Just another episode of our continuing soap opera about a country that commits national suicide. We don't need external enemies who want to destroy us (not that we don't have a few) - we'll save them the trouble & do it ourselves. How could someone like Yuli Tamir, an anti-Zionist propagandist, become Education Minister? As if our educational system wasn't enough of a disaster. This is absolutely nauseating.

you cannot twist history as always, this is a fact.

Do not vote for the Left or for the Center, which will put the Left in power positions. Do not vote for any party left of Likud. The Left is demented and they will drag us down to doom. If Yuli Tamir's caper doesn't convince you of this, nothing will. Do not vote for the Left or the Center.

It is truly amazing to see educated people here in Israel hang on to their views in the face of a sea of Islamic fundamentalism - and their policies have brought that sea to our doorsteps. But the likes of Peres, Tamir, Beilin, Burg and the rest are incapable of admitting that their policies are a disaster to their own people and they prefer to champion the enemy and the agenda of the enemy to our detriment. When do these people wake up? when they are in line to the gas chambers?

that the Palestinian Authority stop teaching hatred in their schools and TV programs? When will the PA do anything at all other than make demands for shows of good will on the part of Israel? When will they do anything to demonstrate that they want to live in peace with Israel? And if they don't, why not just stop arming them and supporting their demands for statehood? For how long will Olmert and the Quartet continue to play dumb concerning the indoctrination of children in the PA and Gaza? Why doesn't Israel bomb the Hamas TV station? The Israeli government not only looks the other way, but now it's incorporating Arab propaganda into the Israeli educational currriculum. What kind of Israeli citizens will those children be?

Acknowledging *Nakbar* in text books is reconciliation, which may be OK. However, the problem is that here we are talking about UNILATERAL reconciliation, which like Israel's other unilateral moves, such as Lebanon and Gaza, won't work. There has to be mutual reconciliation.

you free terrorists in exchange of nothing! you give the hezbollah the chance to beat tsahal just to make happy the UN ! you give money to the palestinian (terrorist) authority, you lift blocades...you allow terrorist from fatah to receive guns,etc...and now you want to write in history books the word " naqba " to encourage the arabs to hate us more than they already hate us! my parents left tunisia in 1967 during the 6 day war, because they were in danger, the arabs stole their homes and everything inside, my parents and many other jews lost everything! would you talk in your books about this REAL naqba ???

why do textbooks only start from the 20th century insecular public schools? what happen to the other 2900 years of Jewish History?

Arab schools already have widespread independence to address only the most minimal state standards (since recent laws have been passed, basically just math). As such, the historical representation of Israel's history in Arab textbooks is already biased. Authorizing the use of 'nakba' is the formalization of a de facto anti-Israel academic bias, and, as such, is not an academic move, but a political one to promote Tamir's agenda. In her effort to be balanced, did Tamir also ensure that the textbooks in Arab schools discuss the Israeli victims of terror attacks since the inception of Israel and particularly in recent decades? Did she ensure that that the textbooks discuss the harsh persecution of Jews in Middle Eastern countries from the 30s to the 50s? Did she ensure that the textbooks discuss Arafat's rejection of Barak's offer at Camp David? I won't even bother asking if she tried to present a settler's view on anything. Clearly, widening the spectrum to the right is not something Tamir encourages. In other words, DID TAMIR ENSURE THE ISRAELI SIDE WAS BEING ADEQUATELY REPRESENTED? I assure you she did not, although presentation of the Israeli side is also key, if one TRULY wants to represent a balanced picture. Needless to say, Tamir does not.

Livnat is the only Education Minister in Israel's history, for whom facts are irrelevant.

are we trying to build a fifth column here? sure...five columns hold up a house better. right?

Madame Tamir - what's next ? wil you authorize a book that presents a denial of the Holocaust - just to be fair and present both sides? Maybe you want to have a textbook that presents the view that Jews control the world media and business? What's next - and how low can you go? This is pure and simple - self destruction.

Are you people completely out of your minds? The creation of the State of israel wasn't a disaster for the Arabs. The disaster was the way the Arabs chose to react to it. If this is what you're teaching one segment of your kids, why be shocked at that Hamas bee or Mickey Mouse? What the heck, why not throw in pictorial instructions for suicide belts for the kids who get real upset at hearing first hand and from the thieves, themselves, that their land was stolen? If you just have to admit to something, wait a few hundred years and hope to hell that by then nobody cares too much, anymore. I don't get it.

The article states: "The third-grade book, Living together in Israel, states that some Arab residents were driven out of their homes and became refugees and that Israel confiscated many of their lands. " This is the exact catastrophe which befell us in 1948. The very reason we're not home, but scattered around the globe. The statement is objective and states a fact - because from our stance, it really was a disaster. It robbed us of our homes, lands, and national belonging. We salute the education minister in Israel and encourage her to pursue truth and *reconciliation* towards a just human and political settlement in the ME.

-> in Muslim books! What about the CORRECT map of Israel and its capital in Muslim books? What about the right of Israel to exist in Muslim Books! It is this kind of defeatist attitude which helps grow generation upon generation of Muslim terrorists.

