Those funding antisemitic Palestinian textbooks must be held accountable - editorial

The recent wave of terror attacks reveals the degree to which education and propaganda have led to such a level of hatred that it is the main driver behind the attacks.

The attacker who horrifically killed seven innocent people in Neveh Ya’acov on Friday night outside a synagogue was identified as a 21-year-old from east Jerusalem. In the second serious attack that shocked the country on Shabbat, a 13-year-old youth – also from east Jerusalem – shot and wounded two people who were walking home from Shabbat services outside the City of David.

In both instances, there were widespread celebrations in Palestinian communities in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Fireworks were shot into the sky, in some places there was shooting in the air and candy was handed out, including by the Neveh Ya’acov terrorist’s mother, as the perpetrators of the heinous acts were heralded as martyrs and heroes.

Besides the alarming fact that these young men – and who knows how many like them – have access to guns, the actual trigger for the ongoing violence is the Palestinian education system that for too long has helped inculcate this hatred.

Palestinian education helps inculcate this hatred of Jews

The issue of incitement in Palestinian Authority textbooks has long been known and highlighted. Back in 2017, a report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), revealed that Palestinian schools were teaching students to be martyrs and demonized Israel.

In 2020, another report looked at the textbooks provided by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. One example of the extremism included a math textbook that included exercises such as counting martyrs, according to reports. At the time, there was testimony that these textbooks were leading to radicalization.

As a result, the UK was looking into funds that were being sent to the UN and which end up supporting Palestinian education. At the time, the UK said it had a “zero tolerance” approach towards incitement that might be occurring.

The semantic terminology – such as calling children and adults who carry out terror attacks “martyrs” – floods Palestinian society. Back in 2011, UNRWA proudly inaugurated a school in Beirut. “The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the Delegation of the European Union inaugurated today Palestine Martyrs elementary and preparatory boys’ school in Saida,” the UN wrote at the time.

The schools teach the impressionable youth that there is no difference between the “martyr” who is killed in a gun battle with Israeli soldiers and those who attack civilians or blow up buses. Any Jewish or Israeli target is celebrated equally. 

Last September, some 150 schools in east Jerusalem went on strike to protest having to use Israeli textbooks, where martyrdom and hate would not be the norm. At the time, Arab parents and activists accused Israel of pushing its identity on the local school system.

Israel has been working slowly for years to try to implement an education program that would replace the Palestinian curriculum taught in the schools. Israel knows very well that the widespread culture of hatred against Israelis and Jews within Palestinian culture begins when children are very young.

Every country has educational systems that may celebrate national heroes. But Palestinian education and society at-large are unique in how it celebrates those who murder civilians. This is a system that hands out candies when someone murders children and targets people enjoying themselves after a Shabbat meal.

The impact of being raised for decades with a worldview of celebrating the killing of civilians, encouraging martyrdom and pledging allegiance to erase a state and people who are their neighbors can’t be underestimated.

It’s a wonder that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians raised in this system never carry out attacks. But as can be seen from the footage over the weekend, the sentiment that a good Jew is a dead Jew is not a marginal thought in Palestinian society.

The rising violence in the West Bank demonstrates that those foreign bodies that fund Palestinian textbooks must demand accountability. Otherwise, there will be many more 13-year-old terrorists opening fire on innocent Israelis.