Love of the Land: Arab employees of Israeli institutions misuse their positions to slander Israel

Arab employees of Israeli institutions misuse their positions to slander Israel

Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)
04 January '10

Three Arab employees of Israeli institutions misuse their positions to slander Israel

A teacher instructs his Israeli Arab students that the Israeli curriculum should "not be considered information"

A researcher of the Tower of David Museum of Jerusalem's History calls the museum's information "lies"

A guide at the museum prefers to convey "the Arab point of view" rather than the museum's "deceptions" when guiding Arabic-speaking visitors

Interviews with three Arab employees of official Israeli institutions in Jerusalem, a teacher, a researcher and a guide, were recently broadcast on Palestinian TV. The interviewees revealed that in the course of their work they do not convey to students and visitors the historical information which they are meant to impart - contrary to the guidelines of their Israeli employers, and without their knowledge.

Mustafa Othman, a teacher from the Beit Safafa neighborhood in the western part of Jerusalem, revealed on Palestinian television that he teaches Israeli Arab children that the Israeli state curriculum is "only for the test; you shouldn't consider it as information". The truth, he teaches Israeli Arab youth, is "that [Israel] conquered our land by armed force, robbed it, destroyed the houses, expelled its people from the cities and from the villages."

In another broadcast, two employees of the Tower of David Museum of the History of Jerusalem, a history scholar and an Arabic-language tour guide, were interviewed. Both defined the Israeli historical narrative regarding the Jewish connection with Jerusalem, which they are meant to convey to tourists, as "false," and testified that they teach different information instead. According to one, the museum invents stories for the purpose of "creating a historical right and a historical dimension, claiming that they [the Jews] were here 3,000 years ago and that they had buildings here, and that they had a presence here." The tourist guide in the museum said that the information signs on the walls of the museum are incorrect, while the history scholar reiterated the central Palestinian historical distortion denying the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem, referring to it as the "alleged Temple".

(Read full report)

Love of the Land: Arab employees of Israeli institutions misuse their positions to slander Israel