Travesty of Palestinian Education

The word “occupation” has been hijacked by the Palestinians in order to spread even more hatred of the Jews around the world and yet if we look at their education system, surely the word can be ascribed to the minds of Palestinian children who are motivated at every level in their schooling to maintain a state of war with Israel for the foreseeable future.

The analysis below should be absorbed by every member of the UN and those countries financially supporting the production of these text books.

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by Yaakov Ahimeir Sunday Oct 7, 2018

http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/travesty-of-palestinian-education/

The new school year kicked off in the Palestinian Authority last month, and it was business as usual. The authors of this year's textbooks have made sure to keep up their long tradition of Israel hatred – without, of course, mentioning the name "Israel" in the textbooks.

Dr. Arnon Gross, a former senior news anchor for Israel Radio in Arabic, researched the question of what has changed in the latest Palestinian textbooks from previous editions. He conducted his research under the sponsorship of the Center for Near East Policy Research, headed by David Bedein.

After examining dozens of Palestinian textbooks for 11th- and 12th-grade students in the PA education system, Gross says there has been a "depressing" change for the worse in the new books.

Although some pundits in Israel say the day is coming when PA President Mahmoud Abbas will leave his post and his life's work – which includes, among other things, perfecting the rhetoric of incitement – he will have bequeathed a written, dark legacy, embedded in the minds of Palestinian adults. Gross discovered that in each instance in an earlier textbook of even the slightest hint of deviation from the lexicon of hatred toward Israel and Jews, the book's author later took pains to correct the "mistake" by reverting back to the desired path of hatred.

This is true even in textbooks for the exact sciences. Is there a connection, one may ask, between mathematics and the 1967 borders? But here is the type of question that appears in a mathematics textbook: If a settler shoots at a number of vehicles traveling at a certain speed and hits one vehicle at a certain distance, how many vehicles will the settler hit if he is aiming at 10 vehicles? Trying to answer this question is crucial to understanding the historical incitement and hatred.

For comparison, Gross also analyzed textbooks in the Israeli education system. In these books, he says, the authors write about peace as the only solution to the conflict, and the Israeli political-diplomatic discourse has included endless discussions over the signing of the Oslo Accords. On the other hand, in the Palestinian textbooks, the Oslo Accords are mentioned only in passing, and, in their version of history, Oslo was not the beginning of a peace process, but perpetuated the conflict.

These textbooks are published (I happen to have one) by the PA Education Ministry in Ramallah. These textbooks are also used in Palestinian schools in east Jerusalem.

It is clear that the Israeli authorities are doing little to ban these textbooks, and this issue is barely a blip on the radar of the Israeli media. This is a shame. A new generation of Palestinians is being raised on these texts, which are extinguishing even the smallest thought or chance of co-existence with Israel – or perhaps that should be the "Zionist entity."

Time For UNRWA To Face The Truth About Its Textbooks

by Marcus Sheff  February 17, 2018

According to the textbooks being read by half a million Palestinian children, the only solution available is victory via resistance, jihad, radical Islamism and defeating Israel once and for all.

Last week, immediately after a motion in support of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) was approved by the European Parliament in Strasbourg, UNRWA jubilantly tweeted, “Second largest democratic parliament in the world reaffirms commitment to UNRWA. The European Parliament unanimously stands with Palestine refugees.”

UNRWA’s triumphalism was jarring. It exposed not only a self-serving oversimplification of the situation, but also a wholesale disregard for the concerns rightfully raised about its work. In particular the promotion of hatred, extremism, violence and conflict in UNRWA schools.

A recent world tour by UNRWA commissioner-general Pierre Krähenbühl to drum up financial support following a US freeze on funds to the organization relied heavily on an accompanying PR slogan, “#QualityEducation is key to a better future.”

No doubt it is. But Palestinian children are not receiving it.

The 500,000 children taught at UNRWA schools across the West Bank, Gaza and in east Jerusalem all study the new Palestinian Authority school curriculum, completed by the PA Education Ministry in August 2017.

Our report on the accompanying textbooks and examples demonstrates that radicalization is pervasive in this new curriculum, even more so than its predecessor. Quite simply, the new textbooks groom young Palestinians to sacrifice themselves as martyrs.

These are schoolbooks which promote hate, encourage a commitment to jihad and feature a radical Islamist, and occasionally Salafist, worldview. Young Palestinians are taught that martyrdom for boys and girls is a life goal, that dying is better than living and that jihad is the pinnacle of ambition. Those who risk their lives by taking up arms are praised and those who choose the path of non-violence are denigrated as cowards.

