An unpublished European Union report on Palestinian textbooks confirmed that the Palestinian curriculum includes antisemitic content, incitement of violence, and the delegitimization of Israel.
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German newspaper Bild published findings from the report on Tuesday and asked why they were never publicized. The publication noted the report was commissioned in 2019 by then-EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and examined teaching instructions published by the Palestinian Education Ministry between 2017 and 2020.
The report, written by the German Georg-Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, was also seen by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, an Israeli non-governmental organization that has drawn attention to similar offensive content in Palestinian textbooks in the past.
According to IMPACT-se, the institute found the "frequent use of negative attributions in relation to the Jewish people in, for example, textbook exercises [that] suggest a conscious perpetuation of anti-Jewish prejudice" in the textbooks. It even discovered a textbook chapter that "sends the message that the Jews as a collective are dangerous and deceptive and demonizes them. It generates feelings of hatred towards Jews."
The examined material also contained depictions of Israeli violence that "tend to dehumanize the Israeli adversary; occasionally with accusations of malice or deception." When discussing violent actions by Palestinians against Israel, the textbooks label them as part of "a heroic struggle" against the Jewish state; in general, portrayals of violence perpetrated by the Israelis present them as "a homogenous entity mostly referred to as the '[Zionist] occupation' or similar epithets."
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"This as yet unpublished EU report into Palestinian textbooks is a damning indictment of the Palestinian Authority's systematic and purposeful insertion of antisemitism, hate, and incitement to violence in its textbooks," said IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff.
"The question is, will EU policymakers finally take action to condition EU funding to the PA on positive reforms to the curriculum as the European parliament has demanded on several occasions?" he asked.
An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the findings "prove Israel's consistent claim that incitement is constantly present in Palestinian Authority textbooks … a claim that Israel has raised with the European Union and its member states for many years."
"Instead of educating for tolerance, coexistence, peace, and non-violence – as is required under UNESCO's mandatory standards – Palestinian textbooks include antisemitic components, deny the existence of the State of Israel, and glorify violence as a method of resolving the conflict," said the spokesperson.
The spokesperson also noted that the EU continues to invest millions in the PA's educational system without monitoring content that appears in textbooks or demanding that it stop "indoctrinating its children to hate and kill."
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org
