EU-funded PA school holds exhibition erasing Israel from the map
Students at a Palestinian Authority school, funded by the European Union and an Italian NGO, have put on display an exhibition that erases Israel from the map and celebrates the rockets recently fired by the Hamas at Israel during Operation Guardian of the Walls last month.
Arab Muslim teenagers participate in the rally in the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al Ahmar in the Jerusalem Governorate of the West Bank, expected to be destroyed. Khan al Ahmar, Jul 4, 2018
Photographs of the exhibition posted by Fatah’s Nablus branch on Facebook last week show a poster featuring a rocket next to a map of “Palestine” which included all of Israel.
The rocket has “Ayyash 250” written on it, in reference to one of the 4,300 rockets Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorists fired at Israel’s population in May, while the map was painted in the colours of the Palestinian flag, stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
A separate exhibit showed the same map with the word “Palestine” on it, alongside a key, some wooden camels, and a model of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Text on a card alongside the items read: “The procession of freedom – My homeland is from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River. Our return is near, and we have already begun to pack our belongings.”
Palestinian Media Watch, which reported on the displays, explained that the exhibits “represent three key elements of the Palestinian Authority’s indoctrination: glorifying violence, erasing Israel, and promising the right of return for Palestinian refugees.”
Maurice Hirsch, director of legal strategies for PMW, commented Monday that the EU “purportedly supports the PA as part of an effort to promote peace between the Palestinians and Israel. Brainwashing children with pictures of missiles, a false reality in which Israel does not exist, and a narrative which will never be realized unless Israel agrees to commit national suicide, does not contribute to peace-building efforts.”
The exhibition was held by students of the Elementary School for Girls in Hawara, which was donated by the EU Commission in cooperation with COOPI, an Italian NGO.
Claiming to be “the biggest donor of external assistance to the Palestinians,” a December 2020 press release from the Office of the European Union Representative (West Bank and Gaza Strip, UNRWA), stated that since 2008 “over €2.8 billion were disbursed through PEGASE by the European Commission” to the PA.
Hirsch added that “the fact that this kind of indoctrination is taking place in an EU-funded school should be cause for concern.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry called on the EU on Sunday to withhold its assistance to the PA following yet another report that showed that the PA was promoting terrorism, antisemitism, and violence through its textbooks used in the PA school system.
TPS
