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Just 27 schools take GCSE Israel option

An education minister recently highlighted the importance of teaching children the facts about the Israel-Palestine conflict - but how widely is the subject taught in English schools?

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Israeli soldiers observe a two-minute silence at the Armored Corps Memorial, following a ceremony to mark Remembrance Day (or Memorial Day), on May 1, 2017 in Latrun, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. At sunset the solemn gatherings at military cemeteries and war memorials to commemorate Remembrance Day will give way to public performances, street parties and general merrymaking to mark 69 years since the declaration of the Israeli state in 1948. / AFP PHOTO / JACK GUEZ (Photo credit should read JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

In a speech last week, the Minister for School Standards, Nick Gibb, defended the traditional academic content of secondary-school courses. As an example of the importance of offering a “knowledge-rich” curriculum, he cited the Israel-Palestine conflict.Mr Gibb said he had been worried by social media clips and reports from schools of “violent and angry protests” sparked by recent events in Gaza. The conflict could not be understood “without an understanding of the past”, hence the need to give young people “important facts about the world”.

The minister went on, “We need to teach them about the Balfour Declaration and the Six Day War. We need to teach them about the religious significance of Jerusalem to both Jews and Muslims. We need to teach them about the expansion of Jewish settlements.”

Children should be equipped to make “informed analysis” themselves. “We must be on our guard to ensure that schools do not become centres of one-sided propaganda or a hostile environment for young people of any faith or religion,” he said, adding that “anti-Israeli sentiment can too easily and too quickly turn to antisemitic prejudice”.

How extensively the conflict is actually taught in schools is unclear. Only one exam board, Pearson Edexcel, offers a GCSE history option that focuses specifically on the topic. But just 27 schools in England are currently taking it.

At A-level, OCR offers one paper on the modern Middle East – worth 40 per cent of the history course – which includes Zionism, Israel and the Palestinians. It is one of 21 options; a second option, on the British Empire, also covers British involvement in Palestine up to 1948. AQA’s A-level choice also has one option out of 19 on the British Empire, which touches on the British mandate in Palestine.

But controversy over the textbook for the GCSE also points to potential difficulties in teaching the subject. Pearson withdrew Conflict in the Middle East c1945-1995 (and its sister volume for the international GCSE) after the intervention of UK Lawyers for Israel and the Board of Deputies and issued a revised edition.

Now the exam board has withdrawn the books again for a further review, after a report by the British Committee for Universities of Palestine complained the revisions made them too pro-Israel.

Whether the political sensitivities around the subject are leading schools to shy away from it is open to question. But one teacher who believes there is certainly interest in it is Michael Davies, founder of the Parallel Histories project, which has created online teaching resources that explore events from both the Israeli and Palestinian points of view.

Parallel Histories now works with 220 schools, including JCoSS, mainly in years 9 and 12. “So the demand is there,” he said. “Schools were just looking for a way of teaching the topic which wouldn’t leave them open to accusations of bias.”

School protests over Gaza have shown that “just bec ause the Israel-Palestine conflict isn’t taught in school doesn’t mean that children aren’t learning about it from other sources,” he said. “We think it’s infinitely preferable that it is taught in school.”

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