The Palestinian Media Watch report on the new Palestinian schoolbooks [prepared for the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace] continues to have political impact worldwide. Now, Germany joins other countries condemning the PA education.

[Front Page Headline, Palestinian Authority official daily]

"A German Member of the European Parliament said yesterday that the European Union must stop transferring funds to the Palestinian Ministry of Education, following reports that there are anti-Semitic books in the Palestinian schools.

"Armin Laschet, a Member of the European Parliament, belonging to the Christian Democratic Party, told Reuters: I will act to freeze the funding by the European Union of the Palestinian educational authorities until all the Palestinian textbook passages antagonistic to Israel are removed. A senior Palestinian in the education field denied these claims and said that they are [parts] of a political campaign of right-wing Israelis and their like.

"Laschet was presented an English translation of the passages alleged to be anti-Semitic taken from the Palestinian textbooks while he was visiting Israel four weeks ago as part of a European Parliament delegation. Laschet said that a passage from Islamic Education book for Palestinian students aged 15 calls upon them to beware of the Jews because they are "deceitful and disloyal", and added that in another book for 16-year-olds, whose title he did not know, the persecution of the Jews in Europe was attributed to their greed and religious fanaticism.

The Under-Secretary of Education, Na´im Abu-Humus, said that these allegations were made in the past by a group of right-wing people and settlers which opposes the efforts to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

"Abu-Humus said to Reuters: ´they disseminate fabricated information against our education system. This is a political campaign that has no tie to education.´....

"Laschet said that he confronted president Arafat with the passages from the textbooks, and Arafat confirmed that they are used in the Palestinian schools. He added that ´Arafat confirmed the passages [exist] but said that they appear in old Jordanian textbooks and the Palestinian Authority does not have the money to alter them.´ He added: ´the Palestinians receive a lot of money from the European Union, and they certainly can bear the cost of publishing new textbooks.

"Laschet also said that he saw recently printed textbooks in which the word ´Israel´ does not appear on the map of the Middle East, and that the European Union gives the Palestinians more than 300 million Euro a year, and a portion of that sum is allocated to education.

"A report yesterday in the German newspaper ´Die Welt´ tells that a portion of the Palestinian textbooks which include anti-Semitic passages is funded by the refugee aid agency (UNRWA) of the UN, which receives contributions from the European Union and from some of its [member] nations. The spokeswoman of the German Foreign Ministry told Reuters that Germany would look into this issue. [Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, 27/8/01]