Palestinian children are being systematically taught to hate Jewish Israelis and violently resist a Jewish presence in Israel, a comprehensive review of Palestinian school textbooks has found.
The study, by Dr. Arnon Gross of the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, in conjunction with David Bedein of the Center for Near East Policy Research, looked at nearly 400 school text books published between 2013 and 2020, and more than one hundred teachers’ guides, mostly published in 2018, for a greater insight into how the material was being taught.
They found three main strands of indoctrination running though the texts: delegitimization of the State of Israel’s existence, including the denial of Jewish holy sites within Israel; demonization of Israel and the Jews, who are regularly referred to as “the Zionist enemy”; and incitement to violent struggle to reclaim the whole of Israel as Palestine, with no education for peace and co-existence.
“Schoolbooks are specifically important in societies in conflict, because they indicate the narrative the leadership and society strive to instill in the minds of the younger generation,” the report notes. “The schoolbooks issued by the Palestinian Authority indicate, then, the essence of the narrative as far as the conflict with Israel is concerned.”
The narrative given within the context of
Palestinian school texts is one of preparing the next generation “for a continuous and long-range confrontation against the State of Israel in order to achieve the final goal, which is the establishment of the State of Palestine that will stretch on the entire territory of the Land of Israel,” the report further notes, adding: “There is no trace in the schoolbooks of the argumentation disseminated by the Palestinian Authority in the international arena that the Palestinian Authority is committed to “a just peace” based on the two-state solution.”
This narrative of continued violent struggle against a Jewish presence in Israel has intensified since 2016, the report found, with references to the three main strands widespread throughout the curriculum. Increasingly, the schoolbooks vehemently deny the State of Israel or any Jewish connection to the land, referring to any historical links between Jews and Israel as ‘legends.’
For example, a Grade 10 textbook teaching Arabic language contained a passage reading: “…[The occupier] has built for himself an artificial entity that derives its identity and the legitimacy of its existence from tales, legends and false visions, and has tried through various methods and ways to create live material evidence for these legends, or archaeological and architectural proofs that would confirm their truth and substantiality, but in vain.”
Similarly, a Grade 3 text for a Citizenship class read: “Jerusalem is an Arab city built by our Arab ancestors thousands of years ago. Jerusalem is a holy city to Muslims and Christians,” – denying a Jewish connection to Jerusalem….
