We managed to get a translation of the first minute of the video (link below) from a most interesting lesson on history given to Palestinian high school students in Haifa.
This is not a history class. This is a class on history. First thing: close your books.
Before we open them and study for tests in order to go to university, we have a couple of things to talk about.
Many times, we ask ourselves, “What is this history that we are learning? Is it correct? Or incorrect? Scientific or not scientific ? Why, at the end of the day, should we know history? To what end? How can we benefit from this subject? And why did we choose this information on this time period and not on another time period? Who decides what is written in history books? And why do we memorize the materials from history class as though they are unquestionable facts without thinking, asking questions, or examining them from new angles?”
Aside from all that, as Palestinian Arabs, we have an important, prohibited question: Why do we have to learn this history of the Zionist movement in detail when we do not really study our own history?
