MKs okay controversial civics text, shield book from critical eyes
Committee still won’t release book that media reports say highlights Israel’s Jewish identity and downplays its democratic character
Tamar Pileggi is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
A Knesset committee on Monday approved for the mandatory curriculum a controversial civics textbook that left-wing MKs and other critics say highlights Israel’s Jewish identity while downplaying its democratic character.
Members of the Special Committee for the Transparency and Accessibility of Government Information authorized the new high school textbook for a period of five years and decided it would not be released to the public for review prior to its publication, Channel 2 reported.
The book first made headlines last month after reports quoted sections that claimed most terror attacks were carried out by Israeli Arabs, and that downplay the role of right-wing incitement in the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Reports also said that it replaced a segment from the Declaration of Independence with a Hebrew prayer.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett has maintained that the criticisms did not reflect the book accurately, and described the reportage as “substandard journalism.”
Last month, Channel 2 quoted from an 11-page letter written by Prof. Tamar Hermann, a political science expert who worked on the book, describing the work as “educational negligence.”
Among other criticisms, Hermann wrote that the book rejects the narrative that Rabin’s murder resulted in part from right-wing incitement and suggests that most of the recent terror attacks in the current wave of violence were caused by Arab citizens of Israel.
“It is a false historical account that serves the government,” she wrote.
Also in January, Haaretz published a seven-page letter by copy editor Yehuda Yaari, who quoted large swaths of the book he had recommended to be changed. The passages in Yaari’s letter backed up Hermann’s claims.
“It is scandalous. It is morally and factually wrong,” Yaari said.
The Education Ministry defended the textbook, saying the quotes cited by the media were not reliable. In December, the ministry promised that the content of the textbook would be made available to the public for review before the distribution of the book in the schools.
A number of left-wing lawmakers have vocally objected to the book’s publication and argued that under the guidance of Bennett — of the right-wing Jewish Home party — the national curriculum increasingly presents a religiously skewed view of Israeli civic life and an inaccurate narrative of the county’s history.
