The resolution was supported by a large majority of the Parliament. It was part of a larger motion on “prospects for the Two-State Solution,” voted on for the first time in roughly five years.

The European Parliament adopted last week in Strasbourg a resolution that “strongly condemns” the Palestinian Authority for hatred, incitement to violence, and antisemitism in EU-funded Palestinian textbooks.

The resolution stated that “EU funding will have to be suspended” if misuse of European taxpayer funds by the Palestinian Authority continues.

The resolution was supported by a large majority of the Parliament. It was part of a larger motion on “prospects for the Two-State Solution,” voted on for the first time in roughly five years. During the debate, several MEPs stressed that all Palestinian schoolbooks and school materials supported by European Union funds must be in line with UNESCO standards of peace and tolerance and that EU funding will have to be suspended if there is clear and substantiated evidence of misuse.

MEP Miriam Lexman,  a Slovak member of the European Parliament foreign affairs committee, from the European People’s Pzrty (EPP), the largest political group in the Parliament, described PA textbooks as “a key impediment to the resolution of the conflict.”

Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen asked: “Is it too much to ask to make subsidies to the Palestinian Authority conditional? Whereby there are guarantees that our money won’t go to terrorist organisations and won’t be used for textbooks glorifying violence?”

In a speech in place of EU Foreign Minister and Vice President Josep Borrell, the EU’s Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli stated that the EU will work to bring “full adherence” for all Palestinian educational material with UNESCO standards of peace and tolerance.

She stated that changes to the curriculum are “essential.” She promised to “ensure that further curriculum reform addresses problematic issues in the shortest possible timeframe,” and said that the EU has “stepped up its engagement” with the PA to do so.

Hamas, the Palestinian terror group that governs Gaza, published a statement in English saying that it “vehemently deplores the fallacies and positions included in the EU Parliament’s most recent resolution,” and that the resolution “reflects an appalling bias towards Israel.”

Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are in lockstep on the teaching of antisemitism, and incitement to violence in Palestinian schools. They have made it crystal clear that they have no intention whatsoever of listening to the EU, which is the biggest donor to the Palestinian educational sector and for change in the curriculum. These textbooks are also used by UNRWA, which is financially supported by the United States.

Last June, the EU Commissioner whose department oversees aid to the PA, Oliver Varhelyi, announced that the EU will fund a second study on Palestinian textbooks, and that the EU will take “appropriate measures as necessary” if changes are not made.

Last May, for the third consecutive year, the EU Parliament voted in favor of a clause in its annual budgetary procedure deploring the PA’s “continued failure to act effectively against hate speech and violence in school textbooks” while demanding that the PA be “closely scrutinized” to reform them “expeditiously.” The report scrutinizes how European taxpayer funds have been spent through projects carried out by the EU.