The European Parliament Committee on Budgets passed an amendment to withhold more than $23 million in financial aid to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees unless anti-Israel incitement is removed from textbooks used by the Palestinian Authority.
According to Amendment 4083, funds will be released by the 2022 academic year “if substantive positive changes are made in the Palestinian Authority curriculum that promote coexistence and tolerance with the Jewish-Israeli ‘other’ and peace education with Israel in alignment with the goals of the two-state solution.”
If revisions are not made to the “hate speech, anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in Palestinian Authority and UNRWA textbooks,” then the funds will be instead given to NGOs “with a proven track record of promoting coexistence with Israel,” the amendment stated.
The European Parliament is one of the legislative branches of the European Union. The amendment was approved on Tuesday as part of the 2022 budget package and now heads for a plenary vote.
“This is a crucial measure that speaks volumes about the ongoing frustration felt by European lawmakers, who are simply no longer prepared to fund the teaching of hate in Palestinian classrooms,” said Marcus Sheff, CEO of the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), which exposed factious textbook material in multiple reports and lobbied for the inclusion of the amendment. “They are rightly demanding that Palestinian children are taught about tolerance, coexistence and respect.”
