Textbook row triggers vote to suspend EU funds to Palestinians

MEPs will vote on Wednesday on a resolution to freeze EU funding to the Palestinian Authority amid allegations that its school textbooks promote violence, including by encouraging students to take up arms to ‘liberate’ Palestine from Israel.

Investigations by advocacy groups and independent researchers, such as the Germany-based Georg Eckert Institute, have repeatedly found in recent years that PA textbooks promote violence and antisemitism. Although the PA has promised changes, the revisions have fallen short, according to a new study.

While the European Commission claimed that “tangible progress has been observed” and the PA textbooks were being aligned with UNESCO standards, researchers from Impact-se, a UK-Israel-based institute that examines school materials from around the world, found that changes in textbooks used in the 2025-2026 school year were “very limited, partial, and cosmetic”.

Hours before the vote on funding in Brussels, the US State Department released a report to Congress, citing Impact-se’s findings that textbooks used by the PA Ministry of Education “continue to glorify jihad and incitement to violence.”

The resolution was adopted with 418 votes in favour, 207 against and 14 abstentions, calling for “the necessity for the Palestinian Authority to remove all educational materials and content that fail to adhere to UNESCO standards, particularly those encouraging antisemitism and inciting violence, to which Palestinian children should not be exposed.”

Since 2008, the EU has funnelled  about €3.8 billion to the PA through its PEGASE fund, which finances the salaries of civil servants, teachers, and education systems, responsible for drafting, approving, and delivering the curriculum.

Grade 12 Arabic Language textbook printed for 2025–26 includes a poem that urges students to “return” to Israeli cities “with a weapon in your hand”

In fact, most of the content remained unchanged, a review by Euractiv found, often reproducing earlier editions verbatim. Revisions frequently removed neutral material, while leaving problematic content intact.

Researchers also found a revised textbook stating that “jihad is a contemporary religious duty to ‘liberate’ Palestine from the Zionist Occupation,” effectively encouraging students to pursue armed struggle. Another allegedly revised Grade 12 Arabic textbook urges students to “return” to Israeli cities “with a weapon in your hand,” using what Impact-se called “vivid, emotional verse to romanticise armed invasion “in a way disturbingly reminiscent of the violence witnessed on 7 October 2023.”

Islamic education book for grade 12 that collectively portrays Jews as liars and manipulators

An Islamic Education textbook also marked as revised portrays “the Jews” as liars and associates them with Satan.

Even some cosmetic revisions may not have been implemented. In an internal document issued by the PA ministry of education and seen by Euractiv, school principals were instructed to reinstate previously removed Grade 12 lessons “omitted in error”, including a lesson on jihad.

Internal PA Ministry document instructing principals to reinstate previously removed lessons including on Jihad

“Quite simply, the Commission has been sold a lie by the PA”, Marcus Sheff, CEO of Impact-se told Euractiv.

Children in Palestinian schools continue to learn from textbooks which are filled with antisemitism, incitement to violence and the glorification of martyrdom, he said.

The EU, as principal donor to the PA and UNRWA, the United Nations aid agency established in 1949 to administer aid to Palestinian refugees, has a duty to monitor whether a genuine revision of school textbooks is taking place, said Hildegard Bentele, a centre-right MEP who chairs the EU Parliament’s delegation for relations with Israel.

“So far, ‘reforms’ have amounted to little more than cosmetic adjustments: chapters have been shortened, but problematic content has not been removed,” Bentele told Euractiv.

Bert-Jan Ruissen, a right-wing Dutch MEP (ECR), has submitted an amendment which calls on the Commission to provide financial support only if the school textbooks were cleaned and up to UNESCO standards.

“The EU pays the salaries of teachers and textbook authors”, Ruissen, the deputy chair of the delegation for relations with Israel told Euractiv. “Unfortunately, even the most recent curriculum still fails to meet UNESCO standards.”

UPDATE: This story has been updated with the result of resolution.

(mk)