On Tuesday this week, Stoke-On-Trent North MP Jonathan Gullis led his first Westminster Hall debate on the topic of radicalisation within the Palestinian school curriculum.
20 Conservative MPs were in attendance in the debate, which focused on concerns about the content of the Palestinian Authority’s school textbooks which contain incitement of hatred, martyrdom, and violence towards Israelis.
The debate follows a recent expose in the Daily Mail, which laid bare the disturbing content of textbooks, and MPs have raised the issue on numerous occasions in the House of Commons in recent years. Questioning why the issue had not been fixed, former Cabinet Minister Rt. Hon. Theresa Villiers MP stressed in the debate how she first raised the issues of incitement in Palestinian textbooks in a “Parliamentary Question in European Parliament 19 years ago”.
Jonathan Gullis MP underlined: “Over many decades, Palestinian children have grown up in an environment of institutionalized radicalisation. In schools named after suicide bombers, schoolchildren from the age of six are taught Israel is a temporary construct that will “‘disappear as a fog over the sea’”.
Mr Gullis opened the debate by outlining how “a report published by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) in September 2019 found that the most recent Palestinian Authority school textbooks are even more extreme than previous editions”.
He said: “Despite promises from the Palestinian Authority to review and remove unacceptable content” the IMPACT-se report found “a systematic insertion of violence, martyrdom and jihad across all grades and subjects”, where, “the possibility of peace with Israel is rejected”. He explained that “peace agreements and proposals with Israel that previously appeared in Palestinian Authority schoolbooks have been removed”.
The Stoke-on-Trent North MP said: “I struggle to look my constituents in the eye and justify our overseas aid spending when their hard-earned money enables radicalisation, and UK-funded teachers use [Palestinian] textbooks filled with hate”.
Holding up a Palestinian textbook during the debate, Mr Gullis revealed that at least 31 Palestinian schools are named after terrorists, with five named after Dalal Mughrabi, perpetrator of the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre in which 38 Israelis were murdered, including 13 children, in a bus hijacking.
Numerous Conservative MPs gave speeches and made interventions.
CFI Officer Mary Robinson MP explained how UNRWA schools in West Bank and Gaza “have to follow curriculum set by the Palestinian Authority, which as we have heard, glorifies martyrdom, rejects peaceful coexistence with Israel”. The UK has provided £330m to UNRWA over past 5 years.
CFI Officer Matthew Offord MP highlighted how 31 official schools under the Palestinian Authority are named after terrorists as well as “three named after Nazi collaborators” sending a clear message that terrorists will be “honoured for undertaking such a heinous crime”.
Craig Tracey MP noted that whilst on CFI trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories, he could certainly feel the “appetite for peace among young people, but that examples such as the ones he is giving serious undermine the opportunities for it to happen?”
Tim Loughton MP echoed deep concerns about indoctrination of Palestinian youth with messages of hate, stating: “It is in nobody’s interest for these textbooks to be allowed to continue and certainly not at the expense of the taxpayers”.
Peter Gibson MP explained how appalled he is “by the content that is being taught to children from a young age…Calling for teenagers to give their lives for jihad falls far short of UN standards, or indeed any”.
Robert Courts MP stated that he longs “for nothing more than for peace” in the region, but he struggles “to see how that will happen when the educational biosphere in which young Palestinians are growing up in is one that is saturated with antisemitic hatred”.
Nicola Richards MP highlighted how “Holocaust denial is the most prevalent in Gaza and the West Bank, standing at around 82% of the population [which] proves that something is going seriously wrong”. She called for Palestinian curriculum “driven by facts and history”.
Robert Largan MP drew attention to the fact that the Palestinian Authority pays monthly salaries to terrorists and their families “to the tune of £260 million in 2018, or 7% of their entire budget”. He said: “I want to see peace desperately, but while these payments continue, the prospect is a very bleak one”.
Christian Wakeford MP asked how “can we truly be a government committed to stamping out antisemitism in our own country when we are funding it in a foreign nation?” He went onto call on the PA to follow the example of Jordan which reviewed its curriculum in 2015 in response to concerns over radicalisation. He said: “Although not perfect, Jordan’s curriculum can generally be seen as an example that reform is possible”.
Andrew Lewer MP drew attention to his constituent Mr George Bradford who has been working hard “to raise awareness about extremist teaching in Palestinian Schools” suggested “that such awareness-raising has a valuable role as part of wider debates such as this one”.
CFI’s Parliamentary chair Stephen Crabb MP (Commons) hailed the work of Jerusalem deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan in tackling radicalisation and her work in supporting coexistence across the city.
CFI Vice-Chair John Howell MP emphasised how Palestinian leadership “says one thing to UK officials and another to Palestinian people”. He goes onto stress how “we have a duty not only to UK taxpayers… but also to future generations of Palestinians, who deserve a future filled with opportunities, not hate”.
Dr Dan Poulter MP pressed the minister for assurances that the matter would be investigated properly by the Palestinian Authority and Jonathan Lord MP followed suit by asking for confirmation that the textbooks would be withdrawn and not used in the next academic year.
Minister for the Middle East and North Africa Rt. Hon. James Cleverly MP made clear that offensive and hateful antisemitism is “unacceptable in all its forms” and “has no place anywhere in society, least of all in classrooms”.
The Middle East Minister said that he could “confirm that the Palestinian Education Minister is leading a review into the content of school textbooks, which will be completed in time for the start of the next academic year in September”. He added that the UK will continue to “work with the Palestinian Authority… to encourage and support them to do the right thing”.
He confirmed that the UK would urge the EU to ensure ongoing reports into the content of Palestinian textbooks are made publicly available.
The Minister closed the debated by asserting that the UK government will keep pushing this agenda in a persistent, principled and balanced manner.
