A little girl in Nablus stands up to recite a poem. Her voice wavers, but her words are sharp: “I am the daughter of stones / and my brother is the fire.” Her classmates clap. She is seven years old. Her brother is in prison.
In Palestine, childhood is laced with geopolitics before it has a chance to be innocent. The classroom doesn’t just teach math or history — it teaches memory. And in that memory, Jews are often not people, but symbols: of occupation, of loss, of a wound that never closes.
And that’s where the danger begins.
A Nation in Exile, Taught to Resist
Palestinian education is built on a single, aching premise: displacement.
In both West Bank and Gaza schools, textbooks emphasize national identity through the lens of catastrophe. The Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe,” referring to the 1948 expulsion of Palestinians — is not just a historical event. It is an inheritance.
In a 9th grade Arabic-language textbook, students read:
“The martyrs are the candles that light the path to freedom.”
Another passage from a 7th grade Social Studies book states:
“The Zionist gangs invaded our peaceful villages and expelled our people from their homes.”
These phrases aren’t rare. They are standard fare — appearing in literature, geography, civics. They map the world not in political boundaries but in grief. Israel is rarely named as a legitimate state. Instead, students are often taught that the land from the river to the sea is Palestinian — always was, always should be.
Maps in these textbooks reflect this belief. Israel is either labeled Palestine or omitted entirely. Jerusalem is described as the capital of Palestine, with no recognition of Israeli sovereignty.
Absent Faces, Flattened Identities
Here’s what’s strange: while “Zionist enemy” or “the occupier” appears often, the word Jew is almost entirely missing.
This erasure is intentional — and complicated. It’s a way to avoid religious hatred, Palestinian educators argue. The target is the occupier, not the Jew.
But in reality, this omission flattens all Israelis into a single faceless enemy. There’s no distinction between a Jewish civilian and a soldier, between a rabbi and a sniper. Children grow up without ever learning about Jewish history, religious customs, or even the Holocaust — one of the most defining traumas of the 20th century.
In fact, according to the Georg Eckert Institute’s 2023 report commissioned by the EU, not a single Palestinian textbook surveyed included Holocaust education. One geography book, asked to describe the impact of WWII, omits the genocide entirely.
This is not just about omission. It’s about shaping empathy — or the absence of it.
“Al-Jazeera for Kids”: The War at Home
Even beyond the classroom, Palestinian children are surrounded by a culture that memorializes resistance.
On Palestinian Authority TV and Hamas-run channels, children’s segments often feature songs about martyrdom. One popular song that aired on Al-Aqsa TV went:
“When we die as martyrs, we go to heaven smiling.”
In Gaza, murals depict children with slingshots, facing tanks. Streets are named after “martyrs.”
Children grow up seeing billboards of cousins and neighbors who died in airstrikes or Israeli raids — always smiling, always honored.
For a child who watches his uncle bleed out in a doorway, how can he imagine a Jewish child frightened by rockets in Ashkelon?
Here’s what I noticed: there are no mirrors. Only windows — and all of them shattered.
A Brief Spark — and Why It Faded
Not all hope is gone. In 2016, the PA piloted a program with the United Nations to introduce “Human Rights, Tolerance and Civics” into 10th-grade curricula. The books included lessons on religious diversity and even referenced Jewish history — cautiously, but sincerely.
But by 2019, those books were pulled.
Why? Critics said they were too “soft,” too “Western,” too “normalizing.” Political pressure from both the street and Hamas forced the Ministry of Education to retreat.
“We are under occupation,” one official said. “We cannot teach our children to forget that.”
But maybe the real question is: can we teach them to remember without hating?
Closing Thought
In a refugee camp in Jenin, a boy showed a visiting journalist his schoolwork. On one page, he’d drawn a map with no Israel. On another, he’d written: “One day I will return to my grandfather’s home in Haifa.”
When asked if he knew anyone Jewish, he shook his head.
“Only the soldiers.”
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