Having completed a study of 200 current and out-of-date textbooks used in Palestinian schools, Arnon Gross has come to the conclusion that these books “demonize the Jews and Israel and encourage the violent struggle to liberate Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.” Gross is convinced that, in light of his study, “there is no chance for peace and reconciliation between the state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.” Yaakov Ahimeir writes:

Take, for example, a ninth-grade textbook’s description of Safed, a city in the north of Israel with over a millennium of Jewish history: “Safed is one of the most beautiful Palestinian cities in the Galilee. Its magnificence hails back to its Canaanite origin, despite the fog of occupation that will one day lift.” . . .

[Gross’s] research brings truly hair-raising, dehumanizing examples to demonstrate how Palestinian education incites [violence and even genocide against] Jews. One of the textbooks calls the 1978 Coastal Road massacre—in which Fatah terrorists crossed from Lebanon into Israel, hijacked a bus, and murdered 38 Israeli passengers—a “barbecue.” Why? Because the terrorist cell leader, Dalal Mughrabi, gave a command to firebomb the bus and burn the Jews alive.

Gross stresses that from year to year, Palestinian textbooks have not become more moderate—quite the opposite, in fact.

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.