Issa Fayoumi, a teenager from Rafah who took shelter in the schools,
> said drinking water is available only once a day. “And the bathrooms,”
> he said. “I swear to God.”
>
> Fatima AbdulKarim contributed to this article.
>
> Write to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin-at-wsj.com
>
>
> --
> So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
> that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
> proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
> http://www.mrbrklyn.com
>
> DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
> http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
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>
> Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
> but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
>
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--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive
http://www.coinhangout.com - coins!
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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