Compared to earlier curricula, the 2017 Palestinian curriculum is noticeably more radical. It includes new textbooks for grades 1-4. The curriculum emphasizes a “return” to an exclusively Palestinian homeland, demonizes and denies the existence of Israel, and teaches students to be martyrs to an even greater extent than the 2014–15 textbooks.
Children are taught to be disposable within the textbooks’ pages. The curriculum is filled with phrases like “the volcano of my revenge,” “the longing of my blood for my land,” and “I shall sacrifice my blood to saturate the land.” Math books teach arithmetic using the numbers of martyrs who have died. The whole of what is now Israel is included in the Arab vision of Palestine, which is known as the “1948 Occupied Territories.”
Here is how the grade 4 math textbook teaches math:
“The number of martyrs of the First Intifada during 1987–93 totaled 2026 martyrs, and the number of martyrs of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Intifada in the year 2000 totaled 5,050 martyrs while the number of the wounded reached 49,760. How many martyrs died in the two Intifadas?”
Is this the way to prepare children for peace?
Is this the way to teach people the desire for peace?
Here is a short footage showing you children themselves explaining what they are taught in Palestine: