The saga of the toxic school books financed by Canada: Canada’s Middle-East Policy is God’s vengeance on logic

By Dogan Akman 

On November 16, 2016 the Minister of International Development, Marie Claude Bibeau of the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, in power since October 19, 2015, announced that the government had reversed the 2010 decision of the preceding the Conservative government led by Stephen Harper that cancelled Canada’s annual contribution of $25 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

A portion of these monies contributes to the financing, as the Minister put it, of the schooling of “vulnerable Palestinian refugees” attending UNWRA schools.  The reinstatement of this contribution occurred in the midst of allegations that UNWRA it is tied too closely to Hamas, which Canada designates as a terrorist organisation, and despite the well substantiated evidence that the textbooks used by UNWRA and published by the P.A are toxic in their treatment of Israel.

The Minister justified the decision on the grounds that “Millions of Palestinian refugees across the Middle East have the right …to send their children to school. We want to see Palestinian refugee children in classrooms where they can learn universal values of tolerance and respect. Vulnerable Palestinians deserve all the opportunities they can to contribute positively to their communities and Canada’s funding will help to better the lives of millions of refugees.”

The announcement in the House of Commons was greeted with cries of “shame” from the members of the Conservative Party, the Official opposition. Its current leader, Andrew Sheer, then a sitting member of the opposition, stated that   humanitarian money should go to groups which focus on aid, not politics and that “UNWRA is an obstacle to achieving peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

In the aftermath of the announcement, government officials stated that Canada would monitor closely the contents of the schoolbooks.

On February 2, 2017, U.N Watch appeared before the United States Congress, House Foreign Affairs Committee and presented “A Report on UNWRA Teachers’ Incitement to Jihadist Terrorism and Antisemitism”.

The report exposes more than 40 Facebook pages operated by school teachers, principals, and other employees of UNWRA whose materials incite terrorism or antisemitism. These cases are additional to the 30 cases of incitement revealed at the end of 2015 by U.N. Watch.

The examples of incitement included UNRWA teachers and staffers celebrating the terrorist kidnapping of Israeli teenagers, cheering rockets being fired at Israeli civilian centres, endorsing various forms of violence, erasing Israel from the map, praising Hitler and posting his photo, and posting overtly anti-Semitic videos, caricatures, and statements.

The report concludes that UNRWA’s major donors and other donor states, including Canada, bear a responsibility to ensure that UNRWA lives up to its obligations as a UN humanitarian organization, and then proceeds to outline the specific actions which the donors must take to remedy UNRWA’s severe corruption of its mandate.

On May 4^th, 2017, in the Canadian Parliament, a member of the Conservative Party asked the following question of the Minister of International Development responsible for Canada’s contributions to the educational school fund of UNRWA:

“Mr. Speaker, UN Watch is now reporting [that], UNRWA hires and employs racist staff, and places the education of impressionable Palestinian youth in their hands. Canada would never tolerate the employment of racist teachers in its own schools.” Why are the Liberals funding this UN organization when there is clear evidence that it employs racist anti-Semites and terrorist sympathizers?

 The Minister’ reply was: Mr. Speaker, I want to assure my colleague that, ever since Canada restored funding to this UN agency for Palestinian refugees, we have been following it very closely, and Canada’s presence at the table is making a difference. We are ensuring that background checks are done on all financial services employees. We have helped train 3,000 employees so far, including executives and teachers, on the importance of web independence, and we are reviewing the educational materials. I would rather see those children in that UN school than on the street.”.

Canada did not respond to U.N. Watch’s call for action and ignored the specific recommendations of the Report directly bearing on the issue of incitement and anti-Semitism with respect to the textbooks used in the schools. Nor did the Canadian media give this important story much, if any, play it deserved.

In June 2017, the Centre for Near East Policy Research issued a 260 page detailed research report on the contents of the most recently updated school books issued by the Palestinian Authority for use in all the schools  in the West Bank, Gaza and in East Jerusalem.

The overall conclusion of the report is that the books in question “indoctrinate students with violence, denial, deceit and demonization of the Jewish people and have virtually erased reference to Israel. It’s replaced by ‘Zionist occupation’ and ‘Arab-Zionist conflict’. Further, the poems taught to youngsters praise ‘martyrdom’ against Jews.”

Dr. Arnon Groiss who co-directed the study and co-authored the report, described the curriculum as one which prepared the next generation of Palestinians, not for peace, but for more conflict, more violence, more Jew-hatred.

These findings were corroborated by  the  2017 report of the Jerusalem- based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) that examined the Palestinian grades 1-11 curriculum for the 2017-2018 school year and found that it was significantly more radical than the previous curricula.

At all events, in September 2017, Minister Bibeau asserted that they were still reviewing the materials.

From the foregoing historical sequence of events and the wealth and strength of corroborative documented evidence, it became abundantly clear that to the extent the Canadian government undertook to monitor closely the contents of the books, it was is doing so with a blank mind and closed eyes.

Nevertheless, so long as the U.S., the U.K, the E.U. and other countries, which must have also known about the scandalous contents of the textbooks, kept up their donations, Canada felt comfortable and in good company.

On March 15, 2018, Canada announced its new emergency funding of the UNWRA in the amount of $10 million, some of which would fund schooling, along with other countries seeking to remedy the budgetary shortfall created by President Trump’s decision to freeze U.S. aid to the agency.

