The Image of the “Palestinian” in Geography Textbooks in Israel

Abstract

Geography textbooks represent an underutilized raw material for understanding the society which created them and which, with their aid, “writes” important images for social survival. This paper represents an attempt to examine the images of the Palestinians that are embedded in Hebrew geography textbooks that have been written over the past century during which Zionism has existed. The texts, which were examined with the aid of ideas provided by Thompson (1987) and others, indicate the existence of a wide range of treatments of the Palestinians: ethnocentric, romantic, experiential, anthropological, etc. The spectrum of images is dependent on the historical period in which the text was written and the relations that were created between the Palestinians and Zionism in the Land of Israel.

Key Words:

• Palestinians
• Zionism
• Israel
• texbook
• curricula