Science and math lessons are used to teach violence. Newtonian gravity is taught through the image of a boy with a slingshot targeting soldiers, to explain power, mass, and tensile strength, while math exercises instruct students to calculate number of martyrs in Palestinian uprisings and teach probability with examples of Israelis shooting at passing Palestinian cars.

UNRWA is firmly in denial about the curriculum it teaches. But those who finance UNRWA should not be. In 2017, the US gave $364 million, equivalent to a third of the UNRWA budget. The EU came in second at $143m. Germany followed at $76m. Then Sweden at $61m. and the UK at $60m. (Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states combined represented just 7% of UNRWA’s budget). These countries are receiving a damaging return on their very significant investment.

After all, the benchmarks are clear. The UN has a roadmap for UNRWA. Through another of its bodies, UNESCO, several resolutions have set out clear standards on textbooks. They are expected to promote peace and tolerance. They are mandated to encourage respect for the “other” and peacemaking as the tool for resolving conflict and gender inequality. They are to include unbiased information and exclude hateful material.

The new PA curriculum fails miserably on every count. It fails to respect tolerance, nor is there any understanding toward the Israeli and Western “other.” Instead, there is demonization. The principle of “no hate” is thoroughly rejected – the curriculum is packed with wording, imagery and ideology likely to create prejudices, misconceptions, stereotypes, misunderstandings, mistrust, racial and national hatred, and religious bigotry.

And by no measure can the information presented in the curriculum be viewed as unbiased. In fact, students are indoctrinated, with the world divided into a Manichean paradigm, a simplistic binary choice between good and evil. There is little or no complexity, empathy or real understanding of historical development. As for gender equality, while some secular topics in the curriculum include respect for women’s choice, in the religious and jihadist elements, women are not equal in life, only in their value as martyrs in death.

At last week’s European Parliament plenary session to discuss UNRWA, commissioner Johannes Hahn said that “The European Union is convinced that the two-state solution is the only possible answer if we want to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East.”

Absolutely. But with respect to that most important of UNESCO standards – peacemaking as the way to resolve conflict – the PA curriculum rejects negotiations with Israel to achieve Palestinian statehood. According to the textbooks being read by half a million Palestinian children, the only solution available is victory via resistance, jihad, radical Islamism and defeating Israel once and for all.

Outside the plenary session itself, in the flowery-carpeted bar where legislators, staff and lobbyists mingle, a ray of hope could be found. Some parliamentary members were openly challenging the work of UNRWA. Meanwhile, several legislators from the centrist and liberal factions were also quietly questioning the UNRWA approach. For many in the European mainstream, openly challenging UNRWA remains a step too far. But this must quickly change, for the sake of the very people UNRWA is mandated to help. UNRWA is a vital UN agency providing essential services to Palestinians. But right now, it is betraying itself, its donors and most importantly, the 500,000 Palestinian children it serves.

Chinese Students Study at Haifa University

SARAH LEVI    http://www.jpost.com/israel-news/chinese-enrollment-at-israeli-universities-skyrockets-502404

The influx of Chinese students at Israeli universities has been growing steadily in recent years.

On the forefront of this enrollment boom is the University of Haifa, which currently boasts some 200 Chinese students among its student body, compared to 20 in 2013, representing a 1,000% increase.

A majority of these students come from the University of East China Normal University in Shanghai, which is a sister city of Haifa.

University of Haifa president Ron Robin welcomes the addition. “The cooperation with strategic partners from Chinese industry and academia serves the strategic goals of the university,” said Robin. “We have positioned ourselves as a leading international institution. As such, we welcome all the Chinese students to Israel, and intend to continue to deepen the ties and cooperation with the Chinese academy.”

These ties can result in profitable research and development in which millions of dollars are currently being invested in the hopes to further strengthen the bonds between the two countries.

This past March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Economy Minister Eli Cohen were present when Robin, along with the Hangzhou Wahaha Group and the Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, signed a $10-million deal that finalized the construction of three Israeli-Chinese artificial intelligence technology centers in Haifa, Hangzhou and Beijing.

According to the university, this deal “proved the growing strength of the relationship between the two countries.”

But the university insists that there’s a lot in it for the students as well, saying that “the Chinese love Haifa’s location that combines mountains and sea, and are very impressed by the city’s large high-tech complex.”

And it’s not just science-based courses that are attracting the students to Haifa, according to a statement released by the university. “In general, Chinese students are particularly interested in the disciplines for which the University of Haifa has developed unique programs: maritime studies, public health, medical clowning, art therapy, education, national security studies and the English-speaking Global Green MBA, focusing on sustainability and ecological- friendly development – two of the main economic challenges in China.”

