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Publisher removes children’s book that erases Israel after legal challenge
Company pulls ‘Amazing Women of the Middle East’ from its website
December 30, 2021 13:47
Company pulls ‘Amazing Women of the Middle East’ from its website
December 30, 2021 13:47The UK publisher of a children’s book that deleted Israel from the Middle East has pulled the book from its website following a legal challenge.
UK Laywers for Israel warned Pikku Publishing the book, called ‘Amazing Women of the Middle East: 25 Stories from Ancient Times to Present Day,’ could be in breach of education laws if used as a teaching aid in schools because it featured no Israeli women and had erased Israel from a map of the region.
It tells the stories of 25 “extraordinary Middle Eastern women” across history from Egyptian queen Nefertiti to international lawyer Amal Clooney, but none of them are Israeli.
It also features a brightly-illustrated map of the region that erases Israel. The country is instead marked “Palestine”, with various neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon, clearly labelled.
The book, which is marketed to children over the age of nine, is listed on a web page marked “Teachers’ Resources” on the publisher’s website.
UKLFI warned self-publishing company Pikku if the book were used as a teaching aid in schools it would be likely to result in a breach Section 406 of the Education Act 1996.
This forbids ‘political indoctrination’, which is defined as the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in the school.
The UK Lawyers for Israel requested the publishers both in the UK and the USA withdraw the book and re-publish it with the correct map and featuring at least one ‘Amazing Woman’ from Israel.
The title has been withdrawn both from Pikku’s website and the teaching resources based on the book have also been removed from the ‘teachers’ resources’ section.
UKLFI has also written to the major booksellers including Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles, Blackwells, Hive.com and bookshop.org alerting them to the misleading and biased contents of the book, and asking them not to sell the book until it has been amended.
Now Hive.com has confirmed that it has removed this title from its lists, and also from the lists of its sister companies, Gardners and The Little Group. Hive.com said that they had made the publishers aware that they had withdrawn their stock from sale.
Caroline Turner, director of UK Lawyers for Israel commented: “It is good news that the UK publisher has removed the book from sale. It is shocking that a book for children in the UK could have presented such a misleading picture of the Middle East. I hope the publishers will now amend the book so Israel will be back on the map and that Jewish Israeli women will be included in the profiles.”
The JC has contacted Pikku and Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles and Blackwells for comment.