JERUSALEM, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- Israeli Education Minister Yuli Tamir ordered that all new editions of school textbooks show Israel's pre-1967 borders.
A group of right-wing rabbis responded with a Halakhic decree that bans the use of such textbooks, Haaretz reported. Zevulun Orlev, the head of the National Union-National Religious Party, said that Tamir is forcing the rest of the government to follow her "Peace Now" beliefs.
Tamir argues that children cannot be taught their country's history properly unless they are given accurate information. She also said that the government cannot demand that neighboring countries show the pre-1967 borders while pretending itself that they did not exist.
A survey by Nurit Peled-Elhanan two years ago of six books that had been published after the 1994 Oslo accords found that many of the books erased the Green Line, the borders agreed to in the 1949 armistice, omitted Arab cities in Israel and referred to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria and showed settlements there as being in Israel.
