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Newton students should read the works of distinguished scholars. Instead, students are exposed to the
dogma peddled by anti-Israel activists at teacher workshops, to fringe academics or to error-prone
pages pulled from the Internet. One such handout from a website called Flashpoints identified
Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine (a non-existent state) and incorrectly labeled Tel Aviv as the capital
of Israel (its actually Jerusalem).
Palestinian terrorism is downplayed, while rare instances of Israeli violence are highlighted. The first
terrorist act inside Israel and the West Bank specifically mentioned is the 1994 attack on Palestinian
worshipers by Baruch Goldstein. The murders of 37 Israelis in the coastal road massacre in March
1978 and of 26 Israeli schoolchildren and teachers in Maalot in May 1974 are not mentioned. Students
are not told that while Goldstein is reviled in Israel, Palestinian perpetrators of terror attacks, like
terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, are held up as role models to be emulated by Palestinian children.
Students are told that the Oslo Accords meant that the two sides were no longer claiming that the other
did not have the right to exist as a state of peoples on that land. Students are not informed that at the
Fatah Party Congress in 2009 participants cheered as Palestinian Authority officials vowed never to
recognize the Jewish State and reaffirmed their commitment to armed struggle.
A complete and accurate account of the conflict should not be sacrificed on the altar of evenhandedness
and the refusal to take sides. With all the upheaval in the Middle East and its impact on America,
parents unfortunately cannot count on schools and town officials to ensure that accurate and quality
instruction occurs. Parents need to make their voices heard so that their children arent fed Pollyannaish
revisions of reality.
Steven Stotsky is a senior researcher for the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in
Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA). Any opinions expressed are solely his own.