Nurit Peled-Elhanan

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Nurit Peled-Elhanan in a meeting of the European Parliament

Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a Professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an Israeli peace activist, and "political radical."^[1] After the death of Elhanan's 13 year-old daughter in 1997, she became a more vocal critic of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Biography

This section requires expansion.

Elhanan's daughter, Smadar Elhanan, was the victim of a suicide bombing attack Ben Yehuda Street Bombing in Jerusalem on September 4, 1997.^[2] Elhanan is a laureate of the 2001 Sakharov prize for Human Rights and the Freedom of Speech, awarded by the European Parliament.

Personal life

Peled-Elhanan is the daughter of the late general, Arabic scholar and politician Mattityahu Peled, and married to Rami Elhanan.

This section requires expansion.

Opinions

On Israel

Literature used in the school system

In Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education, Nurit Peled-Elhanan, describes the depiction of Arabs in Israeli schoolbooks as racist. She states that their only representation is as ‘refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists’, claiming that in "hundreds and hundreds" of books, not one photograph depicted an Arab as a "normal person".^[3]

An unpublished paper "The Presentation of Palestinians in Israeli Schoolbooks of History and Geography 1998-2003", in which only seven books were examined by Peled-Elhanan was criticized by the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, now known as the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education for being "highly selective [in its] use of source material, leaving out all references which contradict [its] thesis," "[a] deliberate misinterpretation of facts" and "[i]naccurate, distorted, and even downright [based on] false evidence." The author Arnon Groiss concluded that "Peled-Ehanan's claim regarding this point is clearly false ... This heavily politicized and thus biased approach distorts the material to produce a picture to her liking." Groiss further criticized the work of Peled-Elhanan for stretching the definition of racism to include cases that researchers would normally categorize as ethnocentrism^[4]

On the USA and Great Britain

Elhanan has stated that Muslims are represented as "...vile, primitive and blood-thirsty..." to the citizens of the United States and Great Britain despite "...the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not Muslim. One of them is a devout Christian, one is Anglican and one is a non-devout Jew."^{[5][dead link]}

On the killing of Abir Aramin, January 2007

10 year old Abir Aramin, the daughter of Bassam Aramin, an activist in Combatants for Peace, was killed in January 2007. Nurit Peled-Elhanan commented:

"I sit with her mother Salwa and try to say, "We are all victims of occupation." As I say it, I know that her hell is more terrible than mine. My daughter's murderer had the decency to kill himself when he murdered Smadar. The soldier who killed Abir is probably drinking beer, playing backgammon with his mates and going to discotheques at night."^[6]

References

1. ^ Academic claims Israeli school textbooks contain bias
2. ^ "The Dominion of Death": An Israeli Mother Who Lost Her 13-Year Old Daughter in a Suicide Bombing Speaks Out Against Israel
3. ^ Academic claims Israeli school textbooks contain bias | World news | The Observer, [Academic claims Israeli school textbooks contain bias: 07/08/2011: Harriet Sherwood
4. ^ Comments on Nurit Peled-Elhanan’s paper: “The Presentation of Palestinians in Israeli Schoolbooks of History and Geography 1998-2003”
5. ^ Israeli Mother Addresses European Parliament^{[dead link]}
6. ^ Let our children live 22 January 2007

External links

• The Bereaved Parents for Peace, article by Nurit Peled-Elhanan.
• A mother’s plea, article by Nurit Peled-Elhanan.
• Israeli Activists, Intellectuals Recognize Right of Return 31.July. 2004