An Israeli NGO called on the British authorities to investigate an offensive new curriculum developed by the National Union of Teachers that educates young students about Palestinian “occupation, freedom and resistance.”
“An immediate, thorough and independent investigation by the Charities Commission as well as the U.K. education authorities is clearly required,” demanded the president of Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, Gerald Steinberg.
Steinberg called the curriculum, which was developed by NUT together with a Christian charity called Edukid that aims to educate children living in poverty or conflict zones, “a fictitious narrative that promotes hate and incitement.”
Some have said the “extremist agenda” attempting to describe the often violent and unresolved Palestinian struggle for a state does not belong in a classroom with three-year-old students.
“We need to be more vigilant about the politicization of British classrooms,” said Tom Wilson of the Henry Jackson Society, according to the U.K. Daily Telegraph.
“When dealing with a subject as complex as the Israeli Palestinian conflict, it is so important to avoid giving young people a distorted or one sided account,” he said.
NUT responded to the concerns about its new curriculum by saying it had also distributed materials promoting Holocaust education and new government anti-radicalization measures.
Edukid, Steinberg added, partners with organizations with known links to the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (a European Union-registered terrorist group) as well as supporters of a one-state solution that seek to dissolve the Jewish state, and the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS).
The curriculum follows Palestinian children such as Saleh, a 10-year-old Hebron native who is accompanied through military checkpoints by human rights organizations, and Jenna, whose house was fired on with rubber bullets and tear gas — Israel is not mentioned in the brief summaries provided on Edukid’s website. It provides pictures, written materials and videos. Edukid said some of the money raised through sales of the curriculum will go toward producing more footage.
The group also has curricula on children in Cambodia and Uganda.
{Matzav.com}
