by The Commentator on 2 January 2013 11:47

Yesterday The Commentator released information about a 'British' textbook that erased Israel entirely from the Middle East, replacing it instead with 'Occupied Palestine'.

The book was published by 'Garnet Education' - a firm based in Reading, England which specialises in educational material such as English as a second language.

It has emerged however that Garnet Education is not a British firm, but in fact owned by the Tahseen Khayat Group of Lebanon.

The firm owns various outlets, including Garnet's 'sister group' Ithaca Press and firms named All Prints and The International Press.

While Garnet Education focuses on educational material, Ithaca Press decribes itself as a ‘leading publisher of academic books on Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies’, most recently featuring the ‘Great Books of Islamic Civilisation’ and books such as ‘Through the Wall of Fire’ which documents, “the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians beginning in 1948”.

Ithaca also publishes, “Through Secret Channels” written by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Tahseen Khayat Group is owned by Tahseen Khayat, the owner of the Lebanon-based ‘Al Jadeed’ television network which was historically perceived as opposed to the premiership of the late Rafiq Hariri.

Curiously, in 2003, Reporters Without Borders claimed that Al Jadeed (then called NTV) was the victim of harassment, with Khayat being arrested by military police for “suspected links with Israel”. This is despite the fact that NTV have been generally favourable towards Hezbollah, though the station has taken an anti-Assad line since its cameraman Ali Shaaban was shot dead in April 2012.

Despite the fact that Israel was omitted from a the Garnet Education book, Israel as a country appears multiple times across the various websites owned by the Tahseen Khayat Group, implying that rather than being an organisational decision, the fault lies with the illustrator of the book, or indeed the authors.