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CFI’s Parliamentary Officer Group have today written to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, asking the Government to provide assurances that UK taxpayers’ money will no longer be used to facilitate the Palestinian Authority (PA) school curriculum being produced and taught.
The letter follows the publication of an EU report into the PA curriculum, which confirmed that Palestinian textbooks incite violence against Israel, promote terrorism and martyrdom, and teach antisemitism.
The CFI Parliamentarians, who represent all corners of the United Kingdom, urge the Foreign Secretary to “look carefully at how UK taxpayers’ money is spent in the West Bank and Gaza”. “We seek assurances from the Government that British taxpayers’ money will no longer be used to facilitate this curriculum of hate being produced and taught”, they write.
Concerns have been raised “over many years” about this material by Parliamentarians, which “harms Palestinian children and damages the prospects for peace”.
The group, led by CFI Parliamentary Chairmen Rt. Hon. Stephen Crabb MP (Commons) and Rt. Hon. The Lord Pickles (Lords) and CFI Honorary President Lord Polak CBE, write that “if peace is to stand any chance, this hate-filled curriculum must be reformed immediately”, adding that “our support to the Palestinian people must promote peace, not division”.
“Given the well-founded concerns over the school curriculum, we urge the UK to demonstrate its commitment to a lasting two-state solution by establishing an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace alongside the United States”, the CFI Officers write.
The UK, and the EU, directly fund the salaries of teachers who are involved in the production and implementation of the educational materials. The UK also provides funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which uses the same textbooks in schools in the West Bank and Gaza.
Conservative MP Caroline Ansell has secured a Westminster Hall debate on the ‘EU Review into Palestinian school textbooks’ on Wednesday 30th June, at 9.25am.
The review, undertaken by the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, was finished in February 2021 but has just been published following growing pressure for its public release.
It details extensive examples of radical material from 156 textbooks and 16 teachers guides used between 2017 and 2019. The report includes dozens of examples of encouragement of violence and demonisation of Israel and of Jews, including repeat glorification of the “heroine” Dalal al-Mughrabi, who killed 38 Israelis, including 13 children, in a terror attack. The report found glorification and praise of terrorists who killed Israeli civilians in history, social studies books, science and maths books.
An exercise in one religious studies textbook asks students to discuss the “repeated attempts by the Jews to kill the prophet” Muhammad and asks who are “other enemies of Islam”.
