Dalal al-Mughrabi – A Murderous Terrorist as a Role Model In Palestinian Authority Schoolbooks Used by UNRWA

Research: Dr. Arnon Groiss (December 2019)

Dalal al-Mughrabi was the commander of an 11-person group of Palestinian terrorists who landed in a boat on the beach of Maagan Michael natural reserve on Saturday afternoon, March 11, 1978. The group had left Lebanon three days before, but lost its way at sea and two of its members drowned. The group’s goal was the release of Palestinian terrorists kept in Israeli prisons by taking Israeli civilians hostage. Following their landing, the terrorists encountered a nature photographer, Ms. Gail Rubin, an American citizen, and shot her dead. Then, they proceeded towards Israel’s Coastal Highway, took control over a cab and a bus, and later – over another bus. They gathered all the passengers in one bus and continued southward towards Tel Aviv, while shooting along their way at other vehicles and also at several passengers inside the bus – according to the survivors’ testimony. Four persons were killed due to that shooting. Near the Gelilot crossroad, north of Tel Aviv, the Israeli police managed to stop the bus and shooting started. Some of the terrorists burst out of the bus and shot the policemen, while others shot the passengers inside the bus who tried to escape. The terrorists had rigged the bus and during the fighting detonated the explosives which turned the bus into a fire trap in which the passengers who had not managed to escape perished. 34 Israeli civilians were killed altogether, as well as an IDF soldier who had reached the place incidentally and participated in the battle. 71 Israelis were injured. 9 of the 11 terrorists were killed, including Dalal al-Mughrabi, and 2 were captured and brought to justice.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has glorified that operation, and Dalal al-Mughrabi in particular, for years. She is presented as a Palestinian national heroine, which is expressed by festive assemblages in her honor, naming schools and squares after her, etc., and it is also reflected in schoolbooks and teachers’ guides that were published lately by the Ramallah-based Curricula Center of the PA Ministry of Education. These books are used as well in UNRWA schools in the territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Thus, UNRWA actively participates in the PA terror indoctrination, which totally contradicts the former’s humanitarian mission and raises a huge question mark above the efforts that are currently made at the UN for the renewal of UNRWA’s mandate for additional three years.

Following are quotations taken from schoolbooks and teachers’ guides that present Dalal al-Mughrabi as a role model. It should be noted that teachers’ guides provide us with an additional perspective of the indoctrination process by emphasizing the “desirable” line within the educational material, either in the framework of the lessons’ goals or by giving the “right” answers to the questions appearing in the textbooks, or by suggesting additional activities and providing enrichment material for the purpose of deepening the knowledge and identification among the students regarding the studied subject in the desired direction. The teachers’ guides also contribute to our acquaintance with the indoctrination’s technical methods, such as repetitions, dissection of a subject into minute details, making historical comparisons, directing the student’s thinking by raising the “proper” questions and answering them, etc.

The obsessive dealing with Dalal al-Mughrabi starts in the reading material of lesson 5 in grade 5’s second semester. The lesson’s goals are defined in the teacher’s guide, that is, what are the prospected achievements the student should have at the end of that lesson. Indeed, some of these goals appear in the assignments accompanying the lesson. The goals are categorized according to the fields of knowledge, application and understanding the wider significance of the studied material. They are organized in the following chart from right to left:

“[Subject:]

Reading: ‘Dalal al-Mughrabi’

[Knowledge:]

1. [The student should] define the main idea within the text.
2. Define the secondary ideas.
3. Explain the new words correctly.
4. Mention the place where Dalal al-Mughrabi was born.
5. Mention the name of the group under her command and the number of its members.
6. Mention Dalal’s age at her martyrdom.
7. Mention the place where she and her group landed.
8. Clarify the goal of carrying out the operation of the bus abduction by Dalal and her group.
9. Tell in detail the result of the battle that took place between the occupation forces and Dalal’s group.

Total: 9

[Application:]

1. Read the text correctly and in an expressed way.
2. Place some of the words and expressions in full sentences of his own.
3. Extract antonyms from the text.

