Weekend long read

Our weekly round-up of Middle East related background reading.

1) The Tower reports on a new study of Palestinian Authority textbooks.

“Palestinian Authority textbooks for the school year of 2016 doubled down on demonizing Israel and praising “martyrdom,” a report released this month by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) concluded. The report assessed the contents of textbooks in the PA school system ranging from the fourth through 12th grades.

“Despite assurances from the PA Education Ministry, these new books are actually more radical than we have previously seen,” said Marcus Sheff, the CEO of IMPACT-se. “There is clear evidence of a strategy of radicalization of young Palestinians, devised and implemented by the ministry, which includes a commitment to an Arab Palestine encompassing the entirety of Israel.

The textbooks glorify terrorists, featuring math questions asking students to calculate how many “martyrs” had died in the first and second intifadas combined. Maps depicting “Palestine” are shown covering all of Israel.””

2) At Mosaic magazine, Daniel Polisar examines Palestinian public opinion polls concerning the two-state solution.

“Last December, while defending the Obama administration’s decision to allow passage of a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s settlement policy, outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry laid out the options facing Israelis and Palestinians:

[I]f the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic—it cannot be both—and it won’t ever really be at peace. Moreover, the Palestinians will never fully realize their vast potential in a homeland of their own with a one-state solution. Most on both sides understand this basic choice, and that’s why it’s important that polls of Israelis and Palestinians show there is still strong support for the two-state solution—in theory. They just don’t believe that it can happen.

In emphasizing the “strong” popular support on both sides for a two-state solution, Kerry was following in his own footsteps. Whether in public statements or in private meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, he had repeatedly cited polling evidence to advance his case for a two-state solution throughout his four-year tenure at the State Department.”

3) BICOM has a briefing with the former Israeli minister of defence, Moshe Ya’alon, discussing the security challenges facing Israel.

“There is a fundamental problem regarding the dream of Oslo, and that is the promotion of terror still exists in Palestinian refugee camps. If you educate the young generation that Palestine exists from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, and there is no room for concessions, and that “Tel Aviv is the biggest settlement,” then you are not preparing your people for co-existence and reconciliation. The people of Tel Aviv don’t understand that these Palestinians see them as settlers. Young kids are educated to hate us – as Israelis, as Jews, as Zionists. You can see it by watching Palestinian television programmes for children, or reading their textbooks. It is shocking. This was my personal awakening in 1995 while serving as head of the intelligence under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

What should be done regarding this core element of the conflict? We are not going to reach a final settlement in the near future, but we can make progress. Firstly, the donors – the US, UK, EU, Norway – should condition any money that is given to the Palestinians on certain reforms being enacted, and on an end to the financing of terrorists. The prisoners in Israeli jails are getting money from the PA, and of course they must not allow such money to be delivered to the families of the terrorists. Right now, if there is a martyr in your family, you get a pension for the entirety of your life. By ignoring the issues of hate education, the financing of prisoners and martyrs, and the promotion of terror, it will take more time.”

Wishing all our readers celebrating Easter a very happy holiday.

 

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