At the end of last year, the Norwegian parliament voted to cut its aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) over its refusal to modify the textbooks used in its schools, which teach hatred for Jews and admiration for terrorists. By contrast, the British government, although it acknowledged the problem in 2018, has responded mainly with obfuscation and foot-dragging. Jenni Frazer writes:
Despite numerous assurances from the Palestinian education minister, detailed reports from the Israel-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) show that as recently as September last year, Palestinian school students were still learning math by adding up the number of “martyrs,” including those who have carried out suicide bombings on buses and shopping center. The curriculum is taught in Palestinian Authority and UNRWA schools in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem.
Not only does Britain continue to pay—in the past five years it has spent an estimated 105 million pounds on Palestinian education professionals, including on the salaries of teachers who write the textbooks—but it appears to have a blind spot when it comes to challenging the Palestinians on the content of those books.
The UK and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have a memorandum of understanding, which supposedly commits the Palestinians not only to “uphold the principle of non-violence,” but to take action against “incitement to violence, including addressing allegations of incitement in the educational curriculum.” Money paid by Britain . . . is supposedly contingent on the PA’s performance on “curriculum reform.” [But government] ministers have refused requests to publish the government’s annual internal reviews of the PA’s compliance with the memorandum.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/jn-investigation-how-britain-funds-radicalisation-in-palestinian-schools/