Experts say they have discovered that 240 US-approved textbooks teach children to take up armed struggle against Israel, sacrifice themselves as martyrs and drive the Jews out of the land.
The textbooks have been approved by the US government and are being used in over 400 Palestinian schools run by the UNRWA in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They teach children from age 5 to 15 and even manage to incite hatred in maths questions and Christian studies.
The United Nation’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has long claimed that they do not teach their children to hate Israel. And the Palestinian Authority’s minister of education has also repeatedly stated that all the textbooks would teach a “united curriculum”.
On top of this the US-government has confirmed that the textbooks used in UN run schools contains no incitement.
Now, a group of Jewish researchers purchased all 240 books from the Palestinian Authority and translated them into Hebrew. What they discovered was shocking.
JPost reports that David Bedein, the head of the Center for Near East Policy Research, said that the findings showed a central theme: “the preparation of the children for war.”
Bedein gave various examples presented from the books. One is a math word problem asking students to use variables, including the number of Jews killed during the first and second intifadas.
Another was the following excerpt from a poem:
Hearing [weapons] clash is pleasant to my ear
And the flow of blood gladdens my soul
As well as a body thrown upon the ground
Skirmished over by the desert predator
By your life! This is the death of men
And whoever asks for a noble death – this is it!”
“We have copies of the books and went through them, and what’s happening is very clear.”
“The American government told Israel that it had checked out the school books and that everything is fine, but it’s not,” said Bedein.
“All Israeli cities [in the textbooks] are replaced by Palestinian cities. Everything is about the ‘Right of Return’ [for Palestinians] and armed struggle.”
Despite these findings, Christopher Gunness, a spokesperson for UNRWA has patently denied the allegations against the agency.
We wait to see what changes will be made, if any, as a result of these findings.