Online lessons for Palestinian children still teaching hate
A lesson on Newtonian physics used the Palestinian fighters using slingshots to target IDF soldiers as an example of elastic energy.
By DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDSPalestinian children holding textbooks showing the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.(photo credit: REUTERS/REUTERS STAFF)
Children in schools run by the Palestinian Authority are continuing to be indoctrinated with antisemitic hatred through educational materials, even while studying at home during the coronavirus lockdown.IMPACT-se, a research, policy and advocacy organization that monitors and analyzes education, has uncovered content inciting children to violence in a range of online materials, including YouTube videos and online lessons.In one reading comprehension lesson, designed to teach reading and grammar to ten year old boys, the content was found to glorify terrorist Dalal al-Mughrabi, the perpetrator of the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre in which 38 Israeli civilians were killed, including thirteen children.Similarly, a lesson on Newtonian physics used the Palestinian fighters using slingshots to target IDF soldiers as an example of elastic energy.Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se said: “Even when studying at home, Palestinian children cannot escape the hate. The violence and incitement of the official Palestinian curriculum is being neatly migrated online by official and unofficial educational initiatives and fed into their living rooms.“If anything, the online versions make the hate even more graphic and awful than before. If the donor community thought this global pandemic would lead to the Palestinian Ministry of Education leaving the hate behind, they were wrong."Palestinian children have long been subjected to propaganda found within their school textbooks, but the creation of online educational materials prompted by the coronavirus lockdown the world over has taken on a sinister aspect in the Palestinian territories, as teachers have brought the text to life in creative and graphic ways.According to IMPACT-se, a textbook grammar lesson which revolved around a passage on terrorist Dalal al-Mughrabi was brought to life in a YouTube video. Nasser Al-Rajabi, a Palestinian Authority Arabic teacher at the Wasyah Al-Rasoul elementary School for boys in Hebron posted the video, in which he had inserted graphic pictures into the schoolbook text.Screenshots of the video show an illustration of al-Mughrabi on a bus pointing a gun, while a woman lies dead in the aisle. A Palestinian flag has been planted next to her body. Text on the screen, taken from the textbook reads: “She took out of her bag the flag of Palestine, kissed it and then hung it inside the bus.”The teacher also broke the reading comprehension into segments to pose questions, to which he gave answers. One question read: "The Palestinian woman has a role in resisting the Occupier. How is this manifested in the text?" To which he replied: "This is manifested in the image of sacrifice that Dalal al-Mughtabi presented as one of the women of Palestine, who waged Jihad against the Israeli Occupation."
The video was posted to a channel which has had over 174,000 views, and has been shared on the Facebook pages of a number of Palestinian schools. It was also shared on another YouTube channel created in March, which has already attracted 76,000 views.Despite this and similar materials being widely broadcast, the global community continues to give aid funding to the Palestinian Authority. In early April the EU handed the PA an assistance package of around €71 million, while the World Bank approved a $5.8 million emergency package in light of coronavirus. And while the US has cut the majority of its funding to the PA, it has confirmed that it will hand over $5 million to help combat the coronavirus in Palestinian territories.“We very much hope the Georg Eckert Institute that is reviewing the Palestinian curriculum for the European Union, British and German governments are paying attention to this," Sheff said. "It is clear that teaching Jihad is too important to the Palestinian Authority to be stopped by anything as mundane as a global pandemic.“This is what happens when the Palestinian Authority makes a strategic decision to encourage over a million Palestinian children to sacrifice themselves and when the international community funds it”.
