Revealing Maps: The Palestinian Vision as Taught in PA Schools (Dr. Arnon Groiss)

The present research deals with some 115 maps of the country appearing in the latest edition of schoolbooks issued by the Palestinian Authority and used in the PA schools, including UNRWA schools. Its source material included 125 books of grades 1-10 in the subjects of Arabic, English, Social Studies, Islamic Education, Mathematics, Sciences and Technology. The research aimed at checking the way this country – Israel/Palestine – is presented, in view of the ongoing conflict between the two nations that claim to be its owners. The basic hypothesis of this research was that the two parties see this country in its entirety as their homeland, which should be expressed in the maps appearing in their respective schoolbooks Indeed, there were found in the Israeli textbooks maps that present the country as one unit with no internal boundaries under the name “Israel” when those maps were not of political character. 

Israel, Jews and the Conflict in Palestinian Authority Schoolbooks (By Dr. Arnon Groiss)

Following are representative items taken from textbooks published by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 2017-2018 for use in grades 1-12 in all schools throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. 

Palestinian Authority textbooks and teachers’ guides dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (based on books published in 2019)

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) published during the years 2017-2019, in cooperation with the Center for Near East Policy Research, several studies dealing with the presentation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Palestinian Authority’s schoolbooks and teachers’ guides. These studies were based on close to 400 schoolbooks and over 100 teachers’ guides published by the Palestinian Authority (PA) between the years 2013-2018. 

Israel, Jews and Peace in Palestinian Authority Schoolbooks and Teachers’ Guides

This document is aimed at summarizing the contents of the Palestinian Authority’s schoolbooks and teachers’ guides, as far as the conflict with Israel is concerned, from 2013 up to this day. It is based on the examination of close to 400 schoolbooks published between 2013-2020 and over a hundred of teachers’ guides published mostly in 2018 (and see below a list of the Center’s publications that deal with the findings of the examined Palestinian schoolbooks). 

Mahmoud Abbas’s address to the UN Security Council: Rhetoric versus reality

On February 11, 2020, Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas delivered an address before the UN Security Council as part of the PA’s diplomatic campaign against the Trump plan . Mahmoud Abbas’s address was softened and aimed mainly at Western ears: he avoided threatening to harm relations with Israel or dismantle the PA (threats that he and senior officials in the PA have made on several occasions). 

Jews, Israel and the the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Teachers’ Guides Published by the Palestinian Authority’s Education Ministry

The purpose of this study is checking the attitude to Israel, the Jews and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as reflected in the teachers’ guides, namely, books issued by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education in order to guide the teachers how to teach various school subjects. The study was written by Dr. Arnon Groiss who has been researching since 2000 the attitude to the “other” and to peace in various Middle Eastern curricula and has authored many reports on this issue. 

Jews, Israel and Peace In the 2017/18 Palestinian Authority Schoolbooks for Grades 11 and 12: A Complementary Study

This study completes a four-year research activity, in which over 364 schoolbooks for grades 1-12 that were published by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the years 2013-2018 were examined. The goal of that research project was checking the attitude to the Israeli-Jewish “other” and to the possibility of solving the conflict with that “other” peacefully in the spirit of the peace agreements, that were signed by the two parties in 1993-1995. The present study covers 45 books published in 2017-2018 for grades 11 and 12 in the various streams. 

The Palestinian shaheed culture and its Influence on terrorism: a stabbing attack in the central bus station in Jerusalem as a case study.

Interrogation of the terrorist revealed he had been influenced to carry out the attack by incitement on the social networks after Trump’s declaration of American recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The interrogation also revealed that before the attack he wrote a “will” in which he quoted texts from Palestinian Authority (PA) textbooks (Israel Security Agency information, December 28, 2017). 

Palestinian Authority textbooks: the attitude to Jews, Israel and peace (Update, June 2018)

An examination of the new textbooks issued by the PA shows they continue expressing, and in some instances by radicalizing, the same basic principles that appeared in previous textbooks: the delegitimizing of the State of Israel, demonizing the State of Israel, encouraging violence against it and an absence of education for peace. The books, which are strongly hostile to Israel and the Jewish people, are also used by UNRWA-run school, half of whose budget is devoted to education 

Schoolbooks of the Palestinian Authority (PA): The Attitude to the Jews, to Israel and to Peace

A comprehensive study was recently issued on PA schoolbooks’ attitude to the Jews, Israel and peace. The study covers PA schoolbooks published in the past four years (the PA has not yet completed issuing new textbooks).