It is the fourth consecutive year that the parliament has passed a resolution criticizing the PA for its school material.
The vote, part of the EU’s annual budget oversight to examine how European taxpayer funds are spent, passed 421 in favor, 151 against, with five abstentions.
The European Parliament passed a resolution Wednesday condemning the Palestinian Authority over the “hateful” content of its textbooks and conditioning future funding for education on the removal of antisemitic material.
It is the fourth consecutive year that the parliament has passed a resolution criticizing the PA for its school material.
The vote, part of the EU’s annual budget oversight to examine how European taxpayer funds are spent, passed 421 in favor, 151 against, with five abstentions.
The wording of the resolution was “noticeably more critical of the PA” compared to previous resolutions, according to a statement from the Israeli Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se).
For the first time, an EU resolution directly linked the content of PA textbooks with funds for Palestinian terrorism, and in particular attacks by young people, it said. The resolution also acknowledged that there is antisemitism in the textbooks and demanded that it be removed.
It stated the EU “deplores the problematic and hateful material in Palestinian school textbooks and study cards which has still not been removed” and “underlines that education and pupils’ access to peaceful and unbiased textbooks is essential, especially in the context of the rising implication of teenagers in terrorist attacks.”
The resolution said the bloc “stresses that financial support from the Union for the Palestinian Authority in the area of education shall be provided on the condition that textbook content is aligned with UNESCO standards” and that “all anti-Semitic references are deleted, and examples that incite hatred and violence are removed, as repeatedly requested” in previous resolutions.