On the same day, the Department of Global [Foreign] Affairs issued a statement which stated that Canada will also continue to exercise “enhanced due diligence” regarding its funding and will assist the UNWRA in its efforts to improve neutrality within the agency and its operations. The statement continues:”This assistance underlines how Canada and the UNWRA continue together to ensure respect for the values of the United Nations and the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, operational independence and impartiality.”

How can the staff and teachers of UNWRA possibly improve neutrality and show respect for the values of the United Nations while teaching with the venomous school text books issued by the Minister of Education of the Palestinian Authority? Mercifully, the statement did not address this question.

As a matter of fact, on the very day Canada announced its new funding and the statement was issued, the Palestinians children in UNWRA schools were being taught the new school curriculum devised for the 2017-2018 school year meant to give Palestinian children “a better future”.

This curriculum, turned out to be, as Marcus Sheff, Executive Director of the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) put it “more radical than ever, purposefully and strategically encouraging Palestinian children to sacrifice themselves to martyrdom”. These books still include maps that don’t recognise Israel praise Palestinians killed in the conflict with Israel including terrorists.

These assertions are corroborated by the article of B. Chernitsky, a Research Fellow at the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), published on March 16, 2018, in the journal of the Institute bearing the same name. 

Based on the results of his study of a particular segment of the curriculum. He writes: An examination of the middle-school books for Islamic Education, some of which have been replaced, shows a significant increase in focus on the early Islamic tenets of shahada (martyrdom), fidaa (self-sacrifice) and tadhiya (sacrifice) as part of jihad for the sake of Allah, and their modern manifestations as part of the Palestinian struggle against Israel” and in this context “cultivates anti-Semitic messages.”

Finally, that very same month of March 2018, the veracity of the assertions of Minister Bibeau and those in the statement of the Department of Foreign Affairs was put to test by the decision of the European Commission.

After some ten years of pumping significant amounts of monies into the Palestinian education sector, during which the made no real attempts to ensure that Palestinian children receive an education based on European values, decided that enough was enough. The EU Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control introduced legislation designed to ensure that all programs financed by EU money “reflect common values such as freedom, tolerance, and non-discrimination within education.”

On April 18 2018, the E.U. Parliament adopted this legislation to prevent EU aid being transferred for education purposes from being used to teach hate, and to insure that henceforth the P.A.’s textbooks meet the E.U. and UNESCO standards.

On August 8 inst., the Prime Minister responding to Saudi Arabia’s punitive measures against Canada in retaliation for, among other things, the criticism of the Realm’s values (or rather the lack of the “right” ones) expressed by the Minister of Foreign Affair through the diplomatic channels of Twitter, of stated: We will continue to stand up for Canadian values and indeed for universal values and human rights at any occasions.

Well, if financing the education of vulnerable school aged youth with vulnerable minds with the toxic textbooks published by the P.A. and used by UNWRA is an example of the way his government stands up for Canadian values, universal values and human rights, Canada is in trouble.

On the other hand, if the Prime Minister who describes Canada as Israel’s good/close friend and steadfast/strong ally   believes that financing the teaching of a toxic curriculum to Palestinian school kids on the subject of Israel is yet another way his government stands up for these values and rights, then Canada is in big trouble.

Again, if the Prime Minister who claims that his government is willing ready and able to fight world terrorism with its allies,  considers the financing of UNWRA schools an integral part of this fight,   then  this government has reached the end of the road.

As I see it, the present, Mr. Trudeau needs five pairs of hands to round the circle: A first pair, to massage and assuage Israel for carrying on with the financing of these books; a second pair, to retain the electoral loyalty  of that the segment of his constituency that a)supports the Palestinian cause as pursued by the P.A , Hamas or both; b) advocate the Palestinians’ inherent “human right” to write their own textbooks according to their own, inter alia, religious and political values and objectives, and c) wants the government to continue financing the use  of the toxic textbooks; a third pair, to satisfy the P.A. that Canada, remains a steady friend  on whom the P.A. can rely upon  while assuring Hamas and its confederate,  that Canada will go easy on them by ignoring the facts on the ground and condemning Israel, without having the benefit of the true facts; a fourth pair,  to avoid being ridiculed for its policy by its allies in the E.U, and finally, a fifth  pair of hands  to insure that ultimately, whatever the ultimate solution to the problem may be, this will not impair Canada’s chances to get the next available seat at the Security Council of the United Nations.

Unfortunately, the Prime Minister it has only one pair of hands. Something or somethings will have to give. Whatever that or those may be, based on the record and utterances of the government to date, I confidently venture to predict that it will not be the suspension of the financing of the toxic textbooks.

In the meantime, the vulnerable Canadian citizens, the poor children, families, senior citizens, and the aboriginal peoples of Canada have to go on doing without the basic essentials of life while the government devotes millions to finance an evil scheme against Israel and Israelis.

Dogan Akman was born and schooled in Istanbul, Turkey. Upon his graduation, he immigrated to Canada. He started his professional career teaching university sociology, criminology and social welfare policy. After a stint as a Judge of the Provincial Court of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, he joined the Federal Department of Justice as a Crown prosecutor, He later moved over to civil litigation and specialised in aboriginal law. He retired from the practice of law in 2009.