European Parliament condemns incitement in Palestinian, UNRWA textbooks

"The European Parliament has adopted a resolution condemning educational material produced by the Palestinian Authority and by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees for its role in inciting hatred against Israelis.

In a document adopted on April 11, the EP said that it ‘condemns the problematic and hateful contents encouraging violence, spreading antisemitism and inciting hatred in Palestinian school textbooks, drafted by [European] Union-funded civil servants as well as in supplementary educational materials developed by UNRWA staff and taught in its schools.’

The EP further recognized that those teaching materials, subsidized with European taxpayer money in the case of PA textbooks, had a role in radicalizing Gazans prior to the October 7 onslaught, in which 1,200 people were killed by Hamas and other terror groups in southern Israel, and 253 were taken hostage to Gaza.

‘[The EP] reaffirms in the context of the despicable terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on 7 October 2023, that education to hatred [has] direct and dramatic consequences on the security of Israelis as well as on the perspectives of a better future for young Palestinians,’ the resolution read.

Palestinian textbooks have repeatedly come under scrutiny for their alleged role in radicalizing generations of Gazans and West Bankers, inciting them against Israelis, spreading antisemitic tropes, glorifying terrorism and ‘martyrdom,’ and systematically erasing Israel’s existence.

The EP resolution further called for the conditioning of educational aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) on the production of educational material ‘that is free from antisemitic contents and incitement to violence.’

The Parliament further noted that since 2016, it has requested five times that the European Commission, the body responsible for allocating foreign aid, scrutinize closely how EU funds to the PA are spent, and demanded that Ramallah modify its educational curriculum.

Textbooks used in schools throughout the Palestinian territories (West Bank and Gaza) are drafted by the Palestinian Authority. UNRWA schools, which cater to about 80 percent of the Gazan population, sometimes produce additional educational material, which often contains the same problematic incitement as Ramallah’s schoolbooks..."