A new 261-page report commissioned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center has found anti-Semitic and anti-Israel textbooks being widely used in United Nations schools in the Palestinian territories.
The study analysed more than 150 textbooks used in UN run schools finding that Palestinian children were being taught three fundamentals: delegitimization, demonization and indoctrination to violent struggle instead of peace.
Shockingly, it is Western taxpayers who are funding this Jew hatred.
The United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which is dedicated solely to supporting Palestinians, has an annual budget of $736 million (£540 million), of which nearly half is spent on educating Palestinian children.
In 2016, the United States gave $152 million (£113 million), the United Kingdom gave $43.8 million (£32 million) and the EU gave $113 million (£84 million) to UNRWA.
Western nations are by far the largest contributors to UNRWA and yet every year reports come out showing hard evidence that the textbooks they use to teach Palestinian children are filled with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel messages. So it is shocking that nothing has changed.
One example is a textbook for 12 to 13 year olds which teaches explicitly about martyrdom. The poem, entitled “The Martyr” reads:
“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 predators… by your life! This is the death of men and whoever asks for a noble death – here it is!”
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
According to the Palestinian schoolbooks, Jews have no rights whatsoever in the region but only “greedy ambitions.” The books also say that Jews have no holy places there either – the Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem are all presented as Muslim holy places threatened by Jews.
It is important to note that even the United Nations Educational, Science and Culture Organisation (UNESCO) has said these exact same things. So when anti-Semitism reigns in the main offices of the United Nation, it is no wonder the body responsible for educating Palestinian children is spouting the same lies.
Not only do these textbooks deny Jewish history, they also deny the present. The report shows that cities established by Jews in modern times, including Tel Aviv, are sometimes not shown on maps. “Israel is not a legitimate state according to the PA schoolbooks studied at UNRWA schools,” the study says. “The name ‘Israel’ does not appear on the map at all.”
In many cases, “Palestine” appears instead and covers Israel’s pre-1967 territories as well. The almost complete erasure of the name “Israel” from the newly published PA schoolbooks of 2016-2017 is “a disturbing development,” the researchers wrote. “[As are] the numerous demonizing descriptions of the Jewish state and its replacement by the expression ‘Zionist occupation.’”
“Even the former expression ‘the Arab-Israeli conflict’ is now spelled ‘the Arab-Zionist conflict,’” they added. “This change signals an intensification of the non-recognition attitude regarding Israel on the part of the Palestinian educators. While demonization of Jews is less evident in the PA schoolbooks, compared to books of some other Arab governments, Jews are still demonized as opponents of Islam’s revered prophets, namely, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad.”
“The first group of Jewish settlers came to Palestine from Russia in 1882 and the second group was in 1905,” one of the books reads. “The arrival of the Jewish throngs to Palestine continued until 1948 and their goal was taking over the Palestinian lands and then replacing the original inhabitants after their expulsion or extermination.” Israel is also presented as an enemy who aims its weapons at Palestinian children.
“The Palestinian child stood facing the enemy’s bullets like a brave soldier,” one book included. When it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict and possible solutions, peace is not advocated in the schoolbooks used in UNRWA schools. Instead, they promote a violent struggle of liberation against Israel’s “occupation”, the Jerusalem Post reports.
A 2017 text even reveals a shocking attitude toward Israelis by describing a Molotov-cocktail attack on an Israeli civilian bus as a “barbecue party,” and another such text exalts a Palestinian female terrorist responsible for the killing of over thirty civilians in an attack on another Israeli bus.
“This list of items taught in UNRWA schools is incriminating,” the researchers concluded. “UNRWA, in fact, not only does propagate a non-peaceful line contrary to UN resolutions on the Middle East, and not only does allow the presentation of Israel and its Jewish citizens as illegitimate with heavy layers of demonization. UNRWA also betrays its moral obligation toward the Palestinian children and youths’ human rights and well-being, by letting the PA prepare them for a future war with Israel.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Associations says the books describes Jews as “people who hated the prophet [Mohammed], killed Jesus, didn’t follow Moses law – the worst human beings that you can possibly imagine.”
“That is the kind of mentality that breeds the kind of hatred that leads to the terrorist actions that takes a terrible toll among all citizens of Israel from terrorism.”
Rabbi Cooper went on to say this report should be a “wake-up call” to the Trump Administration and other organisations. While the Palestinian Authority, including Mahmoud Abbas claim to promote peace, Cooper declares “This study devastatingly proves that the Palestinian leadership have done exactly the opposite, they continue to do so. Without those changes we are not going to have peace any time soon in the holy land.”