Inside the Lessons Brussels Condemns: What Palestinian Authority Textbooks Actually Teach About Jews, Jihad, and Martyrdom

On a gray morning in Brussels in June 2023, EU budget officials quietly froze a tranche of education funding destined for the West Bank. The decision did not hinge on corruption or accounting failures. It centered on schoolbooks—thin volumes carried daily by Palestinian children—that European auditors said crossed a line from national narrative into incitement.

What, exactly, do those books teach? And why has the fight over their contents become one of the most polarizing fault lines in European–Palestinian relations?

The Flashpoint Brussels Can’t Ignore

The European Union is the Palestinian Authority’s largest donor. Since 2007, Brussels and EU member states have poured more than €8 billion into Palestinian institution-building, according to the European Commission. Education absorbs a significant share: teacher salaries, curriculum development, printing costs. That financial intimacy gives Brussels leverage—and responsibility.

In 2021, the EU commissioned Germany’s Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research (GEI) to conduct an independent review of Palestinian textbooks used between grades 1 and 12. The mandate sounded technical. The findings landed like a political grenade.

GEI concluded that while textbooks had improved in areas like gender representation and civic participation, they still contained “problematic content with regard to international standards on peace, tolerance, and non-violence.” Members of the European Parliament seized on that phrase. By May 2022, the Parliament passed a resolution calling for EU aid to be conditioned on textbook reform.

That vote transformed lesson plans into diplomatic landmines.

Inside the Pages: Jews, Israel, and the Language of Conflict

Textbook controversies often collapse into slogans—“incitement” versus “resistance”—but the actual material tells a more complex story.

In a Grade 7 Arabic language textbook, students analyze a poem praising those who “sacrifice their blood” for the homeland. The text does not name Jews explicitly, but contextual exercises connect sacrifice to armed struggle against Israel. GEI flagged the framing for romanticizing violence without reference to civilian harm or alternative political paths.

A Grade 5 social studies book introduces the concept of “martyrdom” through historical narratives of Palestinians killed during confrontations with Israeli forces. Names appear. Faces appear. The pedagogical goal is identity formation, not military training—but the effect, critics argue, normalizes death in conflict as moral victory.

Most sensitive of all: depictions of Jews and Israelis.

• Several textbooks conflate “Zionists” with “Jews” in historical passages about 20th-century conflict, a practice GEI warned can slide into collective blame.
• Maps of the region routinely label the entire territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as “Palestine,” omitting Israel altogether.
• Peace agreements like Oslo receive scant attention, while armed struggle dominates the narrative arc from 1948 onward.

None of this appears in isolation. Taken together, reviewers argue, the books teach a worldview in which compromise lacks legitimacy and violence earns honor.

Jihad: Theology, History, and a Slippery Pedagogy

The term jihad poses one of the thorniest challenges. In Islamic theology, it carries multiple meanings, from personal moral striving to armed defense. Palestinian textbooks emphasize that spectrum—but lean heavily on the militant edge.

A Grade 9 Islamic education text defines jihad as “defending the homeland and sacred sites.” Classroom activities ask students to list forms of jihad practiced by Palestinians today. Armed resistance features prominently; nonviolent civic action barely registers.

European reviewers stress that the issue lies not in teaching religious concepts but in how narrowly those concepts are framed, especially in a region where teenagers regularly encounter real weapons and real funerals.

The Palestinian Authority Responds

Palestinian officials reject the charge that their curriculum promotes hatred.

In written responses to the European Commission in 2022, the Palestinian Ministry of Education argued that:

• Textbooks reflect “the lived reality of occupation,” which international law recognizes as a context of conflict.
• References to martyrs honor civilians killed, not attackers of civilians.
• Omitting Israel from maps represents a political position, not a call to violence.

Privately, PA officials express frustration that European standards demand pedagogical neutrality from a society still under military control. “No one asks Ukrainians to write textbooks as if invasion is hypothetical,” one senior education adviser told European diplomats, according to meeting summaries reviewed by EU parliamentarians.

