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EU Passes Bill to Prevent Funding of Palestinian Anti-Israel Hate Education

by TheTower.org Staff |

The European Union’s Parliament passed legislation to bar EU aid from being used to fund anti-Israel hate education in Palestinian schools, The Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday.

The Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control introduced legislation in March to ensure that all initiatives supported by EU funds “reflect common values such as freedom, tolerance, and nondiscrimination within education.”

Funds transferred to the Palestinian Authority through the EU’s PEGASE mechanism will be subject to this legislation. Since it was created in 2008, PEGASE has been the primary source of EU financial support for the PA. During that time, approximately 3 billion euros ($3.7 billion) of aid has been used to support the PA’s Reform and Development plan, which covers both social development and education.

Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), a Jerusalem-based organization that seeks to fight extremism through education, assisted the EU’s Parliament in drafting the legislation.

“It is bizarre that for over ten years, The PEGASE fund has transferred around €3 billion to PA, a significant amount of which goes to the Palestinian education sector,” IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff said. “In all that time, there have been no real attempts by the European Commission to ensure that Palestinian children receive an education based on European values.”

IMPACT-se reports regularly on the promotion of extremism in the PA school curriculum.

Two years ago IMPACT-se reported that the word “peace” did not appear in any text used in PA schools, and observed that without a message of peace the PA had adopted “a curriculum of war and struggle aimed at preparing young Palestinians to fight continuously for the elimination of Israel.”

Last year, IMPACT-se reported that PA textbooks had become even “more radical,” despite assurances from the PA Ministry of Education that they hadn’t. Sheff observed, “There is clear evidence of a strategy of radicalization of young Palestinians, devised and implemented by the ministry, which includes a commitment to an Arab Palestine encompassing the entirety of Israel.”

[Photo: ILTV ISRAEL DAILY / YouTube]

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