MPs say UK Government shares responsibility for antisemitism in Palestinian Authority school textbooks and society

The British Government shares responsibility for antisemitism in Palestinian Authority school textbooks and society, MPs have said.

Speaking in a Westminster Hall debate in Parliament, new Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis, a former teacher, bemoaned the “environment of institutionalised radicalisation” that prevails under the Palestinian Authority and observed that school textbooks there teach children to count “martyrs” (a reference to genocidal terrorists killed attempting to murder Jews), that “Jews control the world”, and that Israel must and will be destroyed.

“As a former secondary school teacher myself,” he explained, “I know just how impressionable young minds are and the impact that such messaging can have on pupils’ development, values and worldview.”

Reacting to the educational material in use, Mr Gullis said: “Make no mistake: this is antisemitism, and we must condemn it as strongly as we fight antisemitism at home.”

Another new Conservative MP, Nicola Richards, observed the prevalence of Holocaust denial in Gaza and under the Palestinian Authority and that the curriculum “push[es] prejudice and division”, concluding that this “proves that something is going seriously wrong”.

Labour’s Steve McCabe MP said in the debate that the UK government bore “some of the responsibility” because aid from Britain “fund[s] the salaries of some 30,000 teachers and officials” in the Palestinian Authority’s school system. “Let us be clear,” he said: “we are paying the salaries of those who designed and administer the curriculum and those who teach it.”