Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Elder of ZiyonSeveral Tennessee parents are outraged over a textbook distributed in their children’s high school “human geography” class that suggest Hamas, Hezbollah and the PLO are political parties.
One statement from the 10th edition of “The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography” textbook was most alarming to one of the parents, Hugh Nemets, who is Jewish.
“If a Palestinian suicide bomber kills several dozen Israeli teenagers in a Jerusalem restaurant, is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against Israeli government policies and army actions?” the book asks.
Nemets said, “It smells of anti-Semitism to me. It opened the door to legitimizing terror,” Mr. Nemets told Nashville’s News 2.
He is one of 10 Williamson County parents who voiced their concerns at a board meeting earlier last week.
A Williamson County school district spokesperson told the station that the book was selected from a list given to them by the State Department of Education.
Parents concerned about the textbooks can submit a formal written complaint. The school district told Nashville’s News 2 it has not yet received any such complaint.
WKRN, Nashville News, Nashville Weather and Sports
Glancing at an online version of sections from the book, I see other issues. It has a ton of information about Islam but very little about Judaism.
It includes a few problematic questions:
The Western Wall in Jerusalem remains an effective boundary between: | |||||||||
Two problems: it doesn't describe the Kotel at all as to its importance, and it implies that Jews have no business on their holiest site.
Another:
Using this diffusion map of religion, the hearths of the three religions illustrated in this map are | |||||||||
"Palestine"? Is that where Judaism and Christianity came from? Funny, I don't think Jesus ever used that term.
I wish that full textbooks were online - I'm sure that there is a ton of bias that is evident, but it takes a lot of effort to find it.
(h/t Einfal)
