http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/08/us_aid_should_place_conditions_on_its_donation_to_the_palestinians.html

The Jerusalem Post reported in its August 18 edition that the US and the Palestinian Authority signed a $148 million economic aid agreement.

Our agency asked PA officials where the money was going.

The answer: education, for the new school year of the PA schools, many of which function in United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) facilities.

That is because the texts taught in the UNRWA schools are prepared by the Palestinian authority in conjunction with UNRWA.

UNRWA uses that PA curriculum – which.openly rejects the existence of Israel and instead encourages “The Right of Return” of the Palestinians – by means of the “armed struggle.”

The PA curriculum does not acknowledge Jewish rights in any part of “Palestine,” on either side of the 1967 lines, nor does the PA curriculum recognize any Jewish past in the Land of Israel. Indeed, in PA texts, Israeli cities are identified as Palestinian cities

Israel is demonized in these texts, while no peaceful solution to the Arab-Israel war is ever discussed in the PA curriculum.

In the words of Dr. Anon Gross, the Arabic language journalist expert who translated the texts: “The manifestations of the “Right of Return” in the PA textbooks taught in UNRWA’s schools are not nostalgic literary pieces. Rather, the “Right of Return” plays a prominent role in the Palestinian political vision of a continued struggle against a delegitimized and demonized Israel until its eventual destruction”.

The educational message provided by UNRWA to Palestinian students thus help to propagate a war like message, in contradiction to the UNRWA’s declared slogan, which is that “Peace Starts Here”.

Two months ago, our agency sent a registered letter to US AID with a questions about US AID to UNRWA/PA education. The letter has not received the courtesy of a response..

The letter simply asked if the officials of US AID would ask UNRWA schools to not use textbooks which deny the existence of the State of Israel or undermines it, and/or encourages “The right of return,” or the use of violence of any kind.

Here are a few choice quotations from the PA textbooks used by UNRWA:

“The number of the Palestinians in the world is close to nine million… Four and a half million live in the Diaspora outside of Palestine… Most of them are refugees who wait to return to the motherland after having been expelled from it…”

National Education, Grade 4, Part 1 (2011) p. 43(

“The [refugee] camp is not considered an original home for the Palestinian refugee. Rather, it is a temporary place where he has been forced to live. All the Palestinians wait for the return of every Palestinian to his city or village from which he was made to emigrate.”

Islamic Education, Grade 6, Part 1 (2011) p. 69)

In addition, there are language exercises using this theme such as the following one:

“Activity 2: Let us fill in the empty space with the appropriate noun…

The… [refugee]… dreams of returning to his homeland.”

Our Beautiful Language, Grade 5, Part 1 (2011) p. 91

And poems are taught…:

“We Shall Return”n

…Tomorrow we shall come back and the ages shall listen

To the footfalls during the return

We shall return with the resounding storms

With the sacred lightening and the star

With the winged hopes and the songs

With the soaring vulture and the eagle

Yes! The thousands victims shall return

Victims of oppression shall open every door”

Our Beautiful Language, Grade 7, Part 1 (2002) p. 3)

“We Shall Return

Return, return, we shall return

Borders shall not exist, nor citadels

“We Shall Return

Return, return, we shall return

Borders shall not exist, nor citadels and fortresses

Cry out, O those who have left:

We shall return!

We shall return to the homes, to the valleys, to the mountains

Under the flag of glory, Jihad and struggle

With blood, sacrifice [fida’], fraternity and loyalty

We shall return

We shall return, O hills; [we] shall return, O heights

We shall return to childhood; [we] shall return to youth

To Jihad in the hills; [to] harvest in the land”

(Our Beautiful Language, Grade 5, Part 1 (2011) p. 50)

*Over the past 24 years, Israel Resource News Agency and the Center for Near East Policy Research have facilitated news coverage from schools in UNRWA facilities which operate in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Most recently, these agencies produced CAMP JIHAD, which filmed the inside story of UN summer camp activity,..

The author is, Director, Israel Resource News Agency & ​ Center for Near East Policy Research, in Beit Agron, Jerusalem.

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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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