May 23, 2002 Anti-Israel drawings under fire Jewish groups are concerned children were asked to colour pictures with an anti-Israeli message: Board reprimand Heather Sokoloff National Post The Toronto District School Board has reprimanded an Arabic language program that rents space in a public high school for displaying drawings by young children of an Israeli jet bombing a Palestinian village. A series of drawings made by elementary school children marked with the Arabic caption, Allah is great over Israel. Allah is great, were hanging on the walls of Winston Churchill Collegiate Institute the Monday morning after the private group used the building for a weekend class. On the advice of a psychologist, the students were told to add colour to pre-produced, connect-the-dot drawings as a means to express their emotions about the war in Israel and the Palestinian territories, said Jennifer McIntyre, a school board spokeswoman. The pictures depict shark-toothed airplanes labelled with the Star of David, a symbol of Israel, dropping bombs on homes. They include the Arabic words, Our schools, buildings and gardens are being destroyed. The children added billowing smoke and dead bodies to the black and white scenes. Now that this has come to our attention, we are going to be keeping an eye on this group and monitor its activities, said Ms. McIntyre. The group, which has an enrolment of 150, would not permit its name to be made public. It has no affiliation with the school board. The Arabic language educators obtained a permit to rent 11 classrooms four years ago to teach private Arabic language and culture classes Saturday mornings at the Scarborough high school, said Ms. McIntyre. Because this is the first time such an incident has occurred, the group will be allowed to continue to rent space from the ethnically diverse high school for now, she added. The high school principal removed the drawings and held a meeting with the Arabic teachers to express her dismay over the artwork, as well as offer them advice from public school social workers on how to come up with a balanced forum for talking about the war. The private group has not responded to the offer made at the May 3 meeting. The Arabic educators did commit to not repeating the drawing exercise. It was an opportunity for the principal to say that this really was not something that would support our equity policy. And, that it might have not been the best approach for dealing with such a sensitive issue, said Ms. McIntyre They've given us their assurance they are going to be respectful. Jewish community leaders say they are angry anti-Israel propaganda, often found in schools in the Palestinian territories, has made its way to Canada. Jewish kids of that age are not being taught about suicide bombers, and learning to vilify Arabs and Palestinians in such a vile way, said Frank Bialystok, head of the community relations division of the Canadian Jewish Congress. He learned about the incident after five drawings were sent anonymously to Canadian Jewish News. Given that this was obviously a colouring exercise, we can only assume the material was intended for very young children. You are taking young, impressionable minds who are being told that Israeli planes are bombing Palestinian villages. Children have no information or ammunition to counter this, or to get a complete picture of what's going on, and they are processing it at the most _base_ level. Dr. Bialystok said he wants the group to make a public apology, and the school board to make public its policy that governs the conditions under which private groups can rent space in school board buildings. It's the children themselves who are being victimized by this malicious stuff; there has to be some measure of explanation given to them that this is wrong in some way. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it