PA’s Abbas to send delegation to UNESCO to review Palestinian curriculum
The PA commits to UNESCO to remove hate speech from school textbooks, but the Israeli government and IMPACT blame its recent program of inciting violence and anti-Semitism.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Saturday that he would send a high-level Palestinian delegation to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to review Palestinian education programs.
The aim is to consult with UNESCO to align the Palestinian school curriculum with the international standards it has adopted while “preserving the essence of Palestinian national consciousness”.
The delegation is expected to be led by the Minister of Education and Higher Education of the Palestinian Authority.
The announcement followed a phone call between Abbas and UNESCO Director-General Khaled Al-Anani, who recently took office. Abbas also told a joint news conference with French President Macron earlier this month that the overhaul of programs would continue over the next two years.
“We agreed on the importance of reforming school textbooks, which must exclude all hate speech in accordance with UNESCO standards,” Macron announced.
The UNESCO logo is seen during the opening of the 39th session of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at its headquarters in Paris, France, October 30, 2017. (credit: REUTERS/PHILIPPE WOJAZER)
Palestinian schoolbooks still incite anti-Semitism
The Israeli government and various NGOs have repeatedly accused the Palestinian education system of radicalizing students and perpetuating anti-Semitism.
The organization, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), has published reports on Palestinian school textbooks since 1998.
Most recently, IMPACT-se examined the Palestinian Authority’s new curriculum for Gaza in February 2025.
It found that despite the PA’s commitments to the European Union (EU) in July 2024 that it would reform its educational content in full compliance with UNESCO standards of peace and tolerance, “these newly created materials contain anti-Semitic content that encourages students to commit acts of violence, justified by both nationalist and religious motives, as has been repeatedly documented in PA school textbooks.”
In 2022, Dr. Arnon Groiss wrote that PA training has three fundamental principles. The first is the delegitimization of the existence of Israel and the very presence of Jews in the country, which implies the negation of their history and the existence of Jewish holy places in this country.
The second is the demonization of Israel and Jews, with implications for the image of Jews in the eyes of children from a traditional society. Finally, the third problem is the incitement and lack of call for peace with Israel.
Groiss is director of the Nahum Bedein Center for Middle East Policy Research and author of Genesis of the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA: Road Block to Peace.
