Textbook complaint
THE ANTI-Defamation Commission will contact the publishers of a textbook used in Victorian secondary schools after receiving a complaint that it portrays a skewed picture of the underground tunnels linking two sides of Rafah which straddles the border between Egypt and Gaza.
THE ANTI-Defamation Commission will contact the publishers of a textbook used in Victorian secondary schools after receiving a complaint that it portrays a skewed picture of the underground tunnels linking two sides of Rafah which straddles the border between Egypt and Gaza.
In a section titled “How are people and places around the world connected?” and a case study headlined “Tunnels of Gaza”, the Oxford Big Ideas Humanities 9 Victorian Curriculum student book states, “The neighbouring country of Israel, concerned that guns and ammunition are passing from Egypt into Gaza, maintain[s] tight control of the border in Rafah.
“The people of the city have responded by digging an extensive network of tunnels beneath the border to connect the two sides of the city. Up to 15,000 people were involved in digging the tunnels which are used to smuggle virtually everything that people and the government need.
“Machinery, livestock, fuel and steel pass through the tunnels daily. The political party that controls the Gaza strip even taxes the goods that pass through the tunnels and are rumoured to raise as much as $750 million a year in this way.”
ADC chair Dvir Abramovich stated, “This part of the textbook is so divorced from reality that it might be describing a parallel universe in which Hamas, a designated terrorist group dedicated to the destruction of Israel, is outrageously referred to as a ‘political party’.
“Students should also be told that Hamas has used those tunnels to smuggle weapons into Gaza, and to infiltrate Israel with the intention of killing and kidnapping civilians and soldiers.
“Also, the claim that Israel maintains tight control of the border in Rafah is totally wrong since Israel ceased to do so when it withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and the tunnels referred to in this section were constructed by Hamas later, not when Israel had control.”
AJN STAFF
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