Composing educational materials for children on world events
requires simplifying some political complexities. The recent efforts of two major news agencies to provide
kids' primers on the Mideast conflict, however, go beyond oversimplification to outright distortion, encouraging
impressionable young people to absorb, as elementary truths, the great
myths of Israelis as land-hungry war-mongers, and Palestinians as
their hapless victims.
CBBC
The BBC has a popular online site called
'Children's BBC'
(CBBC), a colorful news and education portal for kids and their
teachers.
CBBC has a
special section on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The homepage first explains 'Who is
Fighting?':
The troubles
in the Middle East are mainly between the Jewish Israelis who live
in Israel, and the Arab Muslims, who used to own the land Israel now
controls. *
So from the very outset, children are informed that at the heart of
this conflict
is the supposed 'fact' that Israel 'took' Arab Muslim land. This is, of course,
patently false. At the time of UN partition in 1947, more than 70 percent of the
area that would
become Israel were public lands officially held by the
British Mandatory
authorities. (An additional 8.6 percent of lands were purchased
outright by Jewish organizations or individuals.) Even in the
present-day West Bank, most lands were not owned by local Arabs at
that time, but were rather deemed
'crown lands' or held by absentee landowners.
(If one wishes to go back further to, say, the
Roman era depicted in Mel Gibson's new film, one should notice that no Palestinians
and no Muslims even existed at the time.)
Back to the 20th
century, here's another history lesson from CBBC:
In 1947, the United Nations voted to divide Palestine into two
states: Arab and Jewish. The Jews accepted the plan and declared independence for Israel on
14 May 1948.
But the Arabs rejected it, saying it was unfair they didn't get as
much land, even though there were more of them.
The historical record clearly shows that the Arab Higher Council
and the Arab League rejected the UN partition plan not because
of 'unfair land distribution,' but rather because it created a Jewish
state, an entity they never accepted. Moreover,
75% of
the land allocated to Jews was barren desert (see this
map),
so in terms of inhabitable lands, the Arabs were offered at
least twice as much under the UN plan.
Beyond 1947, more
historical distortion from CBBC:
There were other wars in
1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982 - and each time Israel gained more land.
In fact, lands acquired in 1956, 1973 and
1982 (Lebanon) have all since been fully returned, but this receives
no mention in a section that paints Israeli history as one big land
grab.
Finally, CBBC misrepresents the failings of the Oslo Accords and Camp
David:
A new set of peace talks broke down in summer 2000 because the
Israelis and Arabs could not agree on the future of Jerusalem - which
both sides claim is their own capital.
*
Kids should know that the breakdown at Camp David was not caused by disagreement
over Jerusalem. In July 2000, Ehud Barak
offered a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its
capital. Yassir Arafat rejected the offer and launched a relentless campaign of terror.
As American envoy
Dennis Ross concluded, "Chairman Arafat could not accept Camp
David...because when the conflict ends, the cause that defines Arafat
also ends."
KNIGHT RIDDER'S
KID NEWS
On March 7, Knight Ridder (through their
joint
subsidiary with the Chicago Tribune) distributed to dozens of
American newspapers a Sunday educational supplement called
Kid News,
inserted alongside the Sunday comics.
The lead article (see scanned version
here) is an effort to explain
the history and status of the Palestinian people to American children.
But the very title ― "Where is 'Palestine'?"
― presupposes the existence of an Arab state that has
never existed. The distortion extends into the lead sentence:
Since the end of World War I, Arabs
and Jews have disagreed over boundary lines in the area of the world
that was ancient Palestine, with bloody and fatal results.
'Ancient Palestine' suggests today's Palestinians merely want to
return to an earlier, 'ancient' state, yet today's Palestinians have
no relation to the 2nd century Roman entity referred to here. (The article later acknowledges that
"technically, Palestine is not a country," leaving one wondering why
they previously suggested is was.) Then Knight Ridder
informs
kids that this is "Why they are still fighting":
The Palestinians are still pushing
for an independent Arab nation of Palestine. Cease-fires have been
declared over the years, but the fighting continues.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not
'pushing for an independent Arab nation,' but rather agitating for as many
Jewish deaths as possible, as well as the complete destruction of Israel. As is, Israel comes off
in this narrative as the cruel
'denier' of Palestinian independence, a faulty history lesson indeed.
In
fact, terror groups (and their indoctrination of Palestinian children
to 'martyrdom') do not appear at all in Knight Ridder's
overview of Palestinians, which
includes two pictures of cute, young Palestinian schoolchildren. The
American child reader is left wondering why these
children's lives are so difficult (if not for Israeli 'stubbornness'), and is left uninformed of the
culture of
hate that inculcates them on a daily basis.
Finally, in
describing Israel's security fence, all of six words are granted in
its defense, while the Palestinian position receives over seventy
words, plus a emotive picture of an Arab farmer.
* * *
BBC and Knight Ridder have an important
opportunity to produce materials for children to better understand the Mideast conflict. But by distorting the
history of the region, ignoring the legacy of Arab rejection of
Israel, denying the reason for peace failings, and omitting
Palestinian terrorism, these news agencies do a great disservice not
only to Israel, but to our young people, the decision-makers of
tomorrow.
Comments to Children's BBC :
click here
Comments to Knight Ridder's Kid News:
krt-onepages@krtinfo.com
*
UPDATE:
In response to this
HonestReporting communique, BBC has changed the wording in two sections of their
CBBC Mideast primer: The
lead page no longer claims that
"Arab Muslims used to own the land Israel now controls," but rather that
"at the heart of the conflict is a dispute over land and borders." And the
"peace progress" page has eliminated the previous reference to Jerusalem as
the source of the 2000 breakdown.
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.HonestReporting.com
