UNRWA Textbook Excerpts: Education for War

Legislators who fund UNRWA are now confronted with the reality of UNRWA Education for War - with Israel.

David Bedein,

OpEds David Bedein
David Bedein
credit David Michael Cohen

Over the past two months, experts from of our research center, who investigate UNRWA education, which relies on textbooks and curriculum supplied by the Palestinian Authority, briefed key members of the British Parliament in London and the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa.

We now seeking sponsors to arrange for these experts to brief key members of the US Congress and 16 other western Parliaments which fund UNRWA.

That is because the $1.2 billion in funding for UNRWA, half of which is allocated to schools which teach 492,000 students, emanates from direct allocations from western countries, not from the UN.

Dr. Arnon Groiss, a journalist for the Voice of Israel Arabic Language  Service for the past 40 years, holding a PHD in Islamic Studies from Princeton University, has been translating and analyzing new school books of the Palestinian Authority used by UNRWA for the past 14 years.

Dr. Groiss’s research shows that the new school books now used in the UNRWA school system focus on Jihad, Right of Return, martyrdom, and “conquest of Palestine” as the themes of UNRWA Palestinian  education, with no mention of peace or reconciliation in any new textbooks introduced into UNRWA schools.

There are hundreds of indiscretions in UNRWA education policy  which the legislative bodies of donor nations need to know about.

A member  of the British Parliament asked our agency to provide the most  egregious  examples of the Western-funded UNRWA schools which infect  the minds and hearts of children who now study in UNRWA schools, which he could use to form a parliamentary question to challenge the assertion of the British government that was forwarded to members of Parliament which asserted that UNRWA schools are devoid of incitement or anti-semitism.

Here are six of those examples:

Why is Israel not mentioned in textbooks used by UNRWA?



The land of the Levant [Bilad al-Sham in Arabic] presently comprises the following states:

Palestine The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan The Republic of Lebanon The Syrian Arab Republic

(History of the Ancient Civilizations, Grade 5 (2004) p. 30)

Note: Later editions feature “Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria” only, with no titles. The State of Israel is missing in both versions.


Why does Palestine replace Israel on maps of textbooks used by UNRWA?



Lesson 4: Palestine is Arab and Muslim

The Palestinian people is part of the Arab-Muslim nation

(National Education, Grade 2, Part 1 (2007) p. 16) [Latest edition of this book so far]

Why does the very creation of Israel in 1948, by virtue of the 1947 UN partition resolution, defined in UNRWA textbooks as “occupation”?

How can a UN body object to the existence of a nation that is a member in good standing of the United Nations Organization?



“Israeli Occupation: A disaster fell upon Palestinian society in 1948 at the hands of the Zionist organizations as most of the Palestinians were forced to emigrate from their land and the State of Israel was established on part of Palestine…”

(National Education, Grade 5 (2013) p. 30)

Why does the UN allow textbooks used by UNRWA education to advocate war?


A language exercise indicating the liberation of Palestine by a violent struggle:


I will reconcile the following poetic lines with the feelings they express:

A morning of glory and red liberty watered by the martyrs’ blood… [Bottom right]

– The hope for the liberation of Palestine [Second item on the left]

(Reading and Texts, Grade 9, Part 1 (2013) pp. 9-10, 12)

Why does UNRWA use textbooks which emulate martyrs who kill themselves while committing acts of murder?



The Martyr [Excerpts]

I will carry my soul in my palm and toss it in the abyss of destruction

[Let it be] either a life that delights a friend or a death that infuriates the enemies

[Verses 1&2]

Hearing [weapons’] clash is pleasant to my ear

And the flow of blood gladdens my soul

As well as a body thrown upon the ground

Skirmished over by the desert predators

[Verses 6&7]

By your life! This is the death of men

And whoever asks for a noble death – here it is!

[Verse 10]

(Our Beautiful Language, Grade 7, Part 1 (2013) p. 75) [The piece here is taken from an older edition, p. 97]

Why does UNRWA use textbooks to indoctrinate students to engage in the “right of return” by force of arms?


We Are Returning

Returning, returning, we are returning

Borders shall not exist, nor citadels and fortresses

Cry out, O those who have left:

We are returning

Returning to the homes, to the valleys, to the mountains

Under the flag of glory, Jihad and struggle

With blood, sacrifice, fraternity and loyalty

We are returning

Returning, O hills; returning, O heights

Returning to childhood; returning to youth

To Jihad in the hills, [to] harvest in the land

We are returning

(Our Beautiful Language, Grade 5, Part 1 (2013) p. 50)

These examples represent only some of the issues ignored in the studies of UNRWA/PA education that were presented to DFID and the British government  by organizations that whitewashed the current “spirit” of the schools in the UN refugee camps.