Many of the Arabic textbooks used in Israeli schools are riddled with mistakes, the Knesset’s Education Committee heard. Dr. Elias Atallah told the committee that in 2011 a total of 16,000 mistakes were found in textbooks teaching the Arabic language to children in grades 1-8.

“In ‘The New Reading Book’ for sixth-graders, there are at least 600 mistakes, none of them involving facts that are in dispute,” he said. MK Jamal Zahalka, who called the committee meeting, said, “You would need a magnifying glass to find the pages that don’t have mistakes.”

MKs called on the Education Ministry to set clear standards for Arabic-language textbooks.