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Abstract
Peace education is considered a necessary element in establishing the social conditions required for promoting peace-making between rival parties. As such, it constitutes one of Israel’s state education goals, and would therefore be expected to have a significant place in Israel’s educational policy in general and in response to peace moves that have occurred during the Arab–Israeli conflict since the 1970s in particular. This article reviews the educational policy actually applied by Israel’s state education over the years as reflected in formal educational programs and school textbooks, and suggests that although some significant changes have taken place over time, there has been and still is a significant gap between the stated goal and the practice of peace education in Israel. Reasons for this disparity and its implications are discussed and possible directions are proposed for coping with this educational challenge.
Acknowledgment
This article is based on a review paper written for a project on Discourse, Culture, and Education in the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict held by S. Daniel Abraham Center for Strategic Dialogue at Netanya Academic College, Israel, in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
Notes
1. Ethos of conflict is defined as the configuration of shared central societal beliefs that provide a particular dominant orientation to a society at present and for the future in the conditions of intractable conflict (Bar-Tal Citation2000, Citation2007, Citation2013). It is composed of eight major themes about issues related to the conflict, the in-group, and its adversary: (1) societal beliefs about the justness of one’s own goals, which outline the contested goals, indicate their crucial importance and provide their explanations and rationales; (2) Societal beliefs about security stress the importance of personal safety and national survival, and outline the conditions for their achievement; (3) Societal beliefs of positive collective self-image concern the ethnocentric tendency to attribute positive traits, values, and behavior to one’s own society; (4) Societal beliefs of victimization concern the self-presentation of the in-group as the victim of the conflict; (5) Societal beliefs of delegitimizing the opponent concern beliefs that deny the adversary’s humanity; (6) Societal beliefs of patriotism generate attachment to the country and society, by propagating loyalty, love, care, and sacrifice; (7) Societal beliefs of unity refer to the importance of ignoring internal conflicts and disagreements during intractable conflicts to unite the society’s forces in the face of an external threat; and finally, (8) Societal beliefs of peace refer to peace as the ultimate desire of the society.
2. Intractable conflicts are violent, fought over goals considered existential, perceived as being of ‘zero-sum’ nature and unsolvable, preoccupy a central position in the lives of the involved societies, require immense investments of material and psychological resources, and last for at least 25 years (Bar-Tal Citation2007, Citation2013; Kriesberg Citation1993, Citation2005).
3. Israel’s Hebrew education is divided into three main tracks: state-secular, state-religious, and an independent ultra-orthodox sector. The state-secular (general) and state-religious frameworks are subjected to the Ministry of Education in terms of supervision of content, pedagogy, and administration, while the ultra-orthodox schools operate independently and need to adhere to only a portion of the core curriculum determined by the Ministry. This paper is concerned with Israel’s general educational policy in regard of peace education, and thus refers only to its state-secular school system, to which the majority of Israeli children are enrolled, and whose educational objectives are outlined by Israeli law.
4. Unit 101 was an Israeli special operations unit founded and led by Ariel Sharon on orders from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in August 1953. It was created to retaliate against Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians.