Textbook hatred

With regard to “PA textbooks teach pupils to be expendable ‘martyrs’” (April 3), are you aware that Arab children in Israel are being indoctrinated, too?

I teach English to Arab children here in the North. Some of the children go to Christian Arab schools in Haifa. There, they team the children up with a West Bank Arab school. They bus them to the West Bank, where they spend the weekend, billeted by West Bank Arab families.

They come home with poster-sized maps of our area in which Israel does not exist. All our cities here have Arabic names. If I mention Jerusalem to these children, they don’t know what I am talking about – they know it only as Al Quds! GERALDINE THEMAL Kiryat Tivon

All this talk about peace is very frustrating because the Palestinians are using textbooks that, as always, depict Israel and Israelis as terrible monsters.

Children are taught hatred, and only hatred. Martyrdom is always glorified. How can there be any peace under such conditions?

All I know is that no one has obligated the Palestinians to do anything to bring about peace. All the pressure is put on Israel to give away more.

When and if the Palestinians will change their textbooks and teach in their schools that Israel is their neighbor and Jews are human beings, there will be peace. THELMA SUSSWEIN

Jerusalem