Huge gulf in Mid-East history narratives

If you look at a map in an Israeli school text book you are unlikely to find the Green Line, the ceasefire line which until 1967 separated Israel from the Palestinian territories. Israel stretches to the border with Jordan. It is as if the Palestinians don't exist.

At a girls high school in Ramallah in the West Bank a civics class concentrates on the birth of Palestinian nationalism. Asked what they know about the history of the Jewish people on the other side of the security barrier, few show much interest or understanding.

In the 1980s a new generation of Israeli historians started writing about some of the more brutal aspects of their country's origins including expulsions and violence against Arab villagers.

But most of that still hasn't made it into the mainstream narrative.

And today, young people on either side of the conflict have little chance to find out more about each other's present lives let alone the past.

Apart from a few official school exchanges youngsters from the two sides have virtually no contact at all.