"In Palestinian text books dealing with Islamic studies - concepts such as Jihad and martyrdom are presented in contexts that suggest being supportive and encouraging young people to admire both the concept of suicide bombing aimed at killing Israelis, as well as to consider the possibility of becoming suicide bombers themselves. . . .

It should be mentioned, that in our view, some of the [international and Israeli] reports and some of the motivation for writing the reports were part of the anti-Palestinian propaganda campaign waged by various right-wing Israeli and pro-Israeli groups, nevertheless, the substantive critiques with quotations and hard evidence cannot and should not be ignored by the Palestinian Authority as a mere anti-Palestinian propaganda campaign . (Emphasis added.)


The document goes into greater detail about these and additional problems in the sections called "Palestine," "Dealing with the 'Other,'" "Dealing with Islamic Texts and Concepts," and "Dealing with Jerusalem."

In addition, this report dispels the common propaganda repeated by Avenstrup that "the original allegations [of incitement] were based on Egyptian or Jordanian textbooks." As the IPCRI report correctly notes:


With the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, the Palestinians took charge of the educational system, inheriting outdated text books, (Jordanian in the West Bank and Egyptian in Gaza) that had been modified by the Israeli Military Government's education department. The modifications to the text books by Israel concerned the removal of anti-Israel or anti-Jewish content that may have existed in the texts.

The new Palestinian Ministry of Education immediately reverted back to using non-Israeli-modified text books and at the same time launched a process of preparing a new Palestinian curriculum."