MK Orlev tells PM to Give Obama a Lesson on PA School Syllabus

INN Staff Orlev Sends Obama a Lesson

MK Zevulun Orlev, (The Jewish Home), who chairs the Knesset Education Committee, turned to Prime Minister Netanyahu with a request that when meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, he bring up the subject of the incitement to hatred that fills PA textbooks. He asked the PM to tell Obama the conclusions of the Knesset Committee’s Monday discussion on the subject.. When the curriculum is based on a sequence that starts with Holocaust denial, and goes on to teach that Israel’s existence is not legitimate and that a violent struggle must be waged against Israel, there is not much chance of a Palestinian leader completing a peace process.”, Orlev said at the meeting.

“If one’s cultural milieu does not allow for discourse, it is no surprise that when former PM’s Olmert and Barak each offered the Palestinians everything and anything, they still refused to make peace. Their educational framework doesn’t allow them to consider peace and the recognition of Israel as a legitimate neighbor as options.”

Ido Mizrachi of the SE-IMPACT NGO reported to the committee that the Muslim Wakf’s textbooks are replete with antisemitic expressions and calls to fight and kill Jews. The particular textbooks he discusses are used by over 1,000 pupils.

Lieutenant Colonel Eviatar from the unit headed by the Coordinator of Activities for Judea and Samaria told the committee that all of the schools in Judea and Samaria, whether in areas A,B,or C, use the same textbooks.

MK Orlev asked him: “Do you simply keep track of the textbooks or do you demand that they be changed? Who is in charge of seeing to this change?” Eviatar replied that his office has turned to all the relevant agencies in the security forces and Foreign Ministry.

“The PM’s office, the FM’s office and the office for Strategic Affairs did not come to this meeting even though they were invited,” MK Orlev noted. “They are expected to come to the next meeting. The committee also heard various representatives whose reports show that the common denominator in PA textbooks is deligitimizing Israel, rejecting the connection between the Jewish people and this land, teaching hatred, violent struggle, jihad, shaheedism, and erasing Israel from school maps. These findings will make it impossible to achieve peace now and not ever and Obama has to know that.”