Total: 3

[Understanding the significance:]

1. Express the [situational] picture in a descriptive way and in correct language.
2. Explain the naming of Dalal’s fidai[1] group as ‘Deir Yassin Group’.
3. Conclude how did Dalal and her group returned to Deir Yassin part of its right.
4. Clarify the meaning of the expression: ‘We do not want to kill you’.
5. Clarify the Palestinian woman’s role in the resistance to the occupier out of his understanding of the text.
6. Mention [additional] stories of women’s heroism in the resistance to the occupation.

Total: 6.”

(Teacher’s Guide, Arabic Language, Grade 5 (2018) p. 110)

In the schoolbook itself, the lesson begins with an introduction followed by the story of the terrorist operation:

“Dalal al-Mughrabi

([By] the authors [of the textbook])

In front of the text:

Our Palestinian history is full of many names of martyrs who presented their souls as a sacrifice for the homeland. Among them is the martyr Dalal al-Mughrabi who painted with her struggle a picture of challenge and heroism that have made her memory eternal in our hearts and minds. The text in front of us talks about an aspect of the path of her struggle.”

(Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 2 (2017) p. 51)

The next page gives the story with an explanation of some difficult words on the left (omitted from the translation):

“Reading:

In the refugee camp of Sabra, one of Beirut’s refugee camps that is bleeding pain, as a result of the Nakbah, the fighting commander Dalal al-Mughrabu was born. Close to two decades after her birth, she responded to the homeland’s call for help.

Dalal sailed at sea with her fidai group under her command, the Deir Yassin Group. They were thirteen fidais. As the rule is in high seas, which are sometimes calm and in other times – angry, the waves were stormy and their rubber boat was capsized. Two heroes of their group drowned and the rest continued wrestling with the waves and held to the boat until the lights of the Palestinian shore were seen by the commander and her group. Then, she and the group infiltrated into the shore. The minarets of Hasan Bek Mosque appeared to them, the orange orchards smiled to them and the stones of Al-Ajami neighborhood called them [all these are descriptions of sites in Jaffa, but they never arrived there, as they landed with their boat in the region of Maagan Michael south of Haifa. Indeed, this sentence was omitted from the 2019 edition of this book and replaced by: “the fields and orchards smiled to them”].

Dalal closed her hand upon a handful of her bleeding homeland’s soil and smelled it with passionate love. She waited for the decisive moment and then she and her group blocked the way of one of the buses heading to Haifa. Dalal came aboard proudly and said, talking to those who were on board: ‘We do not want to kill you. We are just taking you as hostages in order to save our brethren who are detained in your prisons from the claws of captivity. We are a people that demands its right over its homeland which you have stolen.’ She took out of her bag the flag of Palestine, kissed it and then hanged it inside the bus.

The occupation forces were informed of the abducted bus and they placed roadblocks. But Dalal and those who were with her managed to pass all the roadblocks, until the bus was stopped with great difficulty, after the occupiers had gathered their military forces. Then, an unequal battle took place between her group and the occupier who had circled them from all directions, and she ascended [to Heaven] as a martyr with eight of her group’s heroes, having inflicted on the occupation army a large number of killed and wounded. Thus, Dalal has reclaimed for Deir Yassin part of its right and watered the soil of Palestine with her pure blood in order to make blossom a rebellious history that shall not be humiliated.”

(Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 2 (2017) p. 52)

Certain changes have been introduced into the 2019 edition of this book in order to intensify the group’s heroism vis-à-vis tanks and aircrafts that were supposedly used against it and in order to make the Israeli forces responsible for the killing of the hostages. Dalal al-Mughrabi’s photo was also replaced:

(Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 2 (2019) p. 51)

The changed paragraph:

“The occupation forces were informed of the bus that had reached the area of Sidna Ali [Hertzlia] and they assigned a special army unit commanded by Ehud Barak with [the task of] attacking the bus with machine-guns and shells, while using aircrafts and tanks, and killing everyone who was on it. That is known by the ‘scorched earth policy’. A large number of the passengers were killed. Dalal ascended [to Heaven] as a martyr with eight of her group’s heroes, whose bodies are still kept in what is termed by the occupation authorities as the ‘numbers cemetery’, while two fidais survived.”

(Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 2 (2019) p. 52)

The third page of the lesson in the schoolbook contains assignments and questions that fracture the reading material into minute details in order to inculcate it in the students’ mind, as part of the indoctrination campaign:

“Understanding, analysis and language:

First, let us answer the following questions:

1. Let us fill in the empty spaces within the following sentences with the proper details:
2. Dalal al-Mughrabi was born in …………….
3. The name of the group commanded by Dalal al-Mughrabi was the group of …………………………………………….
4. ………………… of the members of the group drowned before reaching the Palestinian coast.
5. The number of the fidai group’s heroes was ………………………….
6. What was Dalal al-Mughrabi’s age at her martyrdom?
7. Where did Dalal and her group land? [This question remained in the 2019 edition although it does not mention their landing spot and it is clear that the landing did not take place at Jaffa, as said in the 2017 edition].
8. Let us clarify the goal of carrying out the bus abduction operation by Dalal and her group.
9. What was the result of the battle that took place between the occupation forces and the fidai group?

Second, let us think and answer the following questions:

1. What is the significance of naming Dalal’s fidai group as ‘Deir Yassin Group’?
2. How did Dalal and her group reclaim for Deir Yassin part of its right?
3. What do Dalal’s words: ‘We do not want to kill you’ indicate?
4. The Palestinian woman has a role in the resistance to the occupier. How is it clarified from the text?

Third, language:

Let us extract from the second paragraph:

1. A synonym for ‘holding to’ ………………
2. An antonym for ‘angry’ ……………………
3. Two words with opposite meanings …………….

(Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 2 (2017) p. 53)

Additional assignments appear on the next page:

“1. Let us merge the following two expressions in sentences of our own:

-Sailed at sea: ……………

-Closed upon: …………….

2. What is the meaning of the two following expressions?

-‘The battle’s mills were turning’ [in the 2019 edition it was omitted and the student is asked to explain the expression ‘scorched earth policy’ that appears in the amended paragraph].

-‘In order to make blossom a rebellious history that shall not be humiliated’

Activity:

By resorting to the Palestinian Encyclopedia, or to the Internet, let us search for the following:

-Names of female Palestinian Jihad fighters who fell as martyrs while resisting the occupier [In the 2019 edition it was replaced by: “How was Dalal al-Mughrabi killed and her body abused?”]

-Names of the two heroes who drowned at sea before Dalal and her group reached the sea [sic. and should be: reached the shore].”

(Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 2 (2017) p. 54)

The new assignments of explaining the expression of “scorched earth policy” and searching for details about the abuse of Dalal al-Mughrabi’s body (marked in red):

(Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 2 (2019) p. 54)

 

Answers to most of these questions and assignments are found in the teacher’s guide:

 

“Fifth Lesson

Reading: ‘Dalal al-Mughrabi’

First, let us answer the following questions:

1. The Sabra refugee camp, one of the refugee camps in Beirut. B. Deir Yassin
2. Two fidais D. Thirteen fidais.
3. Her age was twenty.
4. She landed at the beach overlooking Jaffa.
5. The goal [was] the release of the Palestinian prisoners-of-war from the occupation’s prisons.
6. The martyrdom of Dalal al-Mughrabi and members of the fidai group and a number of killed and wounded ones from among the occupation soldiers.

Second, let us think and answer the following questions:

1. Reminding of the massacre of Deir Yassin that was perpetrated by the Zionist gangs in 1948 and that the Palestinian people will never forget its martyrs’ blood.
2. Through the fidai operation that brought about the killing of many of the occupation soldiers.
3. They indicate that the Palestinian people is a peace-loving people that fights for achieving its freedom and not for killing and terrorization. It was possible for the operation to have ended without a battle had the occupation responded to the fidai group’s demands to release the Palestinian prisoners-of-war.
4. It was revealed by the appointment of a woman to the position of commanding the fidai group that carried out the operation.”

(Teacher’s Guide, Arabic Language, Grade 5 (2018) p. 213)

The answered assignments continue on the next page:

“Third, language:

Let us extract from the paragraph:

1. To hold on to B. They smiled C. Calm, angry.
2. -The fisherman sailed at sea hoping to have a plentiful catch.

-The wrestler closed his hand on his adversary’s hand forcefully.

