Overhauling the Palestinian education system is key to peace

According to terms set up by U.S. President Donald Trump on Oct. 9 as part of his 20-point plan for revitalization of the Middle East after Israel’s two-year war with Hamas in Gaza, the terrorist organization must disarm in the Strip completely for the agreement to move forward.

Total and absolute demilitarization is required. Trump has said, “Hamas was born with rifles in their hands.”

This begins to focus on one of the major problems that Israel faces. Hamas, and I might add the Palestinian Authority, continue to churn out textbooks for Palestinian Arab for as young as first-graders that call for the killing and murder of Jews.

Since the Oslo Accords were signed on Sept. 13, 1993, the educational system in Ramallah and Gaza has persistently called for the destruction of the State of Israel, and has glorified the stabbing and shooting of Jews. Children go to summer camps to learn military training.

Although many U.S. politicians have tried to change this, little has actually happened in 30-plus years. If a culture of peace is truly to be achieved, Hamas and the P.A. must not only disarm people but also their textbooks.

The savagery, butchery, rape, torture and murder by Hamas and Palestinian operatives against Jewish communities in southern Israel that took place on Oct. 7, 2023, was the direct result of the inculcation of Gaza youth to do precisely what they did.

Disarming Hamas militarily is a first step. Disarming their educational system is equally important. It is not only the textbooks that need to be corrected, but the teachers themselves who need a massive overhaul. Most are aligned and affiliated with Hamas.

Education is a path to success. Before you can build skyscrapers, you must get your schools right. Hamas is already not only breaking the ceasefire daily but has started to make outrageous demands, including integrating hundreds of its terrorists into the security apparatus and lobbying to preserve its status as a political faction in the P.A. elections. This is exactly how they took over total control of Gaza in 2007.

No doubt, the leaders of Turkey and Qatar are lobbying for such conditions. They are Hamas’s biggest backers. They should be working to improve the education of the Gaza youth rather than pushing for Hamas to recover from its degraded status.

If the education of the Gazans remains the same, then they will aim for another Oct. 7 again and again. Trump is the only leader they fear and respect. He has a historic opportunity to change Gaza into a success story. I know that he badly wants that to happen.

The key is not to pump money into the coastal enclave simply to rebuild it. It is to revamp and redesign the entire educational system of both Hamas and the P.A. If the teaching system and materials can be fixed, then peace is a possibility.