A study has found that Palestinian classrooms remain a place where extremism is encouraged, with new educational materials still supporting old and dangerous ideas, according to a new study
The online school curriculum, created by the Palestinian Authority (PA) for Gaza students during Israel’s war against Hamas, glorifies violence and martyrdom and is full of anti-Semitic stereotypes.
Such content is being used in Hamas-controlled schools that praise the October 7, 2023 attacks, a British think tank found on Monday.
The findings come after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel and the nearly year-and-a-half-long war it caused in Gaza.
It runs counter to promises the Palestinian Authority made to countries that fund it that it would reform education.
Yet Western nations that support the Ramallah-based PA still want it to take over Gaza from Hamas.
The study by London-based NGO Impact-se analyzed textbooks used this year by nearly 300,000 Palestinian students in grades 1 through 12 in Gaza.
It found that these materials erase the State of Israel from the map, feature violent imagery and promote anti-Semitism.
The report also notes that at least four reopened schools in Hamas-controlled Gaza openly celebrate the October 7 attack – considered the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust – using books and materials that encourage hatred.
“If the international community wants peace and stability in the Middle East, it needs to understand the importance of an education system in Gaza that teaches peace, not hatred,” Sharren Haskel, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, told JNS.
She warned that as long as Hamas controls civilian life in Gaza, children will continue to be taught radical Islamic ideas, which will only lead to more conflict in the future.
Haskel also called on the European Union (EU) to pressure the PA to use a curriculum that promotes peace, coexistence and tolerance.
“The EU is now funding a radical Islamic curriculum.
Any material that glorifies extreme violence and the massacre of October 7 is an absolute disgrace and should not be supported internationally,” she said.
Anti-Semitism The PA’s online textbooks continue to use anti-Semitic stories and images, despite previous promises to follow UNESCO standards for education.
For example, an 11th-grade history textbook shows a drawing of a hand with the Star of David (a Jewish symbol) holding the world, reinforcing the long-standing prejudice that Jews control everything.
An Islamic education textbook describes “Jews” as “liars, immoral and manipulators who hate Islam,” the report said.
Encouragement of violence
The concept of jihad (holy war) is extolled in the educational system as “the pinnacle of Islam” and a direct path to “martyrdom.” There are poetic and graphic descriptions of martyrs “climbing mountains of gushing blood.” Exercises ask students, “How did the martyrs face death”” and describe death as something that “hit them with a pickaxe.”
From the first grade, martyrs are portrayed as divine figures.
Children learn the Arabic letter H with the word “shah?d” (martyr), and jihad is called “one of the gates of paradise,” according to the study.
The new AP materials also teach science and math in ways that encourage violence and hatred against Israel.
A third-grade math exercise asks students to write down how many martyrs died in the First Intifada (uprising against Israel).
A 9th-grade statistics class asks students to calculate the number of “martyrs” killed by Israel.
Hatred in schools
While the PA has launched a remote learning program for Gaza, the incitement to hatred and violence continues in schools reopened by Hamas, the study says.
For example, last month at Al-Nasr Primary School in Gaza, students recited a poem praising the October 7 massacre.
A message on the board for 7- and 8-year-olds read, “You are history, you are the toufan [flood],” celebrating the Hamas attack, dubbed the “Al-Aqsa Flood.”
At Muscat Girls’ Secondary School in the Nuseirat refugee camp, students study a book with a violent poem by Egyptian poet Hashim Al-Rifa’i, who says that “one day with a gun in hand” there will be a violent return to Israeli cities.
Failure to meet international standards
The study concludes that the 2025 curriculum “does not meet basic international educational standards” and goes against promises the PA made to the EU last year.
The PA had promised to reform its educational content to meet UNESCO’s peace and tolerance standards in exchange for continued funding.
A high-level dialogue between the EU and the PA on “progress on reforms” is scheduled for next month in Brussels.
Impact-se head Marcus Sheff said the PA had failed the “litmus test” after signing the agreement with the EU.
“We see that the PA continues to teach hatred and violence in its curriculum, promoting anti-Semitism, glorifying terrorism and dehumanizing Israelis.
Published in 03/25/2025 08h10
Text adapted by AI (Grok) and translated via Google API in the English version. Images from public image libraries or credits in the caption.
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