>>The row is over the textbooks Conflict in the Middle East c1945-1995 for GCSE, published in 2016, and its IGCSE partner, The Middle East: Conflict, Crisis and Change 1917-2012, published in 2017. In 2019, the Zionist Federation launched an online petition for their removal and Pearson commissioned Parallel Histories to examine their accuracy. Davies says its report suggested some changes in terminology but found “no overall bias”. However, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and UK Lawyers for Israel continued to protest, saying the books were “seriously biased against Israel”. The books were taken off the shelves while they engaged with Pearson over changes, especially cases where they felt a disputed viewpoint had been adopted without qualification. The UK Lawyers for Israel objected, for example, to the book’s description of the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948 as “one of the worst atrocities of the war” and the omission of the “massive improvement” in the living standards of Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza Strip under Israeli rule. >>Jonathan Turner, the chief executive of UK Lawyers for Israel, says Pearson did not accept all its suggestions but thinks the latest version of the books is less biased. The original definition of “Jewish settlers” was inaccurate, he says, because a significant number went to places that had previously been Jewish communities. “On the picture caption, we asked Pearson whether there was any evidence that the puddle of water shown in the photograph was sewage since it looked quite clear, with reflections of the children. Pearson responded by removing the reference to sewage,” he says.