The British government is set to review the Palestinian Authority’s educational curriculum over growing concerns that British taxpayers are paying for the Palestinians to teach children incitement and anti-Semitism.
In a letter to Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), Parliament members Joan Ryan and Ian Austin, and Middle East Minister Alistair Burt “brought forward a planned assessment of the Palestinian curriculum, which will involve a rigorous and independent review of the pilot PA textbook,” the U.K. Jewish News reported.
The United Kingdom pays more than £20million ($26 million) per year for Palestinian schools. LFI has been pushing for a review of P.A. curriculum for several months.
LFI director Jennifer Gerber said Ryan “first raised LFI’s deep concerns about the P.A.’s new lessons in hate directly with the government in September.”
“It is grotesque that U.K. taxpayers’ money is helping to support the teaching of a curriculum which incites violence and terrorism and spreads anti-Semitism,” said the MP.
In a debate on Wednesday in Parliament convened at the request of Ryan, Middle East Minister Burt said “there is no place in education for materials or practices that incite young minds toward violence,” and that the review, which should be completed by September 2019, will be “evidence-based and rigorous.”
The investigation was spurred by an analysis conducted by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education group into P.A. school textbooks, concluding that they provoke “young Palestinians to acts of violence in a more extensive and sophisticated manner,” and that “the curriculum’s focus appears to have expanded from demonisation of Israel to providing a rationale for war.”
