CFI has called on the UK Government to publish a joint EU/UK review into the Palestinian Authority curriculum, after reports casting doubt on the reliability of the study emerged this week.
In a letter to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, CFI Parliamentary Chairmen Rt. Hon. Stephen Crabb MP and Rt. Hon. The Lord Pickles, and CFI Honorary President Lord Polak CBE, expressed “serious concerns” over a leaked online presentation of the report by the Georg Eckert Institute that suggests researchers wrongly analysed Israeli Arabic textbooks, categorising them as Palestinian Authority textbooks.
As well as “basic translation errors” in the methodology, “some of the most troubling examples of incitement to violence and antisemitism appear to have inexplicably been entirely overlooked”, they write.
The parliamentarians write that the reports “raise fundamental questions about the whole inquiry”, which “seems likely to fall far short of the standard the UK Government and Parliament can reasonably have expected”.
They note that “Members in both Houses of Parliament have expressed concerns about the content of teaching material supplied by the Palestinian Authority for use in schools. A curriculum that glorifies violence and encourages discord”. Cross-party MPs agreed in a Westminster Hall debate on the subject in March that “there was an urgent need for the findings of the joint EU/UK study into the PA’s curriculum to be published at the earliest opportunity”.
Rt. Hon. Stephen Crabb MP, Rt. Hon. The Lord Pickles and Lord Polak CBE contend that “Parliament was promised an honest assessment of the teaching material”, yet “leaked reports suggest this will fall considerably short of undertakings given, in good faith, by Ministers”.
“Palestinian children returning for the new school year deserve better”, they write, adding that “it is unacceptable that these children will continue using textbooks that promote violence and hatred of Israel and Jews, taught by teachers paid for by the UK”.
They write: “As the Department for International Development merges with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, it is crucial that the UK makes its position clear that it will continue to hold major concerns about the PA’s curriculum”.
Asking the Foreign Secretary for assurances that the UK Government intends to publish the overdue report, they underline that “British taxpayers have the right to know what it is actually being taught”.
