Peace and conflict in Israeli state-approved textbooks: 2000-2018

The current article describes the peace and conflict educational approaches found in the Jewish-Israeli curricula between the years 2000–2017. Using thematic analysis, it extracts the dominant themes and messages towards Muslim, Arab and Palestinian ‘others’. The study follows 123 textbooks recommended by the Israeli Ministry of Education for grades 7 through 12 of the Jewish state and state-religious sectors for the 2000–2019 academic years. The academic subjects or disciplines represented in the study include history, geography, civics, (Jewish) religious studies and Hebrew language and literature studies. Study findings indicate that current Israeli textbooks to not contain any overt racism or incitement against Palestinians. However, ethnocentric perceptions and victim mentality are two themes that still dominate curricular discourse and are counterproductive to peace education goals. Additionally, the paucity of Palestinian narratives is another potential hurdle to achieving peace education goals.