Israeli and Palestinian textbooks omit borders

""It's almost comical. The idea of maps is to represent reality; here it represents fantasy," Bruce Wexler, a professor of psychiatry at Yale University, who led the study, told the Guardian. However, claims by both sides that they are demonised by the other were unfounded. "Types of extreme demonising or dehumanising characterisations of 'the other' are absent from all the textbooks," he said."

Only 4% of maps in Palestinian textbooks show the green line or label the area west of it as 'Israel'. Photograph: Ahmed Zakot/REUTERS

Israeli and Palestinian textbooks omit borders

Schoolchildren grow up believing one homeland does not include the other as majority of maps erase dividing lines

• Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
• The Guardian, Sunday 3 February 2013

The vast majority of maps in Palestinian and Israeli schoolbooks omit the existence of the other entity, leading to children growing up with "an internal representation of their homeland, in which one does not include the other", according to the lead author of a three-year study....READ MORE