JERUSALEM, July 22 (Reuters) – Israel will remove from school textbooks an Arabic term that describes the 1948 creation of the Jewish state as a “catastrophe”, the Education Ministry said on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said when he was opposition leader two years ago the word “nakba” in Israeli Arab schools was tantamount to spreading propaganda against Israel.
The term, which is not part of the curriculum in schools in Jewish communities, was introduced into a book for use in Arab schools in 2007 when the Education Ministry was run by Yuli Tamir of the centre-left Labour party.
The book was aimed at children, aged 8 and 9.