The Israeli-Palestinian issue, and the perception of Israel in Europe

[faito anto]

Swordsen,

The stuff you said is far more general in nature.

E.g. Most people know the largest muslim country by population is Indonesia etc.

Peter was taught a specific breakdown of jewish demographics, unrelated to his country (e.g being taught to american students the number of irish-americans in america).

My curiosity remains.

[swordsen]

Those were just examples that sprang to mind while sitting here. (and incidently none of those facts were learned in school unfortunatly)My point is prehaps the schools actaully try to teach things beyond the close focus. A good thing in my opinion.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally posted by faito anto
Now that I have given u an answer, I have a question for you Peter.

In Junior High you were taught about where in the world jews live and in what numbers. Amazing! Amazing that you were taught this?

WHY? In what context? I am curious? It would please me if you would answer.

I was not taught where the Irish are, and in what numbers.
Nor the Chinese, Nor the Italians (I name these people because they are just some of the peoples with large diaspora that come to mind).

Context: History or social sciences lesson, don´t remember which - it has been 25 years since then. Non-Swedish history takes up a far greater part of the Swedish curriculum than non-American history does in the US. curriculum. The same goes for geography, (we were expected to be able to name all countries in Europe on a nonmarked map, and many in africa/asia too) and I think history in general. Of the history lessons, 20th century takes up a large part, especially WWII. We had one lesson entirely devoted to the concentration/death camps, and there was more on that topic in other lessons. In social sciences, we were taught about the political system and balance of power in USA, and which groups have influence. The same goes for 4-5 other countries.

We were taught that there are a lot of Irish, Italians, and Jews in NY with numbers (which I do not remember now). We were also taught where there were large numbers of chinese outside of china, and a little about their role in those societies.

This was not a special school with a selected student population and lots of funds, it was a run-of-the-mill school with a bit more than its share of social problems. My teacher in those subjects was a bit above average, but not anything special by any means. The Swedish school system has gone a bit downhill since then IMO, there is not so much knowledge demanded of the kids as in my day. Compared to what I have read about the current USA school system, the bad Swedish schools are far better than the bad US. schools. (In Sweden, counties pay for the schools, but the state sets curriculum, deals with national tests, etc. State demands/enforces quality levels, and counties pony up.) However, in my country (close to Poland) all classes are sent to Auschwitz once during their Jr. High time, in order to warn them, and so that they can see the museum for themselves.

FA - I assume that all of your schooling has been in the Israeli school system. For my ccuriosity - how much of your history/social sciences lessons have been devoted to non-jewish people doing stuff that did not affect jews? Now that I have told about the Swedish scholl system teaching about non-Swedes doing stuff not directly affecting Swedes, I think that it is only fair.

Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally posted by corinna2u
Peter,

I am curious how this is possible...



It was my understanding that by 16 or 18, don't remember which, you loose your US citizenship option. In other words, you would have to choose.

I am the product of an USA/Swedish marriage, mom is from Bakersfield, California and dad is a Swede. (dad went to Bakersfield as an exchange stundent when he was 16 on a US/Swedish stipend, and is the most pro-USA Swede that I know of. Some US. policy makers should think about that.)

I was born in Sweden, but my mom immediately registered my with the US. consulate in my home town. I was first registered on her passport, and then started getting US. passports of my own from age 2 onwards. I also got Swedish ones. We visited USA once every 4 years or so when I was a kid, and no problems in passport checks. I recently renewed my US. passport and got my first US. SS# and the USA embassy in Stockholm. (a real hassle - they state on their webpage that they do not answer emails! almost all other US. embassies in Europe do answer emails, I checked. They also had very short telephone times, and not helpful when I reached them. Your tax dollars at work. Sorry, had to vent.) I presented my valid Swedish passport, Swedish personal indentification number, and driver´s licence to the US embassy as proof of identity, on their direct request.

As I have been told, the USA position is that since I have an american parent (mother to boot, so proof is not a factor) I shall have a US. citizenship at birth. As long as I don´t renounce it, or do things tantamount to renouncing it, I will keep it for life.

The Swedish position (at least when I was a kid) is that since I have a Swedish father, I shall be a Swede. Sweden does not like dual citizenships, and more or less demands that the person shall give up his other citizenship. Needless to say, I have never contemplated caving in to such bullying. So they consider me a Swede.

I have voted in Sweden since I reached 18 years of age, and have done the mandatory military rgistration. In Sweden, that is 2 days of physical examination, mental tests, interviews, the works to find out which place is the right for the eleven month draft (I did not do the mandatory service - we were so many boys born 1966 so that the army dudes told us to tell everything, so that they could dump us for something. Fever cramps as a kid in my case, one guy who did the check at the same time as me had a cold and got booted out - to his happiness - citing "lung disease".) I also worked 2 years in a defence company as an engineer, after being vetted by the secret police. So, the Swedish position is positively schizophenic.

I have also voted once in a US. presidential election - not more - my auntie was real pissed about me voting and not being in the States, so I decided not to do it anymore, for peace´s sake.

Hope this clears things up.

Peter Gustafsson

[faito anto]

Hi Peter,

Thank you for your question.
The Israeli school system has also changed over time.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean about learning about non Jews not involved with Jews.

I assume you mean learning about non-Jews who were not people like the great Swede Raoul Wallenberg etc.

Well, it is difficult to learn much wihtout learning about people who happen to be Jewish. E.g., If you learn physics or atomic chemistry, you will learn about Einstein and Nils Bohr etc. If you learn about communism, you will learn about Marx and Trotsky. If you learn about psychology Freud, the gestaltists etc,

Seriously though, Israeli school system teaches little about Jews. Many many Israeli youth are ignorant about the diaspora of Jews, and are ignorant about Jewish culture. Remember the majority are secular.
Most Israeli youth learn about Israel in school, but they don't especially learn that much of judaism or the jewish world outside israel. It is unfortunate.

While all my primary schooling was in Israel, I actually did much of my highschool years in Australia (I have lots of family who settled there after WWII), hence my ok english So I can compare the systems. The Israeli school system is maybe more well rounded than the Australian one that i experienced - students are encouraged to think a bit more. I also have experience with the Japanese school system (I coached there for a while)- this is the worst of the three, as the students simply must rote learn enormous amounts of information, never encouraged to think etc - the stress level on these kids is enormous. I felt very sorry for the students there.

In Israel in the 90's we had the Madrid/Oslo 'peace' process. The Israeli education dept set about making the curriculum 'post-zionist.' By post-zionist, i mean for example that history books were selected that were less pro-israel, more post-modern than the previous history text books. I thought this was a bad thing. I am not a fan of revisionist history, thus not a fan of post-zionism.

They also tried to gear the population to prepare for the 'inevitable' peace. I thought this was a good thing. They ran programs to actively get students to think of things (life issues) from the perspective of palestinians. This is not easy to explain, but I hope you get the idea. Again, this part IMO was a very good thing.

Unfortunately, the Palestinian education system did not reciprocate much during the Oslo decade. Primary school math classes were still
"If there are 8 jews, and you kill half of them, how many jews left to kill."

Of course the Israeli peaceniks (and I was something of a peacenik -right up untill the second 'intifada' started in Aug-Sept 2000) didn't really think enough about this issue. In hindsight, we should have demanded reform of their education system. But I guess if we had done this, we would have been condemned at the UN for oppressing the Palestinians.

I hope I have satisfied your curiosity. Please ask more specific questions if you still wish to know more, and I will do my best to answer them.