By David Bedein A letter published in the Jerusalem Post on August 23rd from the UNRWA spokesman and in the Huffington Post by Chris Gunnness which postulates that was US state dep’t has already conducted a study of the Palestinian Authority textbooks, which supposedly “found that the textbooks we use are free of incitement, and that the curriculum is “peaceful” and one in which “religious and political tolerance was emphasized.”
- http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Letters/Article.aspx?id=235287
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-gunness/unrwa-beyond-the-myths_b_941669.html
That is not the case.
A US State Department official has written to our agency that they had did receive reports from two Palestinian oriented organizations who described the PA school books in a positive manner.
However, that same US State Department official indicated that the State Department had not yet issued any report of its own on the subject of PA text books.
The state department official did not mention studies of the Palestinian Authority school books which challenge the notion that the PA school books somehow reflect a peaceful and moderate tone:
- http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/as_nm_e.pdf
- http://israelbehindthenews.com/library/pdfs/PA-schoolbooks.pdf
- http://www.impact-se.org/research/pa/index.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PalestinianTextBooksFromArafatToAbbasAndHamas.jpg
For that reason, the US State Department is currently conducting such a new study, now in process, under the auspices of Yale University Professor Bruce Wexler.
Did UNRWA jump the gun?