Across town, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has also seen an influx of Chinese students in recent years. During the 2016-2017 academic year, the school had 117 full-time Chinese students, and 177 Chinese students enrolled in its summer school of engineering.

The Technion has been intensifying its academic cooperation with Chinese universities and students, and in 2013, together with Shantou University (STU), received a $130m. grant from the Li Ka Shing Foundation to establish a branch of the Technion in the Guangdong Province.

The Technion hailed the partnership as “a new era of research and innovation in science, engineering and life sciences, an unprecedented cooperation between the People’s Government of Guangdong Province and Shantou Municipal Government, Technion, and STU.”

The highly anticipated addition to the Technion is scheduled to open its doors in October. Some 240 students from several provinces in China have enrolled for study at the Technion branch, which offers three engineering programs: chemical, material science and biotechnology and food engineering. Preparatory studies begin this month and the first semester begins in October.

Most Dangerous Professor in America

I have always believed that the purpose of this blog is to inform of events or activities here in the State of Israel.

I have not wanted to get involved in the politics of other countries. However, the video below is so blatant in its effect on student attitudes towards Israel that I think it important to bring it to the attention of as many people as possible, including Senators, Congressmen and the media.

How come the American taxpayer is funding this level of anti-Semitism? 

Wheelchair-Bound Bedouin, Israel’s Newest Doctor of Physics

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This is the inspiring story of an Israeli Bedouin who overcame social and physical obstacles to achieve his dream. For full article read here.

Among the graduates receiving their doctoral degrees at Ben Gurion University of the Negev on Wednesday, one stood out above the rest.

Ramadan Abu-Ragila, 34, has muscular dystrophy, a degenerative disease that results in increasing weakening and breakdown of skeletal muscles. He is wheelchair bound and relies on an oxygen machine to breathe. A Bedouin, from the town of Segev Shalom, southeast of Beersheba, Abu-Ragila has just completed his doctorate in physics, specializing in the diffusion of water particles.

“I felt enormous satisfaction at achieving a goal and reaching a far off point that I had set for myself,” Abu-Ragila told Tazpit Press Service (TPS).

Abu-Ragila said he set that goal for himself back in high school. “People told me that physics was a very tough subject, so I decided to pick it as a major. I thought it would be very challenging, but challenges are not something I shy away from.”

Abu-Ragila didn’t face those challenges alone. His brother Jihad, who is two years younger, took it upon himself to help his elder sibling achieve his goals.

“One day I saw Ramadan sitting at home. He told me he had enrolled to study nuclear engineering at university, but didn’t have a way to get to Beer Sheva. I decided I would help him, and from the first day of his first degree, right through to his doctorate I accompanied him. He was the brains and I supplied the legs,” said Jihad.

Ramadan says the switch from the sheltered life of a small Bedouin village to the world of academia was not an easy transition. “At the beginning it was very difficult, the first month, the first year. They were really hard,” Abu-Ragila recounted.

“I understood that the transition from high school to academia was not at all simple. But thankfully I had a very supportive environment. My brother Jihad, my family and friends. Slowly I got used to it.  My success is their success,” he says.

Overcoming Hurdles in Life

Abu-Ragila steers away from talking about how he coped with his deteriorating physical condition alongside the rigorous demands of his academic chores. All he is willing to say is that he never received any special provisions and was always taught to believe in his abilities “until I believed in them myself.”

His experiences have taught him one central lesson in life: “Whoever you are and no matter what path you choose, there will be always be hurdles. It is our duty to strive to overcome them.”

Having achieved his goal, Abu-Ragila isn’t about to stop there. He has already enrolled for post-doctoral study at Haifa’s Technion-Institute of Technology. “From my perspective the next stage for me is to serve the academic community and to continue to develop my field of research in order to serve humanity.”

Improving The World – One Mind At A Time

by Tali Kord March 16th 2017

The University of Haifa’s new president, Prof. Ron Robin, has seen the world, to put it mildly. He was born in Tel Aviv and raised in South Africa; he studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, then the University of California, Berkeley. Robin returned to Israel in 1986 to work at the University of Haifa, and in 2005 left the country again, “never thinking I would come back.” His next post was at New York University, where he became the senior vice provost in charge of global campuses – returning once again to his globe-trotting ways, this time to open NYU’s campuses in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai.

Now there’s one more stop on the tour, for the foreseeable future at least, Haifa.

An imperialist in the making?

