European Parliament to vote on freezing aid to PA

(EJP via JNS)—The European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee will vote on whether to freeze more than 15 million euros ($17 million) in aid to the Palestinian Authority unless it removes incitement to violence against Israel in its school textbooks.

The Budgetary Committee’s bill is an amendment to the European Union’s draft budget, which will go to a plenary vote in late October. If the budget passes, the E.U. will withhold the money from the Palestinian Authority until it commits to reforming its textbooks.

“The funds will be released when the Palestinian Authority has committed to reform its school curriculum and textbooks to bring them in line with UNESCO standards for peace and tolerance in school education,” writes the resolution voted by the European parliament committee.

“The textbooks published by the P.A. in 2017, which are financed by the E.U. contain, across all subjects, numerous examples of violent depictions, hate speech—in particular against Israel—and glorifications of jihad and martyrdom,” the resolution adds.

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, or IMPACT-se, which has analyzed the new Palestinian textbooks, presented a report to the European Parliament which says that they “encourage Palestinian children to sacrifice their lives in the name of religion” and “glorified martyrdom and violent resistance.”

“There was only a vision of one state from the river to the sea, which is not E.U. policy,” said IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff.

The committee text is expected to go for a vote in the plenary session of the European Parliament later this month. If the resolution is adopted, the E.U. will withhold more than 15 million euros until the Palestinian Authority changes its textbooks.

The E.U. is the largest financial donor of the Palestinian Authority.

The radicalization of the Palestinian school curriculum has already led to an international review by donor countries. Last month Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo stated that “as long Palestinian schools are named to glorify terrorism, Belgium can no longer cooperate with the Palestinian Education Ministry and will not contribute to budgets for the construction of schools.”

Advocacy group European Coalition for Israel welcomed the EP Budgetary Committee vote. In a statement on Monday, ECI Founding Director Tomas Sandell said he thinks the vote may be a “too little too late.”

“As the members of the European Parliament prepare for new elections in less than eight months, they can be assured that the on-going mismanagement of E.U. funds will become a major theme in the election campaigns. If the European Parliament is to regain its moral authority with the E.U. electorate, it will have to show a genuine will to reform throughout the next five-year term and not only in the closing months of the five-year electoral cycle,” said Sandell.

“Very little has been done to reform E.U. aid to the Palestinian Authority over the last four years,” he added.

According to ECI, the European External Action Service—the E.U. institution responsible for the distribution and oversight of funds to the Palestinian Authority—“has kept a low profile.”

The official EEAS position is that the glorification of violence and martyrdom in Palestinian school textbooks and payments to convicted terrorists do not amount to institutionalized incitement or radicalization.

“This position was reaffirmed when ECI last met with EEAS despite the presentation of numerous pieces of evidence and sample copies of schoolbooks at the meeting,” the pro-Israel group said. “Now the pressure for reform is mounting on EEAS both from the European Parliament and from E.U. member state governments.”