Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday February 13, 2004

letters

‘Soul-withering diatribe’

Len Traubman’s Feb. 6 commentary does a grievous disservice to your readers. Improved Palestinian Authority textbooks came into use only in 2001, and still teach that Israel is an illegitimate entity.

They have not yet fully replaced the old texts, so many Palestinian children still internalize images of Jews that would make Hitler proud.

Traubman ignores ubiquitous “martyrs” playing cards; video games with Israeli targets; pictures of homicide bombers decorating classrooms; songs, plays, poems glorifying “martyrdom” (popular kindergarten song: we buy paradise with Jewish blood); and summer camps training thousands for combat.

Traubman ignores Palestinian media’s music and videos glorifying terrorism and instilling a deep hatred of Jews. He misrepresents Palestine Media Watch. Far from misleading reports, PMA provides chilling insight into the quantity, nature and pervasiveness of the Palestinian cult of death.

Negative terms about Arabs do appear in Israeli texts. However, they appear in descriptions of documented Arab brutality that merit negative epithets. Such descriptions have nothing to do with delegitimization.

The soul-withering diatribe that Yasser Arafat perpetrates on Arab children is child abuse raised to the level of public policy. Whitewashing it or minimizing it is a horrifying contribution to its continued success.

David Meir-Levi | Menlo Park

Kudos on commentary

Kudos to you and Len Traubman (Feb. 6 j.) for a well-conceived commentary that addresses a major point of difficulty for those of us in the diasporas, Jewish and Palestinian, as well as for those in Israel and the occupied territories.

Peace education is a principle for all sides to aspire toward as we attempt to unknot the issues.

I am proud to read j., and commend you for the courage to deal with this issue with the balance and care exhibited in the article.

Traubman’s efforts are a significant contribution to understanding the complexities without the usual incitement that seems to accompany this highly emotional matter.

Ernie Weir | Napa

Shocking views

And pigs can fly — regarding the textbooks, TV and radio propaganda to the children in the Palestinian Authority (Len Traubman commentary, Feb. 6 j.).

When the European Union was given copies of the textbooks being used, which they funded, they were shocked. When our congressmen were shown articles, tapes, of how children were taught hate, they were shocked.

Now Traubman tries to tell us that Itamar Marcus was exaggerating.

We aren’t stupid when we see the little children being taught to die for martyrdom in the Palestinian Authority.

We are shocked also — but at Traubman’s point of view.

Micki Falk | Sunnyvale

Books, not guns

Amongst your recent onslaught of intolerant and fearful letters, thank you for publishing Len Traubman’s Feb. 6 ray of hope (“Reports on Palestinian kids’ hatred grossly exaggerated”).

Until both sides learn that they must reckon with each other as human beings, no amount of extremism on either side will force the other to capitulate. This is perhaps what the extremists most fear — that their sworn “enemy” is so much like them, it pains to see “them” or think of “them” as human beings.

Traubman, a mensch in our plague of intolerance, referenced the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information. NPR (the station that your readers just love to hate) recently aired a segment about a joint Israeli-Palestinian textbook project titled the “Shared History Booklet Project.” Israeli and Palestinian educators have developed a textbook for the project that contains both the Israeli and Palestinian narratives around milestones in the history of the conflict. Each student learns the narrative of the other, as a first step toward acknowledging and respecting the other.

As one who has faced “the other” with both a gun and a book, I highly recommend the book.

Jacob Mandelsberg | El Cerrito

TV propaganda

Len Traubman’s good intentions in minimizing Palestinian hate propaganda (Feb. 6 j.) are misplaced.

Palestinian textbooks, though improved, are still problematic. Moreover, incitement is evident in television programming, summer camps and other publicity aimed at children.

Not long ago, two Palestinian children tried to perform a suicide attack in a Gaza settlement. They got the idea from all-pervasive Palestinian television propaganda.

The cause of peace and the cause of the Palestinians are not served by ignoring obvious problems in Palestinian society.

