Rats And Lawyers. by Les May

QUESTION: What’s the difference between a rat dead in the road and a lawyer dead in the road? Answer: There are skid marks in front of the rat. Not a very nice joke, but a reminder that not every member of the legal profession always has the best interests of humanity at heart.

It appears that the largest supplier of textbooks to UK schools, the publisher Pearson, is halting further distribution of two books about the Israel/Palestine conflict published in 2020. The books concerned are not the original versions which were published in 2016 and 2017 and previously available to schools and others. The original text had been amended after a complaint from a group called UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI). The amendments were extensive amounting to more than 650 changes or more than three per page.

A description of the process by which these two books were altered is given in a statement issued by the British Board of Jewish Deputies last September. It reads a follows:

After initial constructive conversations with Pearson, the Board of Deputies worked together with UKLFI [UK Lawyers for Israel] to produce thorough comments on both textbooks, which Pearson have received and acted upon. After detailed and lengthy process over a number of months, the books have now been published for students to use in the 2020-1 academic year. Board of Deputies of British Jews President Marie van der Zyl said: "We applaud Pearson for their openness to constructive feedback and willingness to revise these textbooks. We are pleased with the final material which gives a balanced and accurate portrayal of the Middle East conflict. I would like to pay specific tribute and thanks to UKLFI for their hard work on this project and their collaborative effort with us to get these textbooks to where they needed to be.”

The decision of the publishers to pause further distribution of the altered version came in response to an eight-page report by Middle East specialists Professors John Chalcraft and James Dickins, which found hundreds of changes to the textbooks overwhelmingly favouring an Israeli narrative and removing or replacing passages that support Palestinian narratives.

Below is an extract which forms the last two paragraphs of that report.

The revisions have changed the presentation of the facts in ways which bolster pro-Israeli narratives, and make pro-Palestinian narratives less credible. Explanations of the events recorded have also been treated in a selective manner, with potentially pro- Palestinian interpretations removed, and pro-Israeli interpretations augmented. The revisions exhibit troubling double-standards at a very basic level: potentially unjust Israeli actions are dealt with in the language of perception and controversy, while potentially unjust Palestinian actions are dealt with in the language of fact and objective certainty. The revisions also offer distorted definitions of key terms, such as Jewish ‘settlers’, and mislead students about matters on which there is a wide consensus, such as international law. The revisions direct students towards activities and interpretations that favour and explore a pro-Israeli narrative.

In sum, we have found the process to have been biased and the outcome misleading. The outcome is two textbooks that distort the historical record, failing to offer students a balanced view of the conflict. These books, we conclude, are not fit for purpose. School children should not be supplied with propaganda under the guise of education.

What we have here is an organisation of lawyers advocating for a foreign country. We also have the Board of Deputies, which does not represent all the Jewish people in the UK, trying to determine what is taught in our schools. This is just as reprehensible as the actions of those Muslims who are trying to do the same at Batley Grammar School. It also gives further credibility to those who believe that the motivation of those attacking Jeremy Corbyn were motivated not by concerns about anti-semitism, but by a desire to remove someone who was an advocate for the Palestinians.

You can find the full text of the report from which two short extracts are given above at:

http://www.bricup.org.uk/documents/GCSE_textbooks.pdf

There is a more detailed discussion at:

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/textbooks-altered-line-by-line-at-uk-lawyers-for-israels-behest/

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