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, known as “the Oslo Accords” that were signed by the two parties in 1993-1995. The project yielded three studies. The first one was issued in September 2017, having covered 201 books of various school subjects.[2] Additional 118 books mostly published in 2017 were examined during 2018 in a separate study.[3] The present study covers 45 books published in 2017-2018 for grades 11 and 12 in the various streams. Some of these latter books are final editions that have replaced draft editions for grade 12 and contained few changes for both better and worse.

The overall picture revealed throughout the project is depressing and the present study does not change it: Palestinian school children and youth learn that a peaceful resolution of the conflict is not an option. Rather, Palestine should be liberated from “Zionist occupation” by way of an armed struggle titled “Revolution [Thawrah]” which involves terrorist actions styled “self-sacrificing operations [‘amaliyyat Fidaiyyah]”. It is shocking to see in this context a reference in one of the books to the “1972 Munich operation” where 11 members of the Israeli team to the Olympic Games were massacred (History Studies, Grade 11, Part 2 (2017) p. 54). Those who carry out such actions are called “self-sacrificing ones [Fidais]” and those among liberation struggle is liberating the Muslim holy place of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem from the Jews’ sway.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR