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It's Scandalous that Hate-Filled Palestinian Textbooks Are Funded by the UK
(Jewish News-UK) Dame Louise Ellman - Britain's government is currently giving millions of pounds each year to Palestinian schools which are teaching a curriculum which incites hatred, glorifies violence and promotes terror; nothing could do more to harm the cause for peace than fostering old hatreds and prejudices in another generation of children and young people. This has to stop. Five-year-olds are taught the word for "martyr" as part of their first lessons in Arabic; 11-year-olds taught that martyrdom and jihad are "the most important meanings of life"; and teenagers taught those who sacrifice themselves will be rewarded with "72 virgin brides in paradise." The massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics is cited as a good example of "Palestinian resistance" against "Zionist interests abroad." There is no suggestion that peace with Israel is desirable or possible and references to previous peace agreements, summits and proposals, which were present in schoolbooks, have been expunged. In their place are lies about the Al-Aqsa mosque being under threat and calls to conquer Haifa and Jaffa. These lessons in hatred are being funded through the UK's Department for International Development. British aid should support the goal - shared by MPs across the House of Commons - of a two-state solution. It cannot and must not make that goal harder to achieve. The writer is a Labour Member of Parliament.