Changes required in new history syllabus
THE Israeli-Palestinian conflict is just one area of the new national draft Modern History curriculum that the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) says needs to be changed.
THE Israeli-Palestinian conflict is just one area of the new national draft Modern History curriculum that the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) says needs to be changed.
Earlier this month, ECAJ executive director Peter Wertheim (pictured) wrote to the Australian Assessment and Reporting Authority to suggest a number of changes and clarifications to the draft national curricula for both Modern and Ancient History.
They include correcting an implication that the establishment of the State of Israel was the main determinant of the deterioration in relations between Jews and Arabs; disputing the phrase “dispossession of Arab lands”; and questioning why the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty plus all post-Oslo peace attempts with the Palestinian Authority have been omitted.
“The point of teaching history is to open students up to a better understanding of themselves and their own world through a study of the past,” Wertheim said.
“To study the past through the lens of a contemporary political agenda would be to detract from the integrity and intellectual quality of the curriculum.
“The teaching of historical events as a means to drive home a political message … is the antithesis of the national curriculum’s stated goal of encouraging critical thinking.”
Among Wertheim’s other suggestions were adding an item about the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and correcting an error relating to the date of the Camp David Accords.
In the Ancient History curriculum, Wertheim said it was artificial and “needlessly tenuous” to couple “The Hebrews” and “The Exodus” into one topic.
“The existence of the Hebrews and a nation called ‘Israel’ during the period of transition from the late Bronze Age to the Iron Age some 3000 years ago is beyond dispute. It is attested to expressly by at least one extra-Biblical source,” he said.
“In contrast, the historicity of the Exodus is clouded in uncertainty. There are no known extra-Biblical sources which corroborate the Biblical story.
“It is therefore anomalous, to say the least, to conflate the study of the Hebrews and early Israel with the Exodus story.”
He also pointed out that a reference to “Syria-Palestine” during the Middle Bronze period was wrong as it was some 1500 years before the Romans named the land “Syria-Palestina”, as well as recommending the use of BCE and CE rather than the Christian terms BC and AD.
GARETH NARUNSKY
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