Robin started his role at Haifa a few months ago and is now working hard at implementing the many new ideas and visions he has for the 45-year-old institution. First and foremost is his plan of expansion, within Israel and beyond.

“UH is on its way to becoming a multiversity, meaning a university over multiple locations; a network with multiple portals,” he explains. “Our campus is in a nature reserve. It’s a proverbial ivory tower and it’s hard to get to.”

The solution, then, are said portals.

Some portals will be spread around Haifa; some throughout the north of the country; and some even in China, including one collaboration with the East China Normal University in Shanghai, another coming up with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and much work being done with the Hangzhou Wahaha Group and CEO Zong Qinghou, the university’s “patron saint in China.”

Robin’s expansion plans are not only geographical.

“We’re moving into fields of engineering, artificial intelligence and biotech,” as well as expanding the already existing work being done in fields like life sciences, marine sciences and more. The university’s neighboring rival in these fields, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, turns out to be no rival at all. “You can’t compete with the Technion,” admits Robin. “What you can do is develop your own niches.

It seems that as far as the University of Haifa and its new president are concerned, things are looking up. Now all that’s left is the “minor” issue of fixing the entire broken system around it, from inadequate education to political shallowness.

The trouble with colleges

One of the system’s current problems is its lack of uniformity when it comes to the quality of the schools – and in particular, of Israeli colleges. “Colleges are a very important aspect of higher education,” clarifies Robin.

"What has happened, mostly due to political pressure, is that colleges mushroomed in a way that there are now too many of them, and not all provide the type of education that the original architects of this project thought they would.”

“There’s always an issue to navigate in making sure politics is sidelined, and that academic freedom is upheld.

We cannot do what we’re trying to do without academic freedom… There’s always political pressure on academia to toe a certain line, and that has to be resisted.” Resistance, insists Robin, is done via persuasion and conversation; not “by setting up barricades and marching down the street.”

Restocking the toolbox 

The tendency to simplify and even misunderstand complex issues is not the sole property of BDS activists; it’s a phenomenon seen and heard everywhere, including in Israel.

Education might be part of the problem – but also the solution.

“Any student with a degree from a university or a college needs to leave that school with two tools in their toolbox. One is quantitative reasoning, and the other is critical thinking, where you learn how to analyze a text, how to pull it to pieces, restructure it, probe its weaknesses and understand its strengths. You can only do that through having a robust background in the humanities.”

This is perhaps another influence from NYU and American higher education in general, where students undergo four year degrees, the first two of which are dedicated to the foundations before the student chooses which subject to specialize in. The three-year course, wherein a student is required to choose their faculty before even starting their courses, is a terrible idea, says Robin.

Perhaps it’s easier on the Jewish-Israeli students, who come in a little older, certainly more mature and prepared.

“Once upon a time high schools were much better and students were more prepared, so it didn’t make that much of a difference whether it was a three or four-year course, but that’s no longer the case. High school is not nearly as strong or broad as it used to be, and students come in unprepared.”

The Arab Community

“If you look at Israel from Haifa northwards, 50% of the population is Jewish. Remove the metropolitan area and it becomes 25%. If Arabs don’t become part of the middle class, what’s going to happen to this country? Everybody, irrespective of political views, understands this is a problem.

If we don’t have Arab civil engineers, software engineers… we’re in deep trouble. So we [at the University of Haifa] are changing Israeli society by broadening the middle class.”

This move is done by finding ways to encourage and assist students of various backgrounds: haredim, low-income families and in particular Arabs. All are shocked by this traumatic transition – language barriers, different skill sets, and other social aspects.

“They come in very young and we try to persuade them to take preparation courses. In computer science, for example, we found that among Arab students we had a 60% dropout rate. Now we have tutoring, we give them prep courses, we hold their hands during their first year, and the dropout rate is now single-digit, maybe 10%.”

The most important agents of change in Arab society are the women, Robin points out. “They go through the most difficult changes. Their becoming part of the workforce is going to change Israeli- Arab society dramatically. Even if some women choose to return home and not join the workforce, they are still going to bring up their children differently and change the next generation. These women are the agents of change and we’re proud of the fact that 60% of our Arab students are women.

“Of course, it’s not that simple. They go back to villages where some of the men don’t have the right type of education, and women now refuse to marry them. They say, ‘I don’t want an arranged marriage, I want someone I can talk to and have a meaningful conversation…’ It’s disruption, but it’s creative disruption.”

Palestinians: We Have the Right to Poison the Minds of our Children

In an ironic turnaround, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) is now the object of intimidation and threats made by many Palestinians.

