Israel: Principal faces hearing over History textbook
An Israeli high school principal has been summoned for a hearing by the country's Education Ministry for using a textbook that presents the Palestinian narrative about events surrounding Israel's creation in 1948, officials said Friday.
The controversy at the school in southern Israel reflects how charged the events surrounding the Jewish state's birth remain more than six decades later. Israeli Jews celebrate 1948 as the year of their independence, while Palestinians and Israel's Arab citizens mourn what they call "al-naqba" — the catastrophe — the year of their defeat and mass exodus.
The principal of the Shaar Hanegev high school has been told to report next week to clarify with Education Ministry officials his school's use of an unapproved textbook, ministry spokesman Hagit Cohen told The Associated Press.
The textbook in question gives the Israeli narrative of the country's founding next to that of the Palestinians, with blank space in the middle for students to insert their own thoughts, according to a report this week in the daily Haaretz.
An unnamed teacher at the school told Haaretz that the ministry instructed the school to pull the book two days after the academic year began this month.
Cohen, the ministry spokeswoman, said the book was rejected by the Education Ministry five years ago, not during the term of the current Israeli government. The ministry's policy has always been to summon principals for clarification whenever unauthorized materials are used, she said....
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The controversy at the school in southern Israel reflects how charged the events surrounding the Jewish state's birth remain more than six decades later. Israeli Jews celebrate 1948 as the year of their independence, while Palestinians and Israel's Arab citizens mourn what they call "al-naqba" — the catastrophe — the year of their defeat and mass exodus.
The principal of the Shaar Hanegev high school has been told to report next week to clarify with Education Ministry officials his school's use of an unapproved textbook, ministry spokesman Hagit Cohen told The Associated Press.
The textbook in question gives the Israeli narrative of the country's founding next to that of the Palestinians, with blank space in the middle for students to insert their own thoughts, according to a report this week in the daily Haaretz.
An unnamed teacher at the school told Haaretz that the ministry instructed the school to pull the book two days after the academic year began this month.
Cohen, the ministry spokeswoman, said the book was rejected by the Education Ministry five years ago, not during the term of the current Israeli government. The ministry's policy has always been to summon principals for clarification whenever unauthorized materials are used, she said....