16 July, 2020

Fighting Incitement to Terror

LFI believes that a significant barrier to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is the prevalence of anti-Israel and antisemitic incitement by the Palestinian Authority (PA). 

The extent of incitement in the Palestinian education system is particularly disturbing. In 2017, the PA introduced a new school curriculum which teaches the virtues of martyrdom, describes terrorists as “heroes” and repeats antisemitic tropes. IMPACT-se, an NGO that monitors school textbooks, found in 2021: that “radicalisation is pervasive across this new curriculum”, concluding that it “exerts pressure over young Palestinians to acts of violence in a more extensive and sophisticated manner”. 

Incitement also flourishes in the Palestinian media; television and newspapers have frequently been condemned for content that is antisemitic and which glorifies violence. In particular, children’s TV programmes promote violence as a legitimate “armed struggle” against Israel and killers of Israelis as role models.   

Among the most egregious examples of the PA’s incitement to violence and terrorism is the “pay for slay” policy, under which terrorists and their families, including the families of dead terrorists, receive “salaries” directly from the PA. As of 2022, Palestinian media reported that the PA was paying some $350m in payments to terrorist prisoners and the families of “martyrs”. Salaries for individual terrorists start at the equivalent of £340 per month, rising to £2,900 depending on the length of the sentence. The policy thus incentives the most egregious acts of violence and terrorism, breaches the terms of the Oslo Accords, and weakens support in Israel for a two-state solution. It also deprives Palestinian public services of vital investment, and compromises international donors who, while not directly funding the payments, effectively subsidise them by freeing up cash for the PA to spend on them.  

LFI’s work has focused on raising awareness of the extent of incitement and advocating  

for reform, especially in the Palestinian school curriculum. International aid to support the education of Palestinian children and young people is vital. We have, however, continually stressed that no UK aid should be spent on fueling incitement and thus perpetuating violence and terrorism. 

LFI first raised the issue of the curriculum with UK ministers in 2017. Although our concerns were initially dismissed out of hand, the government eventually agreed to commission an independent review which finally reported in 2021. Former LFI chair Dame Louise Ellman introduced legislation that would mandate that UK assistance to the PA education system must comply with international values of peace and tolerance. It would also require an annual review to ensure compliance. 

LFI research has also uncovered that there are at least 76 Palestinian Authority schools named after terrorists and Nazi collaborators, including Dalal Mughrabi – the terrorist responsible for the 1978 Coastal Road massacre which killed 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children – and Amin Al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during the British Mandate, a Nazi collaborator who was responsible for an SS division and fought against the release of 5,000 Jewish children who perished in the gas chambers.  

Finally, LFI has repeatedly highlighted the PA’s “pay for slay” policy and called for its replacement.  

LFI believes that, as part of a new memorandum of understanding governing British aid, state-building support for the PA should include measures to replace the PA’s policy of paying salaries to those convicted of terrorism offences with a needs-based system, and end antisemitic incitement to violence and the glorification of terrorism, especially in the PA school curriculum and on state TV. British aid investment should also seek to bolster the confidence of the Palestinian people in the PA through anti-corruption measures and institutional reform to strengthen the independence of the judiciary and protect a free press and human rights.