Image taken from Wikimedia Commons In June, members of the House of Representatives introduced a bill to review Palestinian educational material and textbooks. The bipartisan bill, known as the Palestinian Authority Educational Curriculum Transparency Act, was introduced by Rep. David Young (R-Iowa), and co-sponsored by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL), and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA). The bill seeks to direct the U.S. State Department to submit reports every year to Congress, “reviewing the educational material used by the Palestinian Authority or the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.” It would require the State Department to report whether educational material encouraging violence or intolerance towards others has been removed from PA and UNRWA schools in the West Bank and Gaza, to assess what steps the PA and UNRWA are taking to reform the curriculum, and to determine whether U.S. foreign aid money is being spent on such a curriculum. “For too long Palestinian leadership have developed school curriculum filled with anti-Semitic, anti-Israel hatred,” commented Congressman Roskam. “Such textbooks shatter the prospects of peace and doom any hope of peaceful coexistence between young Palestinians and their Israeli neighbors. It’s absolutely necessary we ensure that taxpayer dollars are not being used to spread hate and vitriol – this legislation is the first step in this process.” The bill details concern that the newly reformed curriculum introduced by the PA in 2016-2017 does not sufficiently meet international standards of peace and tolerance and that textbooks currently used by the PA and UNRWA demonize Israel and encourage violence. In 2017, UNRWA maintained that it had reviewed these new textbooks and found them “in line with UN values.” A report in December 2017 by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found that textbooks used in Palestinian schools “[exert] pressure over young Palestinians to acts of violence,” encourage martyrdom, and promote a “return of Palestinian refugees to pre-1967 Israel [that] will take place through violence.” The report concluded that the new Palestinian curriculum “has further distanced itself from our UNESCO-derived standards.” Following this report, the European Union’s Parliament adopted an amendment in April 2018 to generally ensure that “educational material financed by Union funds…comply with the common values of freedom, tolerance, and non-discrimination.” It also approved a similar amendment specifically regarding the Palestinian Authority, insisting that any educational curriculum funded by the EU must comply with these common values. The Palestinian Authority Educational Curriculum Transparency Act has been submitted to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs for review.