2. -An indication of the battle’s ferocity and severity.

-An indication of the continuation of the fighting by the Palestinian people until it               attains its freedom.”

(Teacher’s Guide, Arabic Language, Grade 5 (2018) p. 214)

Additional exercises in the schoolbook use parts of the story given above:

“Grammar Rules:

The Primary Desinential Inflection Signs

Repetition

First, let us read the following paragraph and fill in the chart with the required [nouns]:

Dalal sailed at sea with her fidai group under her command, the Deir Yassin Group. They were thirteen fidais. As the rule is in high seas, which are sometimes calm and in other times – angry, the waves were stormy and their rubber boat was capsized. Two heroes of their group drowned and the rest continued wrestling with the waves and held to the boat until the lights of the Palestinian shore were seen by the commander and her group. Then, she and the group infiltrated into the shore. The minarets of Hasan Bek Mosque appeared to them, the orange orchards smiled to them and the stones of Al-Ajami neighborhood called them.”

The student is requested in this exercise to enter the nouns in the paragraph into the chart according to their respective desinential inflection in line with the rules of Arabic grammar (the next exercise is not related to the operation or to Dalal):

(Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 2 (2017) p. 57)

The following page includes an exercise (marked by a black framework) titled “Script”:

“Let us write the following in a Naskhi script [a certain type of Arabic writing] and pay attention to the writing of the letters R, Z:”

The sentence to be copied is taken from the description of the terrorist operation:

“Dalal watered the soil of Palestine with her pure blood in order to make blossom a rebellious history that shall not be humiliated.”

(Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 2 (2017) p. 60)

And on the next page, the first part is an exercise in fine handwriting that also uses a piece of the story:

“Copying:

Let us copy the following paragraph in a nice handwriting:

“The occupation forces were informed of the abducted bus and they placed roadblocks. But Dalal and those who were with her managed to pass all the roadblocks, until the bus was stopped with great difficulty after the occupiers had gathered their military forces. Then, an unequal battle took place between her group and the occupier who had circled them from all directions and she ascended [to Heaven] as a martyr with eight of her group’s heroes, having inflicted on the occupation army a large number of killed and wounded. Thus, Dalal has reclaimed for Deir Yassin part of its right and watered the soil of Palestine with her pure blood, in order to make blossom a rebellious history that shall not be humiliated.”

The next part on the same page does not refer to Dalal or the operation.

(Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 2 (2017) p. 61)

The teacher’s guide includes as well what is termed as “enrichment material” with additional questions referring to certain paragraphs in the story:

“Fifth Lesson

Reading: ‘Dalal al-Mughrabi’

The paragraph ‘In the refugee camp…Al-Ajami’:

1. Why did the author describe the Sabra refugee camp as ‘bleeding’?
2. Let us mention the dangers that were facing the group members during their sailing in the sea.
3. Let us mention some of the landmarks of the city of Jaffa that were seen by the group members.
4. Let us extract from the paragraph:

-A synonym for ‘sometime’ ……………  ‘appeared’ ………………….

-The plural form of ‘the mosque minaret’ ……, The singular form of ‘boats’ …….

5. ‘And the rest continued wrestling with the waves’ – To what did the author liken the waves?
6. ‘The orange orchards smiled to them’ – The author likened the orange orchards to ………………….
7. ‘Infiltrated into’, ‘held on to’ – Let us use each of these combinations in a sentence of our own.

The paragraph ‘Dalal closed…the bus’:

1. Let us write from the paragraph what indicates Dalal’s yearning to her homeland.
2. Let us mention two traits of Dalal al-Mughrabi’s from our understanding of the paragraph.
3. What is the significance of hanging the Palestinian flag in the bus by Dalal?
4. Let us extract from the paragraph:

-The plural form of ‘hostage’ ……………, claw ……………….

5. Let us use each of the following words in a sentence of our own: ‘decisive’, ‘proudly’.

The paragraph ‘[The occupation forces] were informed…humiliated’:

1. What did the occupation forces do when they were informed of the abducted bus?
2. How could the occupation stop the bus?
3. Why was that an unequal battle, in your opinion?
4. Let us search at the Internet the date of the fidai operation commanded by Dalal al-Mughrabi.
5. ‘She ascended [to Heaven] as a martyr’, ‘she died as a martyr’ – What is the difference in meaning between the two expressions?”

