Lately I’ve been reading through the classic book, Winnie the Pooh, with my  3-year-old daughter.

Olive enjoys reading books and she really loves watching Winnie the Pooh, so I thought combining these two would really make her happy. Sadly, the Winnie the Pooh book is free of pictures to keep my little girl entertained while I read, so she tends to get antsy and we resort to watching Winnie the Pooh on the iPhone. (You can judge me in the comments box below, just be gentle.)

Illustrations in children’s books are visual expressions of the few words that are being read aloud. Even though the average children’s book only has about 500 words, the illustrations are full of thousands of unspoken words.

That’s why I was surprised to see last week that Scholastic, the world’s largest children’s book publisher erased Israel from the map in one of their latest books: Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt. (Click here to see image.)

Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt is an adventure story about a group of journalists who are on an archaeological hunt for treasure in Egypt.

The map in the book was illustrated to represent a modern look at the Middle East. It included countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Jordan. However, when Adina Golombek, a resident of Jerusalem, was reading the book to her son and wanted to point out where they lived, she saw that Jordan completely covered where Israel should be, swallowing up the tiny Jewish state.

So the question is… Was this an intentional deletion of the State of Israel in order to make a political statement?

Well to start, Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt originates from Italy and is part of the widely successful Geronimo Stilton series. Unfortunately, today much of Europe is steeped in anti-Israel rhetoric. A recent poll in Europe revealed that in Belgium, Italy, and France, around 60% of their citizens have heard the shocking statement that “Israelis behave to the Palestinians like the Nazis to the Jews.” On top of that, many believe the increase of anti-Israel sentiment in Europe is also leading to the rise of anti-Semitism.

Similar to the map in Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt, a majority of Palestinian textbooks omit Israel and replace it with Palestine, educating their children using certain non-verbal political illustrations.

Erasing, deleting, blotting out, and rejecting are  some of the most common ways critics condemn Israel.

We’ll never really know if the map in Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt purposely left out Israel. What we do know is that Scholastic stopped printing that edition immediately and had the map updated to include the modern State of Israel thanks to the protest of many upset readers like Adina Golombek.

It’s easy to shrug our shoulders and say “who cares?”  Just remember, a picture is worth a thousand words.

CJK

Christopher Katulka from the FOI Blog sits down with Josh Reinstein, Director of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus in Israel, to talk about Iran and the recent news surrounding the actions of the new Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and his relationship with America and Israel.

Today I interviewed Israeli pastor, Meno Kalisher, who shares his thoughts about events occurring in Syria and Middle East from and Israeli and Biblical perspective.

In this message I give a comprehensive overview of the ever-changing events happening in Israel, the Middle East, and United States. The focus of this talk is to help us understand more fully the interworking of U.S. support for Israel, the Arab Spring, and its global effects on the economy, security, and future for the State of Israel.

Just yesterday the United States opted to aid the rebel fighters in Syria to help prevent Syria from completely destroying itself from within.

Syrian President Bashar Assad refuses to step down from power, even though he’s been pressured by international powers to do so, and continues to use the Syrian army as his weapon to suppress and destroy any opposition to his rule.

President Assad’s enemies are the Syrian rebels who seek to topple his corrupt government. These rebels are mimicking what they saw happen in Egypt and Libya when the Egyptian rebels removed the Egyptian Prime Minister Hosni Mubarak and the Libyan rebels killed their tyrannical leader Muammar Gaddafi. Unfortunately, Assad refuses to back down or go into hiding, which has caused this to escalate into an ongoing civil war that has claimed the lives of more than 93,000 Syrians according to the U.N.

The United States has just become an active player in the civil war by enforcing a no-fly zone over Syria, protecting the rebels, and supplying weapons and ammunition to those fighting against the Syrian army. Both Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and President Bill Clinton have been outspoken, wishing to see President Barack Obama take more action against the Assad regime by supporting the rebel opposition.

Supporting the rebel opposition sounds very noble and diplomatic when you see the atrocities and corruption unfolding in the Middle East and Syria, but will assisting the “rebels” prove to be beneficial to the U.S., and even more importantly, to Israel?

This question must be asked since the U.S. doesn’t have to deal directly with the consequences of our foreign policies, and Israel does. Northern Israel borders Syria and Lebanon and the only thing that separates these hostile neighbors is a fence.

So let’s go through a few options:

1. If Syria remains under the control of President Assad (which it won’t) then Syria will continue to view Israel as an enemy. Since 1948 Syria has entered into both war and periods of hostility with Israel multiple times. Under Assad regime Syria acts as a highway for weapons transfer between Iran and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is stockpiling these weapons in Beirut, waiting for the prime opportunity to use them against Israel. Hezbollah has recently offered assistance to Assad and the Syrian army, knowing their arms transfer route could be sabotaged with the demise of Assad. If Assad stays in power Israel still has a hostile neighbor to deal with.

2. If Assad falls (and he will) what will happen to Damascus and who will take control of Syria? This scenario is the black hole for both Israeli and U.S. intelligence. Will Syria become a power vacuum creating complete civil unrest in that war torn area, similar to the civil war that broke out after Iraq was dismantled? Who will take control of the loose chemical weapons the Syrian army currently is using against the rebels? Will the civil war become a regional conflict involving Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey? The Muslim Brotherhood, which controls Egypt, recently backed a Sunni cleric that called for jihad (holy war) against Syria. However you spin it, the ambiguity for the future of Syria looks bleak for Syrian/Israeli relationships.

Something we must remember, even though the U.S. is supporting the “rebels,” that doesn’t mean the “rebels” support the U.S. or Israel. To make things confusing the Syrian rebels are not united in their attempts to overthrow Assad. Former Syrian army general Salim Idris leads the Free Syrian Army while several radical Islamists have the similar ambitions. The radical Islamists have played a major role in the Syrian civil war. Many of these rebels the United States is arming have also pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda has already assisted the Syrian rebel efforts by providing them with technical, military, and financial support. Talk about irony: The U.S. is working with the rebels, who are working with al-Qaeda, who attacked America. Syrian officials have warned that the fall of the Assad regime could lead to more Islamist fighters that would most certainly bring more periods of hostility against Israel.

I had a funny suspicion Iran’s president Ahmadinejad was pleased when the Egyptian people toppled Hosni Mubarak (Egypt’s previous prime minister) government in 2011 and democratically established Muslim Brotherhood’s party leader, Mohamed Morsi, as their new Islamist leader in 2012.

I say that because for more than three decades the Iranians and Egyptians have had a rocky relationship and today Ahmadinejad extended his hand in peace to Egyptian President Morsi hoping to form a strategic alliance between the two Islamist nations.