An educational watchdog group recommended urgent intervention to eliminate hatred and incitement from the Palestinian curriculum.
By United with Israel Staff
A report released this month by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found that the Palestinian 2019 matriculation exam was filled with hateful material.
The General Certificate of High School Examination in Palestine (Tawjihi or Injaz) is given to 12th grade Palestinian students. It is “perhaps the most important [exam] in the lives of each graduate. The tests are good indicators of the importance placed on the curriculum’s core content: they require an arduous process of learning and memorization,” according to the report.
Passing the test is a prerequisite for enrolling in Palestinian and some Arab universities.
IMPACT-se discovered that students are required to “absorb and memorize” a wide range of “problematic content,” which incites violence, promotes hatred of the other, and includes radical, inappropriate or disturbing materials.
Some of the questionable content included claims that WWI, WWII and the Arab Spring were plots by a US-British alliance to destroy Arab countries, and statements such as: “Liberation of the homeland can be done only through resistance with arms”; “What was taken by force can only be recovered by force” with regard to Israel; claims that Israel is so evil that it should never be called by its name and “will disappear as the fog over the sea”; and “values such as sacrifice [of] one’s life for Allah,” among others.
IMPACT-se’s system for evaluating content is based on UNESCO’s standards for peace and tolerance in school education, which promote respect, tolerance, peacemaking, unbiased information, gender equality, and environmental preservation. These standards also prohibit the promotion of hate, prejudice, misconceptions, stereotypes, misunderstandings, mistrust, religious bigotry, national hatred, and incitement.
Following its analysis, the Jerusalem-based watchdog wrote that there is a “need for an urgent and determined intervention in the Palestinian curriculum.”
The same group found in September that new educational materials for the 2019-2020 academic year were filled with “a systematic insertion of violence, martyrdom and jihad across all grades and subjects.”
