What Palestinians and Israelis teach their children?

 In a cramped school hallway in Hebron, a Palestinian boy points at a cartoon of an Orthodox Jew on the classroom wall — red-eyed, hook-nosed, dangling keys over Al-Aqsa. “That’s what they want,” his teacher says, voice tight. Across the wall, a Hebrew school in Jerusalem shows a slide to sixth graders: “Why Hamas wants to destroy us.” The faces in the room are pale. Some kids are doodling missiles in the margins.]

It’s not always loud. Sometimes hate comes softly — passed down in lessons, pictures, parables. In both Israeli and Palestinian schools, a story is being written into children’s bones long before they can spell the word “enemy.”

What They Teach the Children

In 2023, the Georg Eckert Institute analyzed Palestinian and Israeli school textbooks. The findings were bleak:

Palestinian Textbooks (West Bank and Gaza):

These often emphasize resistance, martyrdom, and portray Jews primarily as occupiers.

A 9th-grade Arabic language book describes a martyr’s funeral as a moment of “pride and national honor.”

In social studies, “Zionist gangs” are blamed for the displacement of Palestinians.

Jewish religious or cultural identity is rarely, if ever, mentioned outside the context of conflict.

Israeli Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) Textbooks:

Often omit Palestinians entirely or describe Arabs as violent and untrustworthy.

One 6th-grade book claims, “Arabs do not love peace, only war.”

Maps show the entire territory as “Eretz Israel,” erasing Palestinian presence.

In many religious schools, Palestinians are described in biblical terms as "Amalekites"—the enemies of ancient Israel.

And yet, not all books are like this. Some Israeli secular schools have begun including Arabic literature. A few Palestinian private schools teach about Jewish Holocaust victims. But those efforts are fragile, often crushed by politics or parental backlash.

The Echo Chamber at Home

What a child reads in school is only one part of the story. At home, media fills in the blanks:

Palestinian kids often see funerals on TV before they see cartoons. State-run channels show children reading poems about Jerusalem with clenched fists and teary eyes.

Israeli kids grow up with “Red Alert” apps that signal incoming rockets. They hear politicians on prime-time declaring, “There is no partner for peace.”

These are not just stories. They’re identities being forged in real-time.

Can We End the Hatred?

There are glimmers of hope — small, luminous, and constantly under threat.

In Jerusalem, an NGO called Hand in Hand runs bilingual schools where Arab and Jewish kids learn side by side, both Arabic and Hebrew, both Nakba and Holocaust. Their textbook says:

> “Your pain is real. So is mine. We both have a right to cry.”

In Bethlehem, some Christian Palestinians teach their kids this Quran verse:

> "Do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just: that is nearer to piety." — (Qur'an 5:8)

And in Tel Aviv, one Jewish father, whose son died in a West Bank ambush, co-founded the Parents Circle-Families Forum — bringing together bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families.

He says:

> “We raised our kids to fear each other. Now we sit in circles, we listen, and we weep together. That’s all we can do — for now.”

Final Thought

Children aren’t born hating. That’s someone else’s gift.

But if hate can be taught, so can history. So can humanity.

Maybe the first step isn’t peace treaties, but bedtime stories that don’t end in war.