For a long time, researchers and critics have provided ample documentation that textbooks of the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas glorify suicide bombers, demonize Israelis and feature maps that erase the Jewish state altogether. Now comes still another study, funded by the State Department, that this time purports to give equal critical weight to the contents of Israeli and Palestinian textbooks. The study has all the academic earmarks of expert, balanced authorship -- a joint effort by an Israeli professor, Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University, and a Palestinian professor, Sami Adwam of Bethlehem University. Except that under all their professional veneer, the two professors have to stretch mightily to the point of ludicrousness to support their basic thesis that when it comes to inciteful propaganda, there is little, if any, difference between Israeli and Palestinian textbooks. To achieve this result, the study whitewashes the worst examples of hateful Palestinian...(Read Full Post)