Ami Isseroff | Rehovot, Israel
director, MidEastWeb for Coexistence

Not one-sided

It is vital that one of the best Jewish papers in the United States not succumb to pressures, political and financial, to print a one-sided agenda. Your publishing of the thoughtful and well-referenced Feb. 6 piece by Len Traubman on Israeli and Palestinian textbooks made it so much easier for me to write the check to renew our subscription to j.

Lucia Sommers | San Francisco

Martyrdom taught

Len Traubman quotes Jews (Feb. 6 j.) who say there are “misleading reports” by Palestinian Media Watch that in their schools the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza teach hate. 

Far from being misleading, the PMW is backed by highly reliable sources.

The Knesset in February 2002 stated, “Palestinian schoolbooks do not advocate the recognition of the state of Israel, and instead of repressing hideous stereotypes, they instill them into the minds of the young generation of Palestinians.”

In Palestinian Authority textbooks, “the Jewish soul is satanic and meant to cheat.” There is no Israel in textbook maps, and the Jews “must be expelled” from “our” country.

In deciding whose interpretations to trust, the ones Traubman cited or the Knesset, I would not hesitate to accept the latter.

From elementary school onward, Palestinian children are taught systematically to hate Jews and to become martyrs in acts of suicide bombing.

What should be condemned as child abuse in the Palestinian educational system is instead, in Traubman’s words, an apology.

Alan Stein | Mendocino

‘Unacceptable behavior’

The JCRC’s tactics of intimidation are a shame to our community’s tradition of open debate and raucous but respectful discourse.

That JCRC would engineer behind the scenes to intimidate principals, school officials, and teachers into canceling speaking events on Israel that don’t conform to their ideas is unacceptable behavior for an institution that purports to represent our community.

Wheels of Justice did have a certain political agenda in their presentation (Feb. 6 j.) — the same is true for every presentation dealing with the heated topic of Israel-Palestine, including those of the JCRC.

If JCRC disapproves of the views on Israel that are being presented by WOJ, they are free to organize a forum and allow young people to decide for themselves what to think.

Thankfully, Dan Pine was actually incorrect in saying that the JCRC succeeded in shutting down the tour — it is alive and well, despite bumps in the road. And let’s give young people credit for being able to think critically and examine the issues at hand with open minds and hearts, often better than adults.

Liat Weingart | Oakland
co-director, Jewish Voice for Peace

‘Propaganda tour’

Dan Pine’s Feb. 6 article about the Wheels of Justice Tour was good, but some more information should be given your readers.

While the JCRC has done a good job in the community to counteract this PLO propaganda tour, it was myself and the people of the campus pro-Israel action group, DAFKA, that brought the tour to the JCRC’s attention when it first appeared at Ukiah High School.

My article on FrontPage magazine, “Jihad Against High School Students,” exposed the tour. I also spoke on KSFO radio the week before they were to appear in Marin and San Rafael, which brought both the Jewish and non-Jewish community out to cancel this indoctrination tour for our kids.

This tour loves naive captive audiences to portray Israel as an outlaw state and the United States an “imperialist warmonger.”

Donations to this tour are made out to Al Awda, which is the Palestine Right of Return Committee, and advocates the dismantling of Israel. That’s Hamas and the PLO.

The International Solidarity Movement, according to Adam Shapiro, whom I interviewed personally at the Ohio State Palsolidarity Conference, even uses plainclothes Palestinians at their demonstrations. They are planning to tour Southern California next.

Lee Kaplan | Pittsburg
national director, DAFKA

Support NPR

In his letter of Jan. 30, Jonathan Segal urges a boycott of National Public Radio because he feels that they are biased against Israel. During the years I lived in Israel, I felt the British Broadcasting Corporation was anti-Israel. Nevertheless, I value BBC and more so NPR on their world review and especially Washington coverage.

If there are complaints, tell NPR. I believe we should support, not boycott, public broadcasting.

Jerry Delson | Palo Alto

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.