Teaching the “Right of Return” in UNRWA Schools

• The UNRWA school system educates nearly half a million pupils in 691 schools. Of those, some 262,000 pupils study at schools located in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Since UNRWA schools use local schoolbooks, the pupils in these areas use the Palestinian Authority schoolbooks.
   
• The Palestinian Authority schoolbooks educate for the fulfillment of the “Right of Return,” based on the premise that Palestine belongs to the Palestinian Arabs and to them alone.
   
• The Palestinian Authority Schoolbooks studied in UNRWA schools today emphasize the following principles:

1. Jews are foreigners with no historical or religious rights in Palestine.
    
2. Jews have a dubious and murderous character.
    
3. Israel is the source of all evil from which the Palestinians suffer.
    
4. There is no mention of a peaceful solution to the conflict with Israel.
    
5. Advocating a violent struggle for the liberation of the entire land of Palestine – not limited to the West Bank and Gaza.
    
6. Praise for jihad and martyrdom and advocating terrorist acts against Israel. 

• Hamas controls the UNRWA teachers’ union in the Gaza Strip and uses UNRWA schools to indoctrinate the pupils to jihad and martyrdom, and to recruit them to the Hamas Military Wing.
   
• Such education creates fertile ground for violence and terrorism, and constitutes an obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians by preaching violent struggle rather than peaceful resolution of the conflict.