Back in March, Dr. Anthony Harper, correspondent with the Intermountain Christian News,  a member of the White House press corps, asked a question of the spokespeople of both President Obama and Vice President Biden, who had just returned from a middle east tour. The question was straightforward, asking for comment on the state of the Palestinian Authority school system, whose curriculum is used for half a million students in the education institutions of UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency. The answer that Dr. Harper r received had no basis in reality:

 “While there is still work to be done, the Palestinian government has made significant progress in reducing inflammatory rhetoric and revising official textbooks. Over the past few years, the PA has helped improve the Palestinian curriculum, including textbooks that discuss human rights and the Holocaust, which has contributed to a better education for young Palestinians. The Palestinian curriculum is transparent, and all textbooks are available for review in Arabic on the website of the official Palestinian Curriculum Development Center. The Government of Israel even approves of and utilizes the Palestinian texts for schools in East Jerusalem.“

Consider the evidence that points in the other direction:

  1. There is no change in the PA/UNRWA school books, which continue to promote war.

http://israelbehindthenews.com/us-govt-fabrication%E2%80%8B%E2%80%8Bthat-paunrwa-school-books-meet-standards-peace-education/14527/

  1. The Wexler commission on Palestinian education , which the US government partially funded, actually whitewashed  PA school books used in UNRWA, has been fully refuted.

http://israelbehindthenews.com/library/pdfs/EVALUATIO1-1.pdf

  1. Films of PA war education in UNRWA schools speak for themselves.

www.cfnepr.com/205640/Movies

  1. A  Letter to US Ambassador Shapiro following a meeting of US Embassy officials at the Israel Knesset Parliament, details indiscretions of US UNRWA/PA education policy. The US embassy has yet to respond to five reasonable questions.

http://israelbehindthenews.com/last-week-our-agency-facilitated-an-informal-briefing-for-us-embassy-officials-at-the-knesset-with-experts-on-the-subject-of-unrwa-policies-the-following-letter-to-the-us-ambassador-to-israel-prese/14377/

  1. The notion that holocaust education occurs in UNRWA or PA schools has been revealed to be totally false.

http://israelbehindthenews.com/there-is-not-and-has-never-been-a-plan-for-a-holocaust-curriculum-in-any-unrwa-school/7025/

  1. The human rights curriculum used by UNRWA and PA has little to do with human rights.

http://israelbehindthenews.com/john-solsvik-jerusalem-correspondent-for-the-norwegian-newspaper-dagenfirst-reporter-to-reveal-contents-of-the-aeoehuman-rights-curriculumae%C2%9D-of-unrwa/7286/

Fortunately, the US constitution relies on checks and balances in the  formulation of US foreign policy.

From my informal meetings with officials of the all-powerful  Middle East Subcommittee of the US House Foreign Affairs  Committee and the Near East US Senate Subcommittee of the US Senate Foreign Relations committee, I can report with authority that there is readiness on the part of the US Congress  challenge US government assertions about Palestinian education, as taught in US –funded UNRWA schools.

Two key elected officials in the US Congress who must soon decide as to whether they will ask the GAO, the respected US General Accounting Office, to issue an independent report on the state of  PA/UNRWA education. Those officials are: Senator Jim Risch, (R-Idaho), head of the Near East US Senate Subcommittee of the US Senate Foreign Relations committee   and  Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen , chair of Middle East Subcommittee of the US House Foreign Affairs  Committee

With almost all political eyes focused on the US presidential election, the time has come to focus attention on these powers that be in the US Congress, so that elected officials on Capitol Hill will advise and consent the US government and uphold the values of the US Constitution.  The moral principles of the American people   would never allow a war curriculum to be funded by the US government.

Senator Risch and Rep.  Ileana Ros-Lehtinen are now pressured by those who support the status quo to do nothing.

Senator Risch and Rep.  Ileana Ros-Lehtinen now need feedback from people of integrity, to ask for transparency in the conduct of US Middle East education policy.

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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