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(ANSAmed) - RAMALLAH (WEST BANK), MARCH 12 - Palestinian culture risks taking steps backward, and that is why a dozen of Palestinian intellectuals have signed a petition addressed to President Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, to condemn the recent withdrawal of an anthology of folktales from schools in the West Bank, claiming that some of the books had been destroyed and burned. "We must defend our national culture from the obscurantism and ignorance of the Hamas-led Education Ministry," the intellectuals wrote. The undersigned include poet Mahmud Darwish, Haider Abdel Shafi and Yiad Saraj. Their message was supported by a protest demonstration at the town centre of Ramallah on Monday. The issue which is at the center of public debate for several days is an anthology, Speak Bird, Speak Again (Qul ya-Tayr), elaborated by two researchers from the Bir Zeit University of Ramallah, Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana. It was published in the United States in 1989, and it has been distributed in the Palestinian Territories in the Arab language since 2001. Muhawi and Kanaana have collected for years the stories told by their ancestors in Galilee and the West Bank. After that they selected them according to their popularity and the issues told. In the end they published 45 pieces, some of which are considered essential elements of the Palestinian folk culture. Thanks to this book the Palestinian Authority won the international award for oral history, the intellectuals' petition reads. The anthology, however, provoked negative reactions within the Ministry of Education because of its rural language and some of the themes developed in the stories. These include the theme of attraction between lovers. One of the stories tells the story of Jumez Bin Yasur, the king of all birds, who turns into a handsome boy while meeting a girl at night, evoking jealousy in the girl's sisters. Another story tells of the vicissitudes of Jbene, an adolescent girl with a face "gentle as cheese," born in mysterious circumstances by a woman everyone believed to be sterile. Following the protests on behalf of the intellectuals, Education Minister Naser al-Shaer (Hamas) ordered that the books withdrawn from school libraries not be destroyed. Their distribution, however, would be limited, he announced. The book will be available in private libraries and on the Internet. (ANSAmed).