UNRWA is reportedly planning to introduce some changes to the curriculum in its schools in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Palestinians are rather unhappy about it. They claim that UNRWA has "succumbed" to Israeli pressure to make the changes.

The proposed changes are based on leaks to Palestinians and have not been confirmed by UNRWA. Palestinians claim that they learned about the plans to introduce the changes during meetings with senior UNRWA officials.

According to the Palestinians, the changes are intended to "eradicate" their "national identity" and "history" and distort their "struggle" against Israel.

The Palestinians claim that the new textbooks have replaced the map of "historic Palestine" (including Israel) with pictures of a pumpkin and a bird. Palestinian textbooks often feature maps of "historic Palestine" without Israel. Cities inside Israel, such as Haifa, Jaffa, Tiberias and Ramle, are referred to as "Palestinian cities." The Palestinian Authority (PA) media also refer to these cities as "Palestinian cities inside the 1948 Land."

In one fourth-grade textbook, the Palestinians charge, UNRWA has replaced the map of Palestine with a picture of a traditional Palestinian woman's dress.

The new textbooks make no reference to cities in Israel; they mention only cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, such as Nablus, Jenin, Gaza City, Jericho and Ramallah.

Unsurprisingly, an UNRWA revision of the Palestinian presumption of Jerusalem as the "capital of the State of Palestine" to Jerusalem as a "Holy city for the Abrahamic religions" did not go over well with Palestinians. In addition, they are angry because the UNRWA textbooks make no mention of the Jordan Valley along the border between Israel and Jordan.

The controversial textbooks have also removed photos of Israeli soldiers patrolling near schools and references to Palestinian prisoners held in Israel for terrorism. Moreover, the new textbooks are missing the previous references to "Palestinian Prisoners' Day" -- an annual event marked by Palestinians in solidarity with imprisoned terrorists.

Palestinians are also protesting the removal of words such as "occupation" and "checkpoints" from the new textbooks.

If true, the proposed changes to the Palestinian textbooks should be welcomed as a positive development towards ending anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian schools, including those belonging to UNRWA. In light of the widespread Palestinian protests and threats, however, it is doubtful whether UNRWA will succeed in making the proposed revisions.

For more on this go to  https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10122/palestinians-poison-children

Without Israel, there would have been no University Education in PA areas.

(With thanks to Charles Abelson of TbT -Truth be Told)

So the Israel hating crowd now wish to boycott Israel`s academic institutions. A reminder: the country that should be boycotted is Jordan who illegally occupied Judea and Samaria in 1948, renaming the area the "West Bank". During this period, the Jordanians were careful and shrewd enough to forbid and prevent the establishment of any university in the West Bank. Yes, in 1967, when Israel regained Judea and Samaria, there were no universities in the West Bank. NOT ONE!

In 1970, Deputy Israeli Premier Yigal Allon, who was then Minister of Education, announced that he had approved the establishment of the first university in Ramallah in principle when approached by West Bank Arab leaders, including Dr. Salem Nashef, Dean of the Tulkarem Agricultural School.

Paradoxically, it was the Arab Jordanians who attempted to prevent the establishment of the first university on the West Bank. In April 1971, Sheikh Mohammad Ali Jaabari, the Mayor of Hebron, even needed to warn the Jordanian government not to interfere with plans by West Bank Arab leaders to establish an Arab university on the West Bank. Jaabari spoke in reply to a charge made by the Jordanian Education Minister in Amman that “all those who take part in planning the university are traitors and collaborators with the Israelis.”

The universities in the West Bank enjoyed the cooperation of the Israeli universities without which they could not have been developed. In 1973, Dr. Nashef,  as a guest of Tel Aviv University’s “Shiloah” Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, reported that Arab education on the West Bank had expanded under the Israeli administration since 1967. According to Dr. Nashef, 90 percent of children between 6-15 were receiving an elementary education, a much higher percentage than under the Jordanian regime. He further said that the number of matriculants under Israeli administration has risen since then from 3,500 to 14,500.

Stupid matriculants. Were they not aware that they were supposed to boycott Israeli administered education?

Under Israeli guidance, by 1993, when the Oslo Agreement establishing the Palestinian Authority was signed, there were 14 universities, 18  colleges and 20 community colleges in the West Bank.

If the boycotters, like the Jordanians, had their way, there would today still not have been any academic institutions in the West Bank. Israel`s positive contribution to the Palestinians generally and to higher education specifically continuous to be ignored by the Israel haters, best described as the new obstructionist Jordanians, who themselves contribute nothing to the Palestinians.