The European Parliament condemned incitement and antisemitism in textbooks in Palestinian schools, some of which receive EU Funding.
The resolution, which passed for the fourth year in the row, called on the EU to freeze funding to the Palestinian Authority until the textbooks are aligned with UNESCO standards of peace and tolerance. It also mentioned that the European Commission has largely ignored their past resolutions on the matter.
The resolution “deplores the problematic and hateful material in Palestinian school textbooks and study cards which still has not been removed.”
The legislators linked the increase in terrorism in recent months to Palestinian education and textbooks, stating that “education and pupils’ access to peaceful and unbiased textbooks is essential, especially in the context of the rising implication of teenagers in terrorist attacks.”
This year’s resolution emphasized the need to remove antisemitic references and examples more than past versions.
A child walks in front of a mural painting depicting the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on her way to a school run by United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in Balata refugee camp, east of Nablus on August 29, 2018 (credit: JAAFAR ASHTIYEH / AFP)Removing hateful content
Hateful content “has still not been removed,” the resolution stated, despite claims to the contrary by the Palestinian Authority, and therefore, the parliament “requests the Commission to closely scrutinize that the PA modifies the full curriculum expeditiously.”
The European Parliament voted down five attempts to remove the resolution, overcoming a lobbying campaign by the PA delegation to Brussels and pro-Palestinian NGOs.
European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi promised Foreign Minister Eli Cohen in Brussels last week that the EU will make sure it is not funding Palestinian textbooks that incite against Israel and that the EU would fund a further study into incitement and antisemitism in the books.
The EU withheld its funding to the PA for 13 months, starting in May 2021, over incitement to violence in textbooks in its EU-aided education system.
MEP Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou said that “partial conditionality to ensure the removal of antisemitic content in Palestinian textbooks is not just about effectiveness, it is about morality.”
Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se, which analyzes textbooks in the Middle East, said that “the Palestinian Authority lobbied hard in Brussels against this resolution, but found itself up against the hard reality of its hateful school curriculum and the anger and frustration of European Parliament members with a Palestinian national strategy of inciting schoolchildren to hate and violence on their dime, year after year.”
Incitement in education “has murderous consequences,” Sheff added.
Some of the examples of incitement in Palestinian textbooks listed in an EU study from 2019, released to the public in 2021, is the promotion of “resistance,” such as demonstrating Newton’s second law with Palestinians using slingshots to strike at Israeli soldiers.
Dalal al-Mughrabi, who hijacked a bus in 1978, murdering 38 Israelis, is repeatedly referred to in the context of female empowerment, and there are “no further portraits of significant female figures in Palestinian history,” implying that “the path of violence [is] the only option for women to demonstrate an outstanding commitment to their people and country,” the report states.
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