Irish Textbooks Say Jesus Was from ‘Palestine,’ Downplay Auschwitz

November 5, 2024

by: Caanan Lidor ~ JNS

Tuesday, 5 November 2024 | “Jesus was born in a country called “Palestine,” which is also known as the Holy Land and located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”

This piece of information, which inaccurately ties the Christian holy figure to the Palestinian cause and ignores Israel’s existence, is one of several passages highlighted in a report published Monday on problems in how Irish textbooks treat the Jewish religion, history and state. The text, found in an Irish religious studies textbook from 2020 for 7–9th graders titled “Inspire – Wisdom of the World,” is part of a pattern of “oversimplification and delegitimization” of Israel and Jews, the IMPACT-se watchdog group wrote in “European Textbooks Ireland Review.”

“Historical references to Jesus living in ‘Palestine’ without appropriate context can contribute to narratives that challenge Israel’s legitimacy and undermine the Jewish historical connection to the land,” wrote IMPACT-se, a Jerusalem-based nonprofit that monitors antisemitic and anti-Israel bias in education worldwide. The area where Jesus lived was primarily referred to as Judea at the time.

Other textbooks feature the discredited “Palestinian Land Loss” maps, which mislabel Jordanian and Egyptian-held territory as part of “Palestine,” among other issues. A 2022 book civics textbook titled “Call to Action” for the same age group uses an “unfair and inaccurate framing of Israel as the sole aggressor and actor responsible for the conflict,” IMPACT-se wrote.

A history book titled “Dictatorship and Democracy” for 17- and 18-year-olds identifies Auschwitz as a “prisoner of war camp,” which “minimizes the unique and horrific nature of the Holocaust and the systematic extermination carried out there,” IMAPCT-se wrote.

The recommendations in the report call for Ireland’s National Council for Curriculum and Assessment to “revise historical references and refrain from using politically-loaded terms like “Palestine” in the context of Jesus, and “implement proofreading and approval mechanisms.”

Ireland is a traditionally Catholic country with one of Europe’s highest worship attendance rates (7th of 33 countries, according to a PEW study from 2018). In an Anti-Defamation League [ADL] survey on antisemitism from 2014, 20% of Irish respondents expressed what ADL defined as antisemitic attitudes, similar to in Italy and Portugal.

Ireland is one of Israel’s most vociferous critics within the European Union, and one of a handful of European countries that recognized Palestinian statehood in May. In March, Ireland said it would support South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice for alleged genocide against Palestinians.

In September, Irish President Michael D. Higgins accused Israel’s embassy in Dublin of leaking to the media a letter he had penned to Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, where Higgins had written that the Islamist dictatorship, which maintains terrorist proxies across the Middle East, had a “crucial role” in achieving peace there. The embassy has denied this.

Last week, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris called on the European Union to “review its trade relations” with Israel, following what he described as a “shameful” vote by the Knesset [parliament] on a law banning the activities in the country of UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinians.

Posted on November 5, 2024

Source: (This article was originally published by the Jewish News Syndicate on November 5, 2024. Time-related language has been modified to reflect our republication today. See original article at this link.)

Photo Credit: Screen capture from IMPACT-se's report titled "European Textbooks Ireland Review."/jns.org