European Commission rewards spurious PA textbook reforms

The European Commission and the Palestinian Authority (PA) held a high-level meeting in Brussels on Monday (13 July), at which the EU showcased reforms that the PA says it has made to incendiary textbooks. The EU also announced the renewal of funding for PA education, which had been conditioned on such reforms. At the same time, the international research and policy institute IMPACT-se published a detailed report demonstrating that the textbooks in question continue to include a large amount of content violating UNESCO standards for peace and tolerance, including material which glorifies violent jihad, martyrdom and propagates antisemitism.

For each of the past seven years, the European Parliament has passed resolutions which strongly condemn PA textbooks for their hateful content and call for future EU funding to the PA to be conditioned upon the removal of this material. The most recent such vote took place in May of this year. Significantly, in 2024, the PA signed an agreement with the European Union committing to a process of curriculum reform, with the curriculum taught in Palestinian Authority schools, UNRWA schools, and Hamas-run schools across the West Bank and Gaza.

Since then, the European Commission has monitored progress and has publicly stated that the PA has “finalized” revisions to the Grade 12 curriculum, made “comprehensive revisions” to Grades 1–4, introduced “substantial changes,” and shown “tangible progress” toward complying with UNESCO standards of peace and tolerance in education. Skeptical of these conclusions, members of the European Parliament spearheaded by Moritz Korner MEP requested that the Commission share supporting evidence, which came in the form of links to digital versions of apparent revised PA textbooks. Coinciding with Monday’s Palestine Donor Group meeting in Brussels, international research and policy institute IMPACT-se, which has closely analyzed the PA curriculum for many years, published a deep analysis that examined each of the textbooks which the Commission has touted as having undergone revision. It concluded that the textbooks continue to contain antisemitism, glorification of jihad, violence and martyrdom, and the systematic erasure of Israel.

IMPACT-se’s review identified over 280 instances of content violating UNESCO standards for peace and tolerance across the supposedly reformed textbooks. Examples uncovered by IMPACT-se include Grade 1 pupils instructed to read a poem opening with the line “I will sacrifice myself” with Grade 2 students called to sing “I will give it [my land] my soul” and “water it with my blood.” Meanwhile in a Grade 12 textbook, Dalal al-Mughrabi, responsible for the 1978 Coastal Road massacre in which 38 Israelis were killed, including 13 children, is praised in a grammar exercise as “a Palestinian martyr” and treated as a role model. Another lesson suggests refugees return to the Israeli city of Haifa “with a weapon in [their] hand.” The study also found that the curriculum often portrays “the Jews” collectively as deceitful, manipulative and treacherous. Interestingly, in May 2026 a U.S. State Department report to Congress concluded that incitement in Palestinian textbooks continues and that changes were insufficient. Nonetheless, at Monday’s Palestine Donor Group meeting in Brussels,

Commissioner Dubravka Suica (pictured) told Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa that “You have also been working on revising textbooks for grades one to four. We see real progress in the alignment of school curriculum with UNESCO education standards.” Qualifying this, she added that “The work on the other grades needs to continue,” although it is unclear if this statement includes Grade 12 textbooks, which the Commission previously classified as having revisions “finalized.” In addition, Commissioner Suica and Prime Minister Mustafa headed a signature ceremony providing financial assistance to the PA via the EU mechanism PEGASE. The PEGASE fund finances the salaries of Palestinian education-sector civil servants responsible for drafting, teaching, disseminating, implementing, and delivering the Palestinian Authority curriculum.

The allocation of funding via PEGASE appears to be an effective approval of the PA’s claims of textbook reform. Commenting on yesterday’s events in Brussels, Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se said, “The Commission has quite simply been duped by the PA. The European Union rightly made a clear demand that the PA reform its textbooks, but the Commission is sadly failing to make sure that these demands are being met. Any serious examination of the evidence shows that the very textbooks which were supposedly revised, remain filled with hatred and calls for children to carry out violence and become martyrs. Yesterday saw the Commission publicly praise a reform that never happened, and release funding to a government which continues to teach violence and hate.”

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