Photo courtesy IMPACT-se
More than 20 members of the European parliament from 15 nations have urged the European Union to partially withhold funding from the PA until Ramallah makes sweeping changes to its controversial school curriculum. The new curriculum, introduced in 2017, incites violence, glorifies terrorism and contains antisemitic content. The UK government has admitted its aid funds the teaching and implementation of the curriculum.
“These textbooks are drafted and taught by education sector civil servants and teachers whose salaries are financed through the EU’s PEGASE instrument,” the cross-party group of MEPs wrote in a letter to the European Commission. “They violate each of the UNESCO standards for peace, tolerance and co-existence in school education.”
British ministers were alerted to the issue by LFI in 2017. Under pressure, they promised to back an international review of the textbooks, which was due to report last autumn. But questions have now been raised about the review, which is being undertaken by the Georg Eckert Institute, after it was discovered it had mistakenly included – and praised – Israeli Jerusalem municipality textbooks.
“The Palestinian Authority has ignored all efforts to get them to change their extremist curriculum,” Marcus Sheff, chief executive of IMPACT-se, said. Read full article