Iconic British musician Roger Waters launched an education resource on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Dublin this week, an Irish solidarity group said.The home page of Sadaka includes The Map That Lies, just so you know what Irish students are in for.
Mr Waters told a packed audience in Dublin that he "wholeheartedly endorsed" a teaching pack entitled 'Palestine & Israel – How will there be a Just Peace?', which was co-produced by Sadaka – the Ireland Palestine Alliance.
The resource is the first curriculum approved teaching module on Israel/Palestine in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and provides a critical analysis of the conflict in a context of human rights.
"I have studied the education pack... and it is extremely well laid out, extremely informative and eloquent in a way that kids will understand," Waters said.
Marie Crawley, chair of Sadaka, said that Waters' endorsement of the pack is "immeasurable in its importance and will be hugely influential with young people around the country as we encourage schools to use this resource."
The curriculum itself pretends to be even-handed. It is pretty much what Israel haters would consider even-handed, without actually subjecting themselves to the opinions of mainstream Israelis.
Here is how the history of the land looks to Sadaka, and now to the Irish school system (p. 16). along with my notes about how literally every timeline event suffers from either huge bias or gigantic omissions.
1897: Growth of Zionist movement - the Basle Declaration (1897) which was agreed at the first Zionist Congress, declared that the main objective of Zionism was the “colonisation of Palestine by Jewish agricultural and industrial workers”.
Nothing about the ancient nations of Israel and Judea. Nothing about the Bible, the Patriarchs, King David, the Temple. Nothing about Jews longing to return to Zion for millennia. But they do take out one sentence of the Zionist Congress that uses the word "colonisation," which sounds a lot like "colonialism" even though they have completely different meanings.
1917: The Balfour Declaration in which Britain stated that they would support a homeland for Jewish people. At this time the population of Palestine was approximately 90% Palestinian and 10% Jewish
No, it was 90% Arab, not "Palestinian." Jews were called Palestinians then, more often than the Arabs were. This curriculum doesn't mention that. So the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, the Palestine Post, the Palestine Exhibit at the World's Fair all sound, to these students, like they were run by Arabs. They weren't. They were all run by Palestinian Jews.
1930s: Jewish immigration to Palestine increased greatly after WW1, especially in the 1930s. By the end of the 1930s, Jews made up nearly 30% of the population.
Arab immigration, especially illegal Arab immigration also increased dramatically because of the increased standards of living that the Jews brought.
Not a word about the Arab rebellion that killed thousands in the 1930s. Nothing about the British methods to stop Arab disturbances, like executions and collective punishments that far exceed anything Israel could ever be accused of doing. In fact, the British Mandate itself is essentially ignored! So are the massacres of Jews by Arabs in 1929 and earlier.
1942-1945: The Holocaust takes place in Europe: 6 million Jews and up to half a million Roma Gypsies were killed by the Nazis.
The mention of Gypsies seems deliberately included to minimize the goal of the Holocaust - to destroy all Jews in the world. After all, they don't mention homosexuals.
The Holocaust began before 1942.
Nothing about the British White Paper that limited immigration (to appease Arabs after the 1936-39 revolt) and the hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives lost because they had no safe haven to escape to. This is critical background information and it is ignored.
1945: World War 2 ends
1945-47: Greatly increased Jewish immigration from Europe after WW 2 into Palestine
Immigration that was illegal because the British tried to prevent it, breaking their promises from the Balfour Declaration.
1947: UN partition plan - granting 56% of the area to a Jewish state, even though they only comprised 1/3 of the population and owned less than 6% of the land. Outbreak of war between Israelis and Palestinians.
The White Paper also limited the ability of Jews to buy land, which is why Jews owned so little.
Arabs also privately owned little, perhaps 20% of the land. The false implication is that Arabs owned 94%.
Most of the Jewish state under the UN partition plan was desert.
The Arabs didn't accept partition, and the Palestinian Arabs started massacring Jewish civilians literally hours after the partition plan passed.
For the most part, the war wasn't between Israelis and Palestinians, but between Jews and the Arab states. Most of the Palestinian Arabs fled before seeing any fighting as Arab armies attempted to destroy Israel.
1948: Proclamation of the State of Israel. 750,000 Palestinian refugees fled homes. West Bank and East Jerusalem came under Jordanian control. Gaza Strip came under Egyptian control.
Jordan expelled literally every Jew from its occupied lands, including Jerusalem, where Jews had lived continuously for well over a thousand years. Its annexation of the West Bank was considered illegal by virtually the entire world.
1948-1951: In 1948 all restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine were lifted. Between 1948 -1951, 700,000 Jews arrived from Europe, including two thirds of the Jews displaced after World War 2.
Not a word about the 800,000 Jews who were expelled or forced to flee Arab countries, as this sham of a curriculum attempts to make Israel look like it is filled with only European Jews.
Nothing about the founding of the PLO in 1964, about terror attacks before 1967, about the constant state of war between Israel and her neighbors, about the Arab League boycott of Jews (later Israel,) about daily Arab incitement to destroy Israel.
1967: ‘Six-Day’ War - Israel occupies Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians in those areas living under military rule. Israel began to build settlements in Palestinian areas.
When exactly did those areas go from being Egyptian/Jordanian to "Palestinian"? A little sleight of hand here.
Nothing about the wave of Palestinian Arab terror against the world in the early 1970s.
Nothing about the Yom Kippur War. Nothing about peace between Israel and Egypt, including Israel giving back some 90% of the land controlled by Israel for peace. Nothing about how Judea and Samaria are the cradle of Jewish civilization. Nothing about how Jews were returning to areas that they lived in a mere 19 years before.
Nothing about the increase of life expectancy and decrease of infant mortality under "occupation." Nothing about how Jews and Arabs coexisted before the first intifada.
1993: Oslo Accords – Palestinian Authority was created, with limited powers. Israel still occupying West Bank and Gaza.
Nothing about how Arafat spurned the Clinton parameters and chose instead to start a terror war that ended up killing thousands. Not a word about suicide bombings or terrorism - even before the second intifada.
2005: Withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza strip. Israel still controlling all access to area.
Of course, Egypt shares a border with Gaza.
Nothing about rocket attacks from Gaza.
2009: A ban on new Israeli settlements in the West Bank was agreed
A ten month freeze on new construction that was never agreed to be permanent. It was meant to re-start negotiations, and the PLO refused to negotiate until the last minute so they could storm out when the deadline passed.
2010: The ban on Israeli settlements in the West Bank ends. Palestinians now only have access to less than one-third of the West Bank territory.
Nothing about how tens of thousands work in Israel - or in the Jewish communities in the territories. Nothing about PLO intransigence.
The rest of the curriculum is just as bad, with highlights of "good Jews" like Jeff Halper and nothing about any Israeli human rights.
The entire coursework is filled with one-sided pseduo-facts and startling omissions that shows it to be simple propaganda masquerading as a school curriculum.
The fact that the Irish school system accepts this sham as legitimate shows how ignorant Europeans are about the facts and how willing they are to accept any anti-Israel narrative.
UPDATE: I made a poster about this, pointing out the irony that a songwriter who rails against "thought control" in the classroom is guilty of exactly that.
UPDATE 2: Israellycool also looked at the curriculum. Besides not mentioning terrorism, the entire pack doesn't mention Hamas once - except in the glossary, which no one would see because it isn't mentioned in the text!