(Teacher’s Guide, Arabic Language, Grade 5 (2018) p. 243)

An exemplary test in the teacher’s guide also includes questions and assignments referring to Dalal al-Mughrabi’s story as given in the schoolbook of this grade:

“Third question: Let us read the following text and then answer the accompanying questions:

Dalal closed her hand upon a handful of her bleeding homeland’s soil and smelled it with passionate love. She waited for the decisive moment and then she and her group blocked the way of one of the buses heading to Haifa. Dalal came aboard proudly and said, talking to those who were on board: ‘We do not want to kill you. We are just taking you as hostages.’

1. What is the meaning of:

‘closed upon’ …………………….  ‘with passionate love’ …………….

2. Let us fill in the empty spaces with the right answers:

-Dalal al-Mughrabi was born in …………………

-The name of the group she commanded was ……………

-Dalal blocked the way of one of the buses heading to ……..

-The operation ended in the martyrdom of Dalal and …………. of her heroic comrades.

3. Let us clarify the beauty of the description in the expression ‘the orange orchards smiled to them’.
4. Dalal said: ‘We do not want to kill you’. What was the real goal of the hostages’ abduction?
5. The Palestinian woman has a role in the resistance to the occupier. Let us clarify that.
6. What is the meaning of the expression ‘from the claws of captivity’?

(Teacher’s Guide, Grade 5 (2018) p. 186)

In higher grades, Dalal is made part of the more general framework of the struggle against Colonialism and the occupation within the subject of history studies:

“The Arab woman had a prominent role in the resistance to Colonialism, for she did not hesitate to join the revolutionaries’ bases and the training centers. She also took command of fidai operations against the occupation and was at the center of the martyrs and the wounded list, like the Algerian Jamilah Buheired who resisted French Colonialism in Algeria and dalal al-Mughrabi who commanded the fidai Deir Yassin operation in the Palestinian coast in 1978 that ended in the killing of over thirty Zionist soldiers, and [like] many other women who carried the banner of resistance against Colonialism.”   

(Social Studies, Grade 9, Part 1 (2019) p. 51)

In the framework of the enrichment material for grade 9 there are questions and answers for further absorption. One of the questions reads: “Let us discuss the role of the Arab woman in resisting Colonialism”. The answer is quite long and part thereof describing the women’s activity within the Palestinian struggle since British Mandatory times is given here. Following is the relevant piece from the above-mentioned material that refers to the Palestinian female terrorist Layla Khaled as well. The reference to Dalal al-Mughrabi is underlined in both the original and the translated part:

“…After the defeat of 1967 the Palestinian woman stepped out of the realm of the [social] associations into the field of the national struggle and started joining the armed activity and the fidai movements and plan them, like Layla Khaled who is the planning brain behind the hijacking of a Zionist aircraft that belonged to the Zionist company El Al in order to pressure the occupation to release the Palestinian prisoners-of-war and direct the world’s eyes to the Palestinian problem, and the martyr Dalal al-Mughrabi, the commander of the fidai group that carried out the Deir Yassin operation in the occupied Palestinian coast…”

(Teacher’s Guide, Social Studies, Grade 9 (2018) p. 93)

In this context, one of the goals of a lesson on the various forms of resistance to Colonialism is (marked by a black frame):

“[The student should] write a report about the Palestinian female fighter Dalal al-Mughrabi.”

(Teacher’s Guide, Social Studies, Grade 9 (2018) p. 48)

Another piece in this regards mentions other Palestinian female terrorists as well:

“The Palestinian woman has an important role in family, society and the [Palestinian] cause. She is the children’s educator, mother of martyrs and prisoners-of-war, wife of the martyr and the prisoner-of-war. She works for [the purpose of] providing the family’s needs and struggles against the occupation. And we do not forget the martyr Dalal al-Mughrabi, the [female] martyr Muntaha al-Hawarani, the fighter Layla Khaled and many others.”

