In the Israeli-Palestinian public relations wars, it’s conventional wisdom that the textbooks used in schools in the West Bank and Gaza breed hatred for Israel. “They have textbooks that say, ‘If there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left?” Newt Gingrich said when he was running for the Republican presidential nomination. “These textbooks don't give Palestinian children an education, they give them an indoctrination," Hillary Clinton said in 2007, when she was a New York senator, based on criticism from an Israeli media watchdog after the Palestinians produced their own full curriculum of text books for grades 1 through 12 for the first time. In 2011, an institute known as IMPACT-SE issued a report with similar findings.
But what if it’s a lot more complicated—and less one-sided—than the vehement criticism suggests? There’s been some evidence of this for years. In 2004, a study by an Israeli and Palestinian researcher of 13 Israeli textbooks and nine Palestinian ones found flaws on both sides relating to political messages, the omission of the other’s point of view, and the presentation of maps. Other debunkers have pointed out that the original accusations were based on textbooks from Egypt or Jordan or incorrect translations.
