The UNRWA is retracting its plans to make its curriculum more sympathetic to Israel, more historically accurate and truthful, after the PA got upset.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has folded under Palestinian pressure and will not make changes to the agency’s school curriculum. The curriculum will not be more sympathetic to Israel and more historically accurate and truthful. Instead, it will continue to teach the Palestinian Authority (PA) curriculum, which is fraught with incitement against Israel and teaches that the Jewish State lacks the right to exist.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl met on Monday in Ramallah with PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. The UNRWA stated the two reviewed the UNRWA curriculum in light of “recent misrepresentations.” They agreed to a follow-up meeting between UNRWA and the Palestinian Ministry of Education on the curriculum issue.
UNRWA’s announcement came after warnings by PA and Hamas and after the PA suspend its ties with UNRWA.
They claimed UNRWA was planning “unacceptable” changes to the school textbooks.
The PA’s Education Ministry called the changes an “affront to the Palestinian people, its history and struggles,” and vowed the suspension will not change until UNRWA reverses their decision.
UNRWA schools serve more than 312,000 Palestinian children, including 262,000 students in Gaza, as well as 50,000 in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem.
A recent study into schoolbooks used by UNRWA-run schools found texts consistently delegitimize and demonize Israel. The schools do not teach Palestinian children to recognize Israel.
In the current books, Zionism is defined as a colonialist movement founded by European Jews to gather Jews worldwide and bring them to Palestine. No mention is made of the religious or historical connection of Jews to the Land of Israel or to Jerusalem. Instead, the UNRWA textbooks teach Jewish holy sites such as the Western Wall, Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs are Muslim holy sites.
Hamas has refused to allow UNRWA schools to teach about the Holocaust.
The PA indoctrinates its children through poisonous textbooks that depict Jews as evil occupiers and land-thieves who build “racist walls” and demolish houses for no reason. They also teach the conflict with Israel is not over a two-state solution, but the “liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea,” which means the annihilation of Israel. The goal is for the students to believe Israel is one big “settlement” with no place in the Middle East.
Moreover, the PA continues inculcating Palestinian children with the idea they should look to terrorists who kill Jews as their role models.
By: United with Israel Staff