Published: 27 June 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Are Palestinian schoolchildren taught hate and violence, as a lobbyist recently told Australian politicians? Broader research draws more complex conclusions.
Israel-based lobbyist Marcus Sheff recently visited Canberra to deliver a familiar line: Palestinian schoolbooks stereotype Jews, teach violence, and radicalise children.
Sheff, who was hosted at Parliament House by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), is CEO of a contentious organisation whose research has been described by an EU study as “marked by generalising and exaggerated conclusions based on methodological shortcomings”.
No one denies Palestinian textbooks depict Israel as the “Zionist occupier” and glorify resistance fighters.
But some of Sheff’s other contentions are widely disputed. Objective studies of hundreds of textbooks found a single antisemitic example, removed in a subsequent edition, and no direct exhortations to violence.
Critics argue Sheff’s organisation, The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE), peddles exaggerations and unjustified claims of antisemitism to justify Israel’s harsh security measures.
Researchers of Israeli textbooks also criticise IMPACT-SE for bias, saying criticism of Palestinian textbooks for their one-sided view of the conflict can be applied equally to Israeli school materials.
Why Australian politicians care
The argument over Palestinian textbooks is of interest to foreign governments because it is used to debate their contributions to funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). In 2020 Norway withheld funding until changes were made to textbooks.
After its election last year, the Albanese government doubled Australia’s contribution to UNWRA to $A20 million. The move reversed a decision by the Morrison government to halve the funding in 2020.
