{"id":116852,"date":"2024-11-06T17:00:26","date_gmt":"2024-11-06T15:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=116852"},"modified":"2024-11-06T13:31:45","modified_gmt":"2024-11-06T11:31:45","slug":"06-00-109","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=116852","title":{"rendered":"Irish School Textbooks Disparage Judaism, Defame Israel, Watchdog Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Irish School Textbooks Disparage Judaism, Defame Israel, Watchdog Finds<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Dion J. Pierre<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Demonstrators wearing masks depicting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris hold signs, in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, in Dublin, Ireland on Oct. 7, 2024. Photo: Clodagh Kilcoyne via Reuters Connect<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

School textbooks in Ireland foster antisemitic hatred, downplaying the horrors of the Holocaust and portraying Israel as the obstructive party in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to a new report.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (Impact-se), an Israeli education watchdog group, on Monday released the report, titled \u201cEuropean Textbooks: Ireland Review<\/a>,\u201d which revealed negative stereotypes and distortions of Israel, Judaism, and Jewish history. The findings were unveiled amid a surge in anti-Israel animus in Ireland and even the promotion of antisemitic conspiracies by government officials. Against this backdrop, Impact-se found that Irish textbooks authors have stuffed their works with content that is likely to further fuel such an environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

In one example cited by the report, a history textbook for eleventh graders describes Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi concentration camp in Poland where 1 million Jews were murdered during World War II, as a \u201cprisoner of war camp\u201d rather than an \u201cextermination,\u201d \u201cconcentration,\u201d or \u201cdeath camp.\u201d Such a description \u201cminimizes the unique and horrific nature of the Holocaust and the systematic extermination carried out there,\u201d according to Impact-se.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other textbooks \u2014 including\u00a0Inspire \u2013 Wisdom of the World<\/em>, a religious studies book distributed to students as young as 12 years old \u2014 Judaism is described as a war mongering religion which \u201cbelieves that violence and war are sometimes necessary to promote justice.\u201d Christianity and Islam are more favorably judged as aiming for \u201cpeace and justice\u201d and, in the latter, resorting to war only in \u201cself-defense, to defend Islam but not to spread Islam and to protect people who are oppressed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The same book goes on to negate the charitable endeavors in which Jewish civil society organizations engage to ease the plight of the marginalized and poor, omitting them entirely from a section discussing efforts to combat homelessness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn this chapter, we are going to look at how some Christians and Muslims have responded to this issue by putting their faith into action. We are also going to look at how some non-religious people and organizations respond to homelessness,\u201d\u00a0Inspire<\/em>\u00a0says before continuing to show a series of graphics which present Christians, Muslims, and secular organizations as altruistic and conscientious.<\/span><\/p>\n

Irish curricula is perhaps most aggressive in discussing Israel and the Palestinians, according to Impact-se. Citing\u00a0Inspire\u00a0<\/em>again, the report revealed that the textbook\u2019s authors chose to propagate the misleading claim that Jesus Christ lived in \u201cPalestine,\u201d a piece of disinformation that has been trafficked by anti-Zionist activists both to diminish Jesus\u2019 Jewish heritage and deny the existence of a Jewish state in antiquity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHistorical references to Jesus living in \u2018Palestine\u2019 without appropriate context can contribute to narratives that challenge Israel\u2019s legitimacy and undermine the Jewish historical connection to the land,\u201d wrote Impact-se, which also noted that a textbook for younger children on the story of Jesus included a comic strip with the words, \u201cSome people did not like Jesus.\u201d The people shown\u00a0 in the comic are visibly Jewish, wearing religious clothing such as a kippah.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis portrayal aligns with antisemitic stereotypes that have wrongly blamed Jews collectively for the death of Jesus,\u201d the report stated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Impact-se noted that\u00a0Inspire<\/em>\u00a0uses the New Testament parable of the Good Samaritan to accuse Jews of lacking concern for non-Jews and of oppressing Palestinians for believing that God favors Jews above other groups \u2014 baseless claims which the text explicitly applies to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Having attacked Israel with theological arguments, it moves to the realm of the secular, framing the losses of territory from what would have been a Palestinian state under United Nations Resolution 181 had not Palestinian Arabs \u2014 and their allies \u2014 launched a series of failed wars to expel Jews from the region as the \u201cShrinking of Palestine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSimilarly, the textbook oversimplifies the issue of Palestinian refugees, neglecting to clarify that the 5 million UN-recognized refugees are mainly descendants of the original refugees, rather than individuals who directly fled their homes,\u201d Impact-se wrote in response to\u00a0Inspire World<\/em>\u2018s portrayal of the historical record. \u201cThis crucial distinction overlooks the fact that this is the only case in international law where refugee status is inherited through generations. As a result, the refugee crisis is portrayed as ongoing and substantial, while under normal international law, most of these 5 million people would not be considered refugees.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In a press release accompanying the report, Impact-se chief executive officer Marcus Sheff called on Irish lawmakers to be an antidote to the poisons of antisemitic bias and blood libel.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTextbooks are a window into what societies will look like in years to come. As such, Irish textbooks are deeply troubling,\u201d Sheff said. \u201cThe Holocaust is glossed over and at times minimized, in an age where the butchering of Jews is fresh in the memory. The Irish curriculum views Jews and Judaism as a lesser part of Ireland\u2019s social fabric, while Israel is exclusively portrayed as antagonistic. In this context, the worrying growing hostility that Jews and Israelis in Ireland are experiencing, should come as no surprise. If Ireland\u2019s leaders wish to reverse this trend, then they must place the country\u2019s curriculum high on their agenda.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The report came out almost a month after an Irish official, Dublin City Councilor Punam Rane,\u00a0claimed during a council meeting<\/a>\u00a0that Jews and Israel control the US economy, arguing that is why Washington, DC does not oppose Israel\u2019s war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ireland has been\u00a0among the most vocal critics of Israel<\/a>\u00a0since Oct. 7 of last year, when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded the Jewish state from neighboring Gaza. The terrorists murdered 1,200 people, wounded thousands more, and abducted over 250 hostages in their rampage, the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign in Hamas-ruled Gaza aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling the terrorist group\u2019s military and governing capabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the months following the attack and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war, Ireland antisemitism in Ireland became \u201cblatant and obvious,\u201d according to Alan Shatter, a former member of parliament who served in the Irish cabinet between 2011 and 2014 as Minister for Justice, Equality and Defense. Earlier this year, he\u00a0told\u00a0The Algemeiner<\/em>\u00a0during an interview<\/a>\u00a0that Ireland has \u201cevolved into the most hostile state towards Israel in the entire EU.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s anti-Israel drift has strained relations between the countries. In May, the country officially recognized the Palestinian territories as a state, prompting outrage in Israel, which described the move as a \u201creward for terrorism.\u201d Meanwhile, Israel\u2019s Ambassador in Dublin, Dana Erlich, charged that Ireland is \u201cnot an honest broker<\/a>\u201d in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Last week, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris called on the European Union to \u201creview its trade relations\u201d with Israel, a provocative measure he proposed after the Israeli parliament passed a law\u00a0banning the activities in the country of UNRWA<\/a>, the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, because of its ties to Hamas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em>
\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion’68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.
\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:
\n<\/em>webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Irish School Textbooks Disparage Judaism, Defame Israel, Watchdog Finds Dion J. Pierre Demonstrators wearing masks depicting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris hold signs, in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, in Dublin, Ireland on Oct. 7, 2024. Photo: Clodagh Kilcoyne via Reuters Connect School textbooks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116852"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116852"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116868,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116852\/revisions\/116868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}