Friday, January 24, 2014
Elder of Ziyon
Student Worksheet:With pictures of a "Jewish man" and "Arab girl."
Judaism - was the first but is the least.
Who has the right to the land?
Imagine you ask a Jew and an Arab about who has right to the land now called Israel. Write what you think they would answer and how they would justify their opinion.
Why is the girl going to blow herself and others in the air?
The textbook, which was published in 2004, is asking kids to justify terrorism which hit its peak around the time it was written.
The person who found this was an Arab Swedish girl named Sara Bessa when she saw her younger brother bring this home from school.
She's upset because it stereotypes Arabs as terrorists.
"There is such Islamophobia here. It's almost like she'll defend her exploding with a Qur'anic quote that does not exist.... At the same time, they chose to use a girl instead of an Arab man. It says 'check out how dangerous Arabs are, even their small children are dangerous and satanic.' There is no room to discuss about how this girl might want peace."
She has a point - the textbook was stereotyping Arabs, but it wasn't saying that Arab terrorism is wrong. It was sympathetic to their suicide bombings. It was not trying to demonize the Palestinian Arabs, but to understand and justify their hate!
I found what appears to be the textbook online, along with a similar section on Islam. That version does not appear to have this page in it, so maybe they took out the terrorism reference in newer editions. (Any Swedish speakers that want to analyze this textbook, please do so.)
I do not know exactly what is meant by "Judaism was the first but is the least." My guess is that it was the first of the major monotheistic religion but it has the least adherents nowadays. Maybe I'm being charitable, but textbooks do try to be politically correct.
(h/t aaahconcept)
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