(Teacher’s Guide, Arabic Language – Academic Path, Grade 10 (2018) p. 251)

Another mentioning, with a different picture of Dalal al-Mughrabi:

“The Zionist aggression against Lebanon in 1978

Activity 1: Let us read and then conclude:

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) continued the resistance actions from its military bases in Lebanese territory. A group under the command of Dalal al-Mughrabi carried out the coast operation which was used by the Zionist aggression as an excuse on its part to invade south Lebanon in 1978.

-The goal of the Zionist invasion of south Lebanon in 1978.”

(Geography and Modern and Contemporary History of Palestine, Grade 10 (2017) p. 67)

Additional details about Dalal al-Mughrabi are brought in the enrichment material for grade 9, from which it becomes clear that she was a student in UNRWA schools:

“Dalal al-Mughrabi: A Palestinian young woman who was born in 1958 in the Sabra refugee camp near Beirut to a Lebanese mother and a Palestinian father who had come to Lebanon as a refugee following the Nakbah in 1948. She studied in the ‘Ya’bed’ elementary school and in the ‘Haifa’ secondary school and both schools belong to the relief agency for the Palestinian refugees [UNRWA] in Beirut. She participated in a military operation against the Zionist occupation in 14.3.1978 together with the Deir Yassin group and abducted a bus that was on its way from Haifa to Tel Aviv. She fell as a martyr in that operation.”

(Teacher’s Guide, Social Studies, Grade 9 (2018) p. 133)

Another enrichment material, from a higher grade, is similar to the previous one:

“Dalal al-Mughrabi: (1958-1978) A Palestinian young woman who was born in 1958 in the Sabra refugee camp near Beirut to a Lebanese mother and a Palestinian father who had come to Lebanon as a refugee following the Nakbah in 1948. She studied in the ‘Ya’bed’ elementary school and in the ‘Haifa’ secondary school and both schools belong to the relief agency for the Palestinian refugees [UNRWA] in Beirut. She participated in a military operation in 1978 together with the Deir Yassin group and abducted a Zionist bus. She fell as a martyr in that operation that came to be known as the ‘Coast Operation’.”

(Teacher’s Guide, Geography and Modern and Contemporary History of Palestine, Grade 10 (2018) p. 234)

And a question in an exemplary test:

“9. What is the name of the operation carried out by the martyr Dalal al-Mughrabi in 1978?

1. Peace of Galilee B. The Shining Star C. Verdan       D. The Coast Operation”

(Teacher’s Guide, Geography and Modern and Contemporary History of Palestine, Grade 10 (2018) p. 221)

An important element in the indoctrination regarding Dalal al-Mughrabi is her elevation from a status of fighter and commander to that of a Palestinian leader of the first rate. In one of the language exercises appearing in the teacher’s guide for grade 5, the student is required to mark a number of sentences with a “V” if true and with “X” if they are not. In the following sentence, the answer is, in all probability, “true”:

“D. Yasser Arafat, Izz al-Din al-Qassam and Dalal al-Mughrabi – are all Palestinian heroes. (        )”

(Teacher’s Guide, Arabic Language, Grade 5 (2018) p. 170)

In other words, Dalal al-Mughrabi, who commanded a terrorist action on the Israeli Coastal Highway in which a civilian bus was abducted and over 30 unarmed civilians were murdered, is mentioned together with the central Palestinian leader in this age – Yasser Arafat, and with Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam, who is considered the source of inspiration for the Hamas movement.

Nay, she is elevated to a higher position. The following piece, titled “Bravo to the Heroes” and appearing in a schoolbook for grade 5, exalts several Arab and Muslim heroes throughout history, including three Palestinians. Dalal is one of them (her name is underlined in red):

“Who among us will forget Khaled bin al-Walid [the chief Muslim commander against the Byzantines], Umm Umarah Nuseibah bint Ka’b al-Ansatiyyah [fought with Muhammad against the tribe of Quraysh], Khawlah bint al-Azwar [participated in the Muslim conquest of Palestine], Tareq bin Ziyad [conqueror of Spain], Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi [liberated Jerusalem from the Crusaders], Qutuz [defeated the Mongols], Umar al-Mukhtar [fought against the Italian occupation of Libya], Izz al-Din al-Qassam, Dalal al-Mughrabi, Yasser Arafat and others among those moons that never disappear and that lighten in the darkness of our gloomy nights? All those have been embraced by our great homeland in the remote past and recently, from Palestine to Egypt and Libya and all the way to Spain.

These heroes are the crown of their nation and the token of its glory. They are the best among those ones who made the efforts and the best among those who delivered. They carried their souls on their palms and tossed them into the dangers. Their determination did not fail, they were not weakened and were not humiliated. Some of them died as martyrs and some died while still unchanged as proud heroes.

That sacrifice and heroism they performed were not for personal purposes. They did not leave behind them wealth or landed property. Rather, it was for the sake of their religion, peoples and homelands. Therefore, they deserve to be heroes eternalized by history and that their memory will remain like diffusing fragrance. Bravo to them and down with the cowards!”

(Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 1 (2019) p. 15)

One of the questions accompanying this text:

“2. Let us give the names of two Palestinian heroes mentioned in the text.”

(Arabic Language, Grade 5, Part 1 (2019) p. 16)

The answer is found in the teacher’s guide of this grade:

“2. Yasser Arafat, Dalal al-Mughrabi”

(Teacher’s Guide, Arabic Language, Grade 5 (2018) p. 191)

That is to say, Dalal al-Mughrabi appears in this answer alongside Yasser Arafat while Izz al-Din al-Qassam is omitted! In other words, Dalal al-Mughrabi is elevated to a rank of a Palestinian super-hero alongside Yasser Arafat at the expense of Izz al-Din al-Qassam, seemingly, due to the ideological rivalry between the PA and Hamas.

And in the following assignment Dalal al-Mughrabi appears alongside Yasser Arafat and Ahmad Shuqeiry – the PLO first chairman:

“Write not more than two lines about the following personalities (3 points).”
(Teacher’s Guide, Geography and Modern and Contemporary History of Palestine, Grade 10 (2018) p. 220)

Dalal al-Mughrabi is compared to prominent women in Arab and Muslim history:

“8. Among the examples of women who confronted the enemy: Khawlah bint al-Azwar [7^th century], Nuseibah al-Mazeniyyah [7^th century], Dalal al-Mughrabi (the students will give other choices).”

(Teacher’s Guide, Arabic Language, Grade 7 (2018) p. 219)

“4. Let us give examples from history of women who had a clear imprint in life.”

(Arabic Language, Grade 8, Part 1 (2019) p. 97)

And the answer:

“4. Lady Aishah Mother-of-the-Believers [Muhammad’s wife and an important source of traditions about him], Jamilah Buheired [member of the FLN underground in Algeria against the French rule. She was arrested, tortured and sentenced to death but eventually released], Dalal al-Mughrabi.”

(Teacher’s Guide, Arabic Language, Grade 8 (2018) p. 2017)

Finally, according to a history schoolbook for grade 11, Dalal al-Mughrabi and her operation signal a phase in Palestinian national history. Her picture appears among other ones that describe the development of what is termed as “Palestinian Resistance”, accompanied by the following words:

“Activity 4B. Let us observe, conclude and then answer:

-Let us describe what we see in the pictures.

-Let us draw conclusions regarding the phases through which the Palestinian resistance passed beginning in 1948 until the attainment of a membership status in the United Nations by Palestine in 2012.”

(History Studies, Grade 11, Part 2 (2017) p. 53)

The terrorist Dalal al-Mughrabi “stars”, then, in the Palestinian curriculum that is followed as well in UNRWA schools with no exception, as a Palestinian super-heroine, equal in status to Yasser Arafat and to the Prophet of Islam’s wife Aishah, and above Izz al-Din al-Qassam. She signals a phase in the development of Palestinian national activity. Her life and the story of the terrorist action she commanded are brought in detail, including the fact of her being an UNRWA student. She probably well applied the material she learned there and, accordingly, she is presented as a role model to Palestinian students in general and to the refugees’ descendants in UNRWA schools in particular. This is education to terror par excellence and all those involved internationally in the process of approval of UNRWA activity and its financing should take that into account.

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[1] Fidai – “Self-sacrificing”, the Palestinian terrorists’ epithet.