Palestinian anger at US and EU agreement with UNRWA to keep school materials neutral

Last year, the US State Department reinstated funding to UNRWA that wass cut during the Trump administration. But it added conditions to the funding, which included that UNRWA would uphold UN standards on neutrality in their school materials. 

The Framework for Cooperation between the US and UNRWA 2021-2022 includes:

UNRWA commits to take all possible measures to ensure funding provided by the United States to UNRWA does not provide assistance to, or otherwise support, terrorists or terrorist organizations. Further, the United States and UNRWA condemn without reserve all manifestations of religious or racial intolerance, incitement to violence, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, including anti-Semitism, Islamophohia, anti-Catholicism, anti-Arabism, or other forms of discrimination or racism against Palestinians, Israelis or other individuals or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief.

 Priority activities for 2021-2022 to facilitate conformance with conditions on U.S. contributions to UNRWA are expected to include, but are not to be limited to:

■   Strengthening Agency oversight of its consistency with UN principles, which includes committing the resources necessary to maintain the neutrality of UNRWA facilities and staff and to monitor the protection of beneficiaries. This includes dedicated U.S. funding to rebuild UNRWA's capacity to conduct four neutrality inspections per facility each year and support staff compliance.

■   Improving the Agency's capacity to review local textbooks and quality assure education materials it uses to identify and take measures to address any content contrary to UN principles in educational materials.

The EU then signed off on a similar plan.

This has caused great anger among Palestinians.

Last year, students in an UNRWA school in Lebanon were surprised and shocked to see that a map published in a geography exam printed the verboten word "Israel."

The reaction was furious. A columnist at Al Modon called this another Nakba.  Al Akhbar called this "falsifying history." 

Another columnist called the US-UNRWA agreement "blackmail in its worst form" a term used by Hamas which also called it a "liquidation plan."

This month, the Palestinian Land Society started a campaign against the agreement claiming that the US is saying to Palestinians, "Deny you are a Palestinian or perish."

Palestinian historian Salman Abu Sitta wrote a letter to UNRWA demanding that Palestinians revert to creating their own curricula, claiming that this agreement that requires UNRWA to adhere to its own published standards is a violation of numerous international laws. He threatened to escalate the issue to the UN Human Rights Council. He includes over-the-top language like saying that the agreement is a threat that really says "Deny you are Palestinian or else you will starve or your children will roam the streets without education."

Clearly, teaching children facts without bias is a major threat to Palestinian society, whose very existence is built on lies. 

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