EU Slashes Funding for Antisemitic Palestinian Schoolbooks

Europe reduces by 40% its budget for UNRWA schools following condemnation over curriculum filled with Jew-hate

By JNS | | Topics: palestinians, UN
Palestinian schools funded and operated by the UN often use antisemitic blood libels to educate Arab children.
Palestinian schools funded and operated by the UN often use antisemitic blood libels to educate Arab children. Photo: Wissam Nassar/Flash90

The European Union’s 2022-24 UNRWA aid budget will be 40% lower than during the previous three-year period, the EU announced last week.

UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East – operates 711 schools in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the surrounding countries, and is the largest educator of Palestinian children.

The new budget will provide $82 million annually, compared to the previous average annual figure of $135 million, according to the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), a Jerusalem-based nonprofit that monitors educational materials around the world for extremist content.

An additional $15 million was granted through the EU’s Food and Resilience Facility for 2022 to help ensure food security following the impact of the Ukraine crisis, according to the report.

In April of last year, the EU Parliament condemned UNRWA for teaching and producing UN-branded hate material uncovered by IMPACT-se, and conditioned EU funds on changes to the curriculum.

The EU commissioner, who announced the reduced funding package, said last year, after the Parliament’s condemnation, that the European Union would fight antisemitism and should consider conditioning aid to UNRWA on full adherence to UNESCO standards of peace and tolerance in textbooks.

Cuts in the EU’s contribution to UNRWA follow a similar decision by the United Kingdom late last year.

London announced that it could not continue to fund blatant “anti-Israel and antisemitic” educational material.

Earlier in 2021, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken openly acknowledged that UNRWA schools were teaching Palestinian children to hate Jews.

UNRWA is “disseminating in its educational products, antisemitic or anti-Israel information,” said Blinken during a congressional hearing.

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