Your editorial welcoming the “nuances and varied perspectives” of the new textbook for Israeli Arab schools that regurgitates the Palestinian claim that Israel produced disaster for Arabs (makba) shows a misunderstanding of the issues involved (“Symbol of democratic values,” July 26).

It is important that students know what Arabs think. But that is different from teaching what they think as tough it were fact. That is what the textbook does. In fact, Arab rejection of partition, invasion of Israel and a chiefly self-induced exodus brought about Arab suffering.

Simply reproducing the Arab narrative that Israel’s founding, not Arab violent opposition to it, caused Arab suffering, helps entrench a politically motivated falsehood — something a textbook should not be doing.

MORTON A. KLEIN
National president,
Zionist Organization of America
New York, N.Y.

The Zionist Organization of America, founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver.