EU-funded review of PA textbooks reeks of ‘incompetence, concealment’

Serious mistakes were made undermining the credibility of the report, including analyzing the wrong textbooks and attributing Arabic-language Israeli textbooks to the Palestinian Authority, ignoring anti-Semitism and ignoring incitement to violence, martyrdom and jihad.

In a ground-breaking move and in response to the lack of change in the Palestinian Authority school curriculum and the continued insertion of anti-Semitism, hate and incitement to violence and martyrdom in its textbooks, the Norwegian parliament endorsed a cut last week in aid to the P.A.

In 2018, the United Kingdom commissioned a report on Palestinian textbooks from the Germany-based Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research (GEI), which then published a report that was found to be riddled with mistakes. The European Union then decided to commission another report, due to be completed this month, again using the GEI.

Marcus Sheff, CEO of the Jerusalem-based NGO Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), expressed shock that the European Union Commission dealing with this matter is appointing the GEI, which Sheff believes has essentially disqualified itself as an honest player by making so many, seemingly intentional mistakes in its research findings.

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The GEI review made serious mistakes that undermined the credibility of the report. These included analyzing the wrong textbooks and attributing Arabic-language Israeli textbooks to the P.A., ignoring anti-Semitism and ignoring incitement to violence, martyrdom and jihad.

In a turn of events that exposes the E.U.’s seeming engagement in pretense, Riem Spielhaus, the head of the study at GEI, actually admitted to German daily newspaper Taggesspiegel in October that the Israeli textbooks were indeed mistakenly included in the review.

In what can be seen as a significant development in this saga, Die Welt—the most prominent German daily—followed up on the Taggerspigel piece and ran a similar story, also in October, but also called out the E.U. for lying to the newspaper.

The paper quoted Ana Pisonero, a spokeswoman for the commission, who said that no false textbooks had been examined. According to IMPACT-se, the E.U. is trying to cover up the mistake.

Adding to this mess, a number of E.U. countries have expressed concern about the GEI and the commission’s insistence that nothing is wrong.

Tybring-Gjedde said European politicians “should not be comfortable” with E.U. money being used to incite anti-Israel hate and violence among Palestinian children. “We have to be absolutely certain that the taxpayers’ money goes to educate children to live in peace and reconciliation.”

In October, 20 members of the European Parliament urged the E.U. to partially withhold funding to the P.A. until it ends anti-Semitic incitement.

Niclas Herbst, a member of the European Parliament, told JNS that “these are serious mistakes and the E.U. commissioner is trying to cover it all up.” He also stated in that letter that he is “equally concerned” over the E.U.’s interim report. “Something went very wrong in this research process and must be put right,” he said.

With respect to the European Commission’s cooperation with GEI, the legislators from four major political groups said that in light of the GEI’s “deeply troubling and error-ridden interim review, it is inconceivable that the institute’s final report, due to be released in December, can possibly reflect a serious and scholarly assessment of the textbooks.”

‘Suspend P.A. aid related to curriculum’

Benjamin Strasser, a German politician of the Free Democratic Party, also expressed his concern and told JNS, “false school materials can cement hatred and prejudice for decades. Neither German tax revenues nor our contributions to the Palestinian Authority may be used to promote anti-Semitism and hatred against Israel.”

Steve McCabe MP, chair of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), accused the government of “hiding behind the E.U. to escape accountability for its own inaction,” and demanded that the United Kingdom “immediately suspend all P.A. aid related to the delivery of the P.A. curriculum until wholesale and urgent revisions are guaranteed.”

In an emailed statement to JNS, a spokesperson for the Delegation of the European Union to Israel defended the flawed GEI study as “being carried out according to best international standards with native Arab speaking experts being part of the research team.”

The statement said that the E.U.’s Final Report “will be finalized by the end of the year. … Given that the final report has not even been published yet, any criticisms at the stage are clearly premature in our view, in particular as they have been based on alleged leaks regarding a preliminary report which had no other value than to inform the scoping of the study. … We should clarify that the E.U. does not fund and will not fund Palestinian textbooks.”