"A balanced picture?" The is moral wishy-washiness. There is no right or wrong, everyone is right, no one has the whole truth, even the murderer has a point, the victim of rape was also at fault, etc. The essence of truth is to deny the lie. What this lady is doing is strengthen the Arab lie about the "illegitimate" Jewish right to its own homeland. It is bad enough that we have to fight the fire of Arab hatred for the Jew that people like the foolish Yuli adds fuel to the flames. She has significantly contributed to undermining the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel.

are the roots of civil war and segregation. A nation state needs one army, one tax system, one educational control. If every separatist body demands its own confederal local power, the result is Lebanon. Are Jews in muslim countries allowed to study their own history?

Of course the truth hurts, after all, we as Israelis like to pride ourselves on our humanitarian nature (and I strongly believe that we are by and large a shining example of humanitarianism and democracy in the Middle East!). However, it is true that many Arabs were displaced and it is true that for many Arabs, the establishment of Israel was a disaster. So what is wrong with a little introspection now and again. The only problem could be that the Arabs may decide to use this against the State of Israel, as a justification for terrorism. Hopefully this won't be the case.

It is not quite clear from the report as to whether ALL schools in Israel will be using this book,i.e. whether Jewish kids will also be exposed in school to the Arab perception of the history. Can someone answer this definitively?

I agree with what you said, but I must add that the result could also equally be Switzerland. The human qualities are the decisive factor. A man's destiny is in the palm of his own hands. The same applies to a nation. What you want is what you will get.

I recognize that my english understanding sometimes fails,but are you calling us thieves?

There is nothing in what Education Minister has done that is masochistic and definitely not post-Zionist. It is simply honest and she would complete her task if she ensured that the same acknowledgement of the Naqba appears in Jewish school history texts too. Why hide from the truth? Why not make admissions when they are honest. Being truthful and being Zionist ought to go hand in hand, whereas being a liar and being a Zionist is the perspective perpetuated by Lieberman et al.

should be seeked in order to strength Jewish pride in their almost miraculous acquisitions along these years,and not increase arab hate towards us.It is enough what arabs do in Israel to "educate" their fellows against Israel,profiting the freedom of speech they have. Besides,this book seems not to mention that Israel won wars it didn't want,nor the long history of Israel in Israel,and their fight to be here. The teaching perspective should be more ample , intelligent and patriothic,unless this minister doesn't agree herself she is in her right place in this world.

Secular zionism is dying a painfull death. Anyone familiar with Rav Cook will know that zionism would turn onto itself by not going towards Tsehuva and Torah. Tamir and many of her friends are the proud products of secular zionism, a genereation lost without connection to the land of israel and its real roots. As these leaders are further and further assimilating and descending into madness, we can only hope that the system will collapse as soon as posibble,to make way for a jewish state. We are here based on the first real estate deed written in the history of man and no matter what we will get what is rightfully ours. The few will overcome the many.

In the Oslo Accords of 1993, Israel and the PA committed to eradicating propaganda from their schoolbooks. Israel did so, while the Arabs have only escalated in brainwashing their children with manipulative lies and filth. It is laudable that we continue to be truthful in our textbooks, but there is no reason that we also must repeat Arab propaganda that the Arab students hear at home anyway. Would Tamir's logic dictate the next step of including the arguments of Holocaust deniers, and Bin Laden's "reasons" why the US and Israel must die? What the Ministry of Ed. MUST focus on is what they have refused to do for far too long - inculcating the values of ZIONISM and TORAH to Israeli students. The lack of teaching these values has brought us to this point - corrupt politicians, 25% of youth who do not feel proud to serve in Tzahal, and the suicidal trend euphemistically called "post-Zionism". If Tamir and her cronies are incapable of teaching Israeli values to Israel, then replace them immediately. She is playing politics with our children and our future existence.

My palestinian brother #15 and my yerushalmi brother #25, - the thoughts of some genuinely good and intelligent people who are not rabid with blind hatred and confusion. TO THE OTHERS, do you think the fact that we as Jews have suffered for centuries and the Israeli nation is surrounded by intolerant, reactionary governments means we should lie to our children about the pain that our "cousins" have suffered? truth is the only way to reconciliation, that is correct. naturally, it is very sad that it often seems like "one way" efforts truth/reconciliation, but for all the shouts of "gas chambers" etc., have you ever really been down to the refugee camps and seen the squalor and misery there? i mean not with a gun and a uniform. interacted with mothers whose children aren't Hamas or Jihad Islami or Al Aqsa but still have been shot dead? the conditions there in the camps are far closer to a ghetto than the 1st world, hi-tech towns of Israel, where the overwhelmingly well-off, white olim who scream about anti-semitic racism and injustice on these talkbacks live. blame who you want, but please, a little sensitivity before invoking the Holocaust - it really is obscenely disrespectful. i'll be slandered "yafe nefesh" (so what's wrong with having a beautiful soul, ya Metumtamim?) and shouted at for being BeHutz La'aretz, but people with mentalities like yours are the biggest impediments to Aliyah, a just and equitable Israeli society and peace with the Arabs! "hine ma tov u'ma naim, shevet aKHim gam yaKHad" - that means ALL the children of Abraham.