Scottsdale is the test district for a new text produced by the Teacher's Curriculum Institute, History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond

The new book and teachers materials are extremelyanti-Israel, in addition to providing a highly inaccuratehistory of Islam.

ACTION
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Write a letter of protesting the anti-Israel and factuallyinaccurate textbook and curriculum recently adopted by the Scottsdale Unified School District

CONTACT INFO
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Mrs. Christine Schild, President
Governing Board, Scottsdale Unified School District
govboard@susd.org

Dr. John M. Baracy, Superintendent
jbaracy@susd.org

I am writing to complain about the anti-Israel textbook,"History Alive!", that the Scottsdale Unified School District has adopted. This textbook presents a highly biased view of the Middle East and contains factually inaccurate propaganda.

Specifically, the Teacher's Curriculum Institute unit on the Modern Middle East presents a distorted history of theregion that omits mention of ancient Israel as a sovereign Jewish nation, omits mention of the centrality of Jerusalem to Judaism, and erases the pertinent fact of continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land throughout history. It states that the Jews "left" Israel 2,000 years ago. The Jews did not "leave." The Jewish population of the area aroundJerusalem was shipped in chains to Roman slave markets,while the Jewish population of the Galilee stayed in place.

The sort of propaganda-as-history presented in "HistoryAlive!" has no place in the public school curriculum. History Alive!'s constant use of the name "Palestine,"refusal to use the name "Israel," omission of any mention of the nearly one million Jewish refugees driven from Muslim lands, and use of the word "terrorism" only in the sentence "Zionist terrorist groups formed and began attacking..." demonstrates that this curriculum is not scholarship but mere propaganda carefully planned to delegitimize the Jewish claim to the land of Israel...

BACKGROUND
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The History Alive! textbook and its instructional materialsare now being tested in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The publisher is Teachers' Curriculum Institute, a privately held company hoping to introduce the book to the lucrative California textbook market.

The chief author-advisor on Islam is Ayad Al-Qazzaz, professor of sociology at California State University, Sacramento. Al Quazzaz is a Muslim apologist and anti-Israel and pro-divestment activist.

The historical distortion and factual misrepresentations woven throughout the TCI curriculum renders it unacceptable for classroom use. A valid educational approach would present fully the nationalist narratives of both sides of the dispute, in an objective and fair manner, and would explain clearly that these narratives are what each side passionately believes. This would give the student (and teacher) the opportunity to weigh the arguments of both sides in a balanced exercise in critical thinking.

This material is so biased that it cannot be "fixed" eitherby using additional materials to supplement for its inadequacies or by omitting any given section. As a resultof the bias, a potential exists for the creation of ahostile environment in the classroom against Jewish students.

Reports on the curriculum are available at:

http://schoolpropaganda.us/TCI_final_report.htm

http://www.historytextbooks.org/islam.htm

http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/20546

...Sociology professor Ayad Al-Qazzaz, who teaches at CSUS, tried to explain the connection.

"The Muslim community, in the first three days," he said, with a characteristic precision, "didn't really believe in the beginning that it was done by bin Laden or by Muslim groups or by Middle-Eastern groups ... the Oklahoma example was behind them, and this is what supported, basically, their denial."

Some listened to early news reports and were struck by the quick assumption that Muslims were guilty. It provided further evidence that they'd again be the preferred scapegoat. Even when names like bin Laden began to emerge, they simply couldn't believe that Muslims could have planned and executed such an attack.

"The magnitude of the event itself made many of us believe that this incident is not the product of people of Middle East or Muslim origin," said Al-Qazzaz. "They don't have the technical know-how; they don't have the skills."

As a sociologist, Al-Qazzaz relies on facts and figures to make his point, comparing bin Laden, "a guy who probably has 300 million dollars" with the U.S. intelligence agencies he had to outsmart, and finding him lacking. "He's rich, but it doesn't mean much when you talk of the CIA, which has 40 billion dollars."

Though one might expect skepticism in the academic community, other Muslims echoed Al-Qazzaz's sentiments.

Muslims can't even get to parties on time, one woman joked. How could they manage those attacks?