The European Parliament on March 11 said that anti-Semitic incitement and promotion of terrorism in Palestinian textbooks, published by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), were contributing factors to the massacre. perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 in southern Israel. Recent European Parliament resolutions represent a condemnation of Palestinian education and have highlighted evidence that some UNRWA personnel assisted Hamas in violent attacks against Israeli civilians. Parliament called for a complete overhaul and stricter control of the Palestinian education system to eliminate anti-Semitic content from curriculum, especially if such institutions receive funding from the European Union.
«Today the European Parliament condemned problematic and hateful content that encourages violence, spreads anti-Semitism and incites hatred in Palestinian school textbooks. The European Parliament reaffirmed, in the context of the despicable terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on 7 October 2023, that hate education has direct and dramatic consequences on the security of Israelis, as well as on the prospects for a better future for young Palestinians. Therefore, the European Parliament asks the Commission to carefully verify that no UNWRA funds are allocated for the use of such hateful materials”, these are the words of the German Member of the European Parliament Niclas Herbst (CDU).
As The Algemeiner previously reported, UNRWA textbooks are among the most problematic when it comes to anti-Semitism and incitement to violence. These books cover different disciplines, from mathematics to theology, from literature to science, and contain contents that fuel a strong feeling of hatred towards Jews and Israel. Students, even as young as six, are indoctrinated with ideas of “martyrdom” and intergenerational conflict. Any attempt at compromise with Israel is portrayed as a betrayal of the Palestinian identity, while suicide attacks are presented as an integral part of this identity and as a means to reach paradise.
The reaction of Marcus Sheff, CEO of the Israeli Education Supervision Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (Impact-se) was prompt: «In this bipartisan resolution, the European Parliament has rightly made the There is an inevitable and tragic connection between the horrors of October 7 and the systematic indoctrination that has flourished for too long in Palestinian schools, most of which are run by UNRWA in Gaza.” Then Sheff added that «For years we have warned that the textbooks taught to Palestinian children create the conditions for the barbarity we have all witnessed. The European Parliament now says: “Enough”. We need a new Palestinian curriculum.”
Impact-se has for years denounced how study programs fuel tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and encourage religious extremism. Last March, the organization disclosed transcripts of recordings showing the role Yusef Zidan Sliman Al-Hawajri and Mamdouh Hussein Ahmad Al-Qek played in the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Both teachers worked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the agency of the global organization dedicated exclusively to refugees and descendants of Palestinians who fled during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. « We have women hostage, I captured one,” Al-Hawarji, who is both an Arabic teacher at the UNRWA-funded Deir al-Balah boys' primary school and a member of the Central Campus Brigade, is heard saying in the recordings. of Hamas. Al-Hawarji also made specific reference to the kidnapping of a “sabaya,” a term used by jihadists to describe sex slaves. In a separate recording cited by the watchdog group, Al-Qek – another UNRWA primary school teacher and member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) Rafah Brigade – celebrated the infiltration into Israeli territory during a phone call to family members, saying: «I'm inside! I am with the Jews.”
In the latest Impact-se report published last March, we read that textbooks published by the Palestinian Authority teach girls that women are inferior to men and ask them to sacrifice their bodies and families for “jihad ”. The characterization of women as inferior in PA textbooks reflects a broader and troubling narrative of bigotry in curricula, which continues to shape the perspectives of millions of Palestinian children,” Sheff said after the report was released. Furthermore, all this conflicts with international treaties on gender equality ratified by the Palestinian Authority itself. In particular, the emphasis on women's participation in resistance activities as a distorted form of gender equality sets a dangerous precedent.