That comparison resonates emotionally. It fails diplomatically.

Why Europe Keeps Pushing Back

Brussels’ concern goes beyond rhetoric. EU officials worry about legal exposure and political backlash at home.

German, Dutch, and Scandinavian parliaments have faced lawsuits and voter pressure accusing them of indirectly financing incitement. In 2020, the Netherlands temporarily suspended part of its education aid after an audit found problematic textbook passages. Denmark followed with conditional funding in 2021.

Behind closed doors, EU diplomats frame the issue starkly: Europe cannot preach tolerance while paying for materials that undermine it.

The result has been a tightening web of oversight:

• Annual third-party textbook audits
• Earmarked funds that bypass PA ministries
• Delays in disbursement pending curriculum revisions

Aid hasn’t stopped. Trust has thinned.

What the Data Actually Shows

Groups monitoring Palestinian textbooks often speak past each other, but some quantitative patterns stand out.

According to IMPACT-se, an Israeli-based education watchdog whose reports the EU cross-checks but does not fully endorse:

• References to violent struggle appear in more than 30% of reviewed textbooks.
• Positive depictions of peace processes appear in under 5%.

• Israel is absent from nearly all geographic maps.

GEI’s EU-commissioned review offered a more cautious picture, estimating that problematic content constitutes a minority of total material but remains “structurally significant” because it appears in core subjects like history and religion.

The disagreement isn’t about whether issues exist. It’s about whether they define the system.

The Diplomatic Cost of Every Sentence

Textbooks don’t just educate children. They signal political intent.

European diplomats say privately that the curriculum dispute has hardened skepticism about Palestinian governance at a moment when international recognition efforts demand credibility. Conditioning aid on textbooks sends a message not only to Ramallah but to Washington and Jerusalem: Europe expects a future partner, not a permanent resistance authority.

For Israel, the textbooks bolster arguments against territorial concessions. For Palestinian leaders, European pressure feeds domestic accusations of surrendering national narrative for donor approval.

The stalemate benefits no one—except extremists who thrive on zero-sum framing.

What Rarely Gets Said: Education as Negotiation Prep

The deepest problem isn’t hostile language. It’s the absence of preparation for compromise.

Students learn what was lost. They learn who suffered. They rarely learn how conflicts end.

No curriculum explains, in practical terms:

• How peace treaties are negotiated
• Why leaders make painful concessions
• How international law balances competing claims

That gap matters. Societies untrained in compromise struggle to recognize it as anything but betrayal.

Tools and Resources for Transparency and Reform

For educators, donors, and analysts seeking clarity rather than slogans, several tools offer practical value:

• ABBYY FineReader PDF Corporate Edition — Allows side-by-side comparison of textbook editions in Arabic and translated languages, crucial for tracking revisions.
• Atlas.ti Qualitative Data Analysis Software — Enables systematic coding of themes like violence, identity, and tolerance across large textbook datasets.
• “Education and Conflict: Research and Practice” by UNESCO — A foundational reference for aligning curricula with peace-building standards without erasing national narratives.

These tools don’t resolve politics. They prevent arguments built on selective excerpts.

The Path Forward Brussels Is Quietly Considering

EU officials increasingly discuss a middle route: co-development rather than conditionality.

That approach would embed European and Palestinian educators in joint curriculum workshops, focusing not on erasing history but on expanding it—adding chapters on diplomacy, comparative conflicts, and nonviolent movements.

Pilot programs along these lines have begun quietly, funded through NGOs rather than PA ministries. Early feedback suggests resistance softens when reforms feel collaborative rather than punitive.

Why This Fight Matters Beyond Palestine

Textbook battles foreshadow future diplomacy. Children educated to see violence as destiny grow into leaders who can’t imagine alternatives. Donors who ignore that reality fund their own irrelevance.

Brussels understands this. Ramallah does too, even when it bristles at the messenger.

The pages under scrutiny today will shape the negotiating tables of tomorrow. Whether they prepare students for endless struggle—or for the unglamorous work of peace—remains an open question, written one lesson at a time.