(JNS) The Palestinian Authority has not reformed its hate-filled educational system, Israel’s Minister of Settlements and National Missions Orit Strook warned in a letter sent to senior Israeli leadership on Monday.
In the letter, addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Acting Head of the National Security Council Gil Reich, Strook, from the Religious Zionism Party, referred to an in-depth report by IMPACT-se released two months ago examining the PA’s curriculum for the years 2025-2026.
IMPACT-se (Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education) is a non-profit group that analyzes the content of school textbooks.
The group’s November 2025 review found that the PA’s 2025-2026 curriculum “systematically violate[s] UNESCO principles and educational standards.” UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The impetus for Strook’s letter was the position espoused by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) at a recent Cabinet meeting. The Shin Bet stated that the PA will “probably succeed” in proving that its curriculum has been reformed and cleansed of controversial content.
According to IMPACT-se, the PA’s curriculum for grades first through 12, published in September 2025, “incites antisemitism and violence, promotes jihad and martyrdom, glorifies terrorism, rejects peacemaking and the two-state solution, and erases Israel from maps.”
The review noted that the curriculum hadn’t been “substantively modified” since the 2020–2021 school year, maintaining the same ideological framework first established in the 2016 reform cycle.”
Given the report’s findings, it’s not clear on what basis the Shin Bet made its assessment.
IMPACT-se pointed out that the European Union previously said that grades 1–4 and grade 12 PA textbooks met UNESCO standards, even though they remain largely unchanged, and despite the PA’s commitment to exclude antisemitic and violent material by September 2025.
Revisions are mostly cosmetic, with shortened editions still containing incitement, including references to martyrdom in early grades and portrayals of Jews as liars and manipulators in high school materials, according to the organization.
Antisemitism continues to be a core element of the curriculum, appearing across subjects and grade levels. Jewish people are depicted as deceitful and corrupt enemies of Islam, with modern passages linking Jews and Zionists to greed, conspiracies and control of global finance and media, ensuring the transmission of classic and contemporary antisemitic stereotypes to students, the report states.
The curriculum consistently dehumanizes Israelis, portraying them as monsters, demons, serpents, or agents of Satan. Texts and poems depict Israelis committing atrocities and promote conspiracy theories presented as fact, reinforcing the idea that Israel’s existence is incompatible with justice or humanity.
Religiously motivated violence is actively promoted, with jihad taught and framed as a personal religious duty tied to the conflict with Israel. Martyrdom and death for religious or national causes are glorified as the highest moral achievements and paths to divine reward.
Hostility and violence are normalized through the politicization of science, mathematics, and language exercises, the review added. Ordinary academic problems are infused with imagery of conflict, martyrdom, and death, transforming neutral subjects into tools for promoting resentment and dehumanization.
Peace education and acknowledgment of Jewish history remain absent from the 2025–2026 curriculum. References to peace agreements, non-violence, a two-state solution and Jewish historical ties to the land, which had been included at one point, continue to be deleted, replaced by narratives depicting Jews solely as foreign colonizers.
Violence and terrorism are openly glorified, with attacks against Israeli civilians described as heroic and perpetrators exalted as martyrs and role models. Educational materials include graphic depictions of death and dismemberment, embedding violence into literary and grammar exercises.
Maps and language in Palestinian textbooks erase Israel’s existence, depicting all territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea as “Palestine.” Israel is rarely named, instead referred to as “the Zionist occupation” or “Zionist entity,” reinforcing non-recognition as a foundational element of national education, according to the report.
Gender inequality is institutionalized through religious and social doctrine in textbooks, portraying women as inherently inferior and unfit for leadership. Materials emphasize obedience and modesty, blame women for moral decline, and discourage their participation in public life.
Teacher guides reinforce and expand hateful content, serving as official manuals for delivering antisemitic and violent messages in the classroom. Rather than moderating incitement, they instruct educators on how to convey it, including guidance asserting that Israeli Jews are “fated to disappear,” IMPACT-se reported.
The failure to reform the curriculum takes on added meaning with the Trump administration’s Jan. 14 announcement of the launch of Phase Two of President Donald Trump’s “20-Point Plan to End the Gaza Conflict,” which establishes a “board of peace.”
According to point nine of the 20-point plan, that board “will set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza until such time as the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform program, as outlined in various proposals.”
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