Palestinian education ministry claims Israel published fake textbooks

Palestinian textbook teaches how to pray

I reported on Monday that Palestinians were complaining that their new textbooks, released with much fanfare late last month, included many mistakes on maps and implied that Ramallah was the capital of "Palestine."

The Palestinian Education Ministry responded by claiming that Israel created these textbooks and somehow infiltrated them into Palestinian schools!

The Palestinian ministry of education Wednesday condemned the issuing of fake Palestinian history school books that contained false information on Palestine.

The ministry said in a statement that Israel issued school books that resembled official Palestinian school books, but included false information such as Jerusalem being the capital of Israel, adding that the move was an attempt to distort the Palestinian national identity.

However, it was unclear if there was a specific Israeli company that was behind the publishing of the books.

The ministry warned against using the Israeli-issued copies of the Palestinian school books, while calling on all schools in Jerusalem, teachers, parents, and students to be aware of the falsified school books.

So those nefarious Jews spent hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars to create fake Palestinian textbooks!

What makes this even more interesting is that the minister of education, Tharwat Zaid, originally blamed the mistakes on editing and printing errors, and said that the same thing happens in other countries, and that it would be corrected. But as the complaints piled up, he apparently decided that saying that Israel was behind the problem is a better response.

The ministry of education did teach an important lesson to its students: when faced with a major embarrassing mistake, blame the Jews.

The new curriculum is not only being criticized for its allegedly Zionist content, but also because it is misogynist:

Women are depicted in first- and second-grade Islamic Education textbooks as witches and sorceresses -- and this is really catching flak.

One image features a witch under the Quran verse that reads: "I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the accursed." Another image of a witch is accompanied by a verse from the Quran that refers to the "evil of malignant witchcraft."

Critics say that associating women with witchcraft is extremely disrespectful and offensive towards Palestinian women.

"Children in grades 1 and 2 are being taught that women are witches or hags," they protested. "The lesson they are being taught is that the first half of society is Muslim, while the second half is infidel."

It is unclear whether this is being blamed on Israel as well.

It is also worth emphasizing that the Palestinian Arab curriculum mandates "Islamic education" in public schools, and UNRWA teaches Islam in its schools when it uses this curriculum, violating its own UN standards by hiring Islamic studies teachers and teaching Islam.

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