LEARNING EACH OTHER’S HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: …

1 LEARNING EACH other S HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: palestinians and IsraelisThis is a preliminary draft of the English translationThis project and publication of this booklet havebeen made possible by:The Public Affairs Offices of The United States Embassy, Tel Aviv, The United States Consulate General, Wye River PRIME PublicationPeace Research Institute in the Middle Box 7 Beit Jallah, PNAM arch 2003 LEARNING EACH other S HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: palestinians and IsraelisSami Adwan Co-director of PRIME; Project coordinatorDan Bar-On Co-director of PRIME.

2 Project coordinatorAdnan Musallam Consultant, Palestinian HistoryEyal Naveh Consultant, israeli HistoryShoshana Steinberg Observer and evaluatorLinda Livni Administrative AssistantTeachersTeachersTeachersTeacher sTeachersLeiana Abu-FarhaKhalil BadenNiv KeidarEshel KlinhouseSara MaorShai MiselmanRula MuslehSunia RajabeAbdel Halim TumaiziYousuf TumaiziNaomi VeredRachel ZamirInternational participantsInternational participantsInternational participantsInternational participantsInternational participantsHuweida ArrafMichelle GawercAdena Scytron-WalkerAdam ShapiroJessica

3 WeinbergTranslatorsTranslatorsTranslator sTranslatorsTranslatorsShimon Ben-Naim Language editor; Hebrew Arabic translationYoav SternArabic Hebrew translationINTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTIONINTRO DUCTIONINTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTIONS choolchildren studying history in times of war orconflict learn only one side of the story theirown which is, of course, considered to be the right one. Teaching is often doctrinaire, its pur-pose to justify one side while presenting a nega-tive portrait of the other . One side s hero is theother side s informs us that textbooks usually focuson the conflict, with its human losses and suffer-ing, while periods of peace or coexistence betweenthe two sides are neglected.

4 In a certain respectteachers become the nation s cultural emissariesand are expected to emphasize the goodness oftheir own side versus the evil of the believe that teachers can be trained to be em-issaries for peace-building, to teach both sides nar-ratives and to allow their pupils to question whatthey learn regarding both narratives. A peaceagreement, of course, makes it easier for the teach-ers to do so, for in the normal course of eventsnations then change their educational curricula toreflect a culture of peace rather than one of PRIME we appreciate the importance of educa-tion and school textbooks in peace-building, andwe are well aware that the situation between Pal-estinians and Israelis these days is not a peacefulone.

5 Therefore, developing a booklet that includesthe Palestinian and israeli narratives of three im-portant HISTORICAL events the Balfour Declaration,the 1948 war and the 1987 Palestinian Intifada has not been an easy this project, six high school history teachers fromeach side worked together to develop the twonarratives, which were translated into Arabic orHebrew so the booklet could be published in bothlanguges. Our purpose was not to criticize or tochange the narratives, nor is it realistic at this stageto develop a single, joint booklet gives both teachers and pupils theopportunity to learn the other s narratives.

6 It wasdesigned so that on each page, in between thePalestinian and israeli narratives, there is space forpupils to write their own comments. In December2002 the teachers who helped develop the projectbegan teaching the narratives to their 9th and 10thgrade know that this process is not without prob-lems or difficulties, and consider it to be an experi-ment in education. We will follow-up and draw con-clusions about the success of the project by not-ing the reactions and comments of pupils andteachers. This data will enable us to recommendthe future development and revision of school text-books and teaching regard history as an attempt to build a betterfuture by looking under every rock rather thanrather than throwing them at each other .

7 We hopeyou teachers and pupils will share our visionand join us in undertaking the Adwan, Dan Bar-On, Adnan MusallamSami Adwan, Dan Bar-On, Adnan MusallamSami Adwan, Dan Bar-On, Adnan MusallamSami Adwan, Dan Bar-On, Adnan MusallamSami Adwan, Dan Bar-On, Adnan Musallamand Eyal Navehand Eyal Navehand Eyal Navehand Eyal Navehand Eyal NavehYousuf Tumaizi (1957 2002) was born in the vil-lage of Idna. He was arrestedmore than 20 times andspent several years in Israeliprisons. He had BA in became a peace activistand took part in projects andactivities the object of whichwas to build peace, under-standing and died on August 19, 2002,the first day of the thirdseminar for this project,which he had planned to at-tend.

8 He is survived by a wifeand five children, the young-est just four months old atthe time of his the very beginning hewas a most enthusiastic sup-porter of this the Balfour DeclarationFrom the Balfour DeclarationFrom the Balfour DeclarationFrom the Balfour DeclarationFrom the Balfour Declarationto the first White Paperto the first White Paperto the first White Paperto the first White Paperto the first White PaperIntroductionIntroductionIntroductio nIntroductionIntroductionThe birth of the Zionist movementThe birth of the Zionist movementThe birth of the Zionist movementThe

9 Birth of the Zionist movementThe birth of the Zionist movementZionism, the Jewish national movement, was born inthe 19th century when the ideology embodied in theEnlightenment was disseminated in the European Jew-ish community. These new ideas planted the firstseeds of Jewish nationalism; the subsequent birth ofZionism was the result of several factors:1) The rise of modern anti-Semitism a deeply-rootedand complicated mixture of traditional religioushatred augmented by scientific racism which cat-egorized Jews as a depraved and pernicious ) The disappointment of western European Jewswith the emancipation which pledged that the po-sition of Jews in society would equal that of theChristians.

10 The Jews were discouraged when it be-came clear that in many instances there was equal-ity in name only. Discrimination ) New European nationalist movements such asthose appearing in Italy and Germany inspired simi-lar aspirations among the ) An important element was the longing for Zion,an integral aspect of Jewish religious and nationalidentity throughout history. This longing stemmedfrom the biblical promise that the land of Israelwas given to the people of Israel by the God ofIsrael, and on memories of those HISTORICAL eraswhen the people of Israel lived independently intheir land.