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Palestinian hate education dooms peace prospects

The curriculum provides the most factual description of the rogue Palestinian walk—a direct contrast to Palestinian diplomatic talk.

Palestinian students on the first day of school in the city of Nablus/Shechem in the West Bank on Sept. 6, 2020. Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90.
Palestinian students on the first day of school in the city of Nablus/Shechem in the West Bank on Sept. 6, 2020. Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90.
Yoram Ettinger
Yoram Ettinger

Female fighters are glorified for sacrificing their sons and husbands in (jihad) battle, as role models and as proof that Islam ensures women’s “equality with men in sacrifice and self-sacrifice in invasions and battles.” — Islamic Education, Grade 8, Card 8, Quarter 1, Semester 1, 2021-22, p. 29.

Dalal Mughrabi, the perpetrator of the 1978 terror attack on a civilian bus from Haifa to Tel Aviv which left 38 Israelis dead, including 13 children—is praised as a brave “female Arab jihad warrior.” — Social Studies, Grade 9, Semester 1, 2021-22, p. 20.

Overview

The Palestinian Authority’s school curriculum (see the documentation in the next section) was established by Mahmoud Abbas in 1993, when he was Yasser Arafat’s deputy. The curriculum is the most factual description of the rogue Palestinian walk—a direct contrast to Palestinian diplomatic talk.

It focuses on pre-1967 Israel and has been consistent with the 1959 Charter of Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah and the 1964 Charter of Mahmoud Abbas’s PLO before Israel regained control of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

The curriculum is consistent with the anti-“infidel” precepts of Islam, aimed to eliminate the “infidel” from the “abode of Islam” and bring the “infidel” to submission. It is the most reliable expression of the deeply-rooted Palestinian vision of establishing an Arab entity from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, by eliminating the “infidel” Jewish sovereignty.

It is also a most authentic reflection of attitudes of the P.A. in general, and its view of the Jewish state in particular. Since its establishment in 1993, it has played a major role in shaping the attitudes of the Palestinian street.

It has been the most effective production line for Palestinian terrorists. The perpetrators of Palestinian terrorism—against rival factions and against the Jewish state—are proof of its effectiveness as a brainwashing tool.

The following January documentation (Palestinian school curriculum documented) of the Palestinian school curriculum was prepared by Eldad Pardo of the Hebrew University, who has researched school curricula in the P.A., Iran, the Gulf States and other Middle East entities. The report was published by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education.

• The 2021-22 curriculum contains anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hate and incitement.

• Jews are depicted as devious, treacherous and brutal.

• The focus of instruction regarding the “occupation” is on the pre-1967 area of Israel, such as Jaffa, Haifa, Akko, Lod, the Galilee and the Negev.

• Israel has been entirely erased from the maps used in geography and social-science classes.

• Israel is described as a satanic entity, and its establishment is defined as a crime, and a “colonial conspiracy,” based on “false premises” and a “racist ideology.”

• Women may gain equality through sacrifice and “martyrdom.”

• Students are encouraged to commit acts of violence and instructed to commit jihad (Holy War) against Israelis and die as martyrs to liberate Palestine and especially the Al-Aqsa mosque.

• Students are taught that those who die as martyrs (shahids) while killing infidels (kuffar, i.e., Christians, Jews, polytheists)—a notion described as one of the “rules of jihad”—will receive God’s grace and be greatly rewarded.

The bottom line

A peace process, on the one hand, and the Palestinian school curriculum, on the other hand, constitute a classic oxymoron.

The failure to precondition negotiations with the P.A. upon the dismantling of its hate education has doomed negotiation to failure while energizing terrorism.

Conducting peace negotiation with the P.A. before the dismantling of its hate-driven school curriculum resembles negotiating an end to drug trafficking while tolerating the drug cartels’ penetration of the political and educational systems.

Yoram Ettinger is a former ambassador and head of Second Thought: A U.S.-Israel Initiative.

This article was first published by The Ettinger Report.

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