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geschätzte Lesezeit: 7 minThe Georg Eckert Institute (GEI) Inception Report

Context

 On 24 th April 2019 , then Vice -President of the European Commission, Federica
Mogherini, announced that the EU would be funding a comprehensive review of the
Palestinian Authority curriculum, following a report by IMPACT -se.
 She stated the report would be conducted ‘ with a view t o identifying possible incitement
to hatred and violence and any possible lack of compliance with U NESCO standards of
peace and tolerance in education.’ 1
 The Georg Eckert Institute was selected to carry out the review with a scheduled start
date for spring 2019 with results to be made available by September 2019. 2
 The UK government announced on 11 May 2020 3 that Interim Report is expected by June
with a full report later in the year.
 An Inception Report 4 outlining the methodology of the study was issued on 12 th April
2019 however, was only made public on 18 th June 2020 following an FOI request.
 The Inception Report lays bare a number of comprehension and methodological issues,
raising concerns surrounding the reliability of the study.

1. Factual Inaccuracies in Inception Report
 The pre valence of factual inaccuracies in the GEI Inception Report 5 puts the
scholarship of the Interim Report into doubt.
 The report contains Arabic translation mistakes .
 Mistakes suggest a lack of familiarity with Palestinian Arabic usage and culture.
 Reference made to research that does not exist.

a. GEI uses mistranslated Arabic terms in the word bank cited in the Inception Report.
1 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E -8-2019 -000906 -ASW_EN.html 2 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk -government -has -successfully -pushed -for -a-review -into -palestinian -
textbooks 3 https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written -questions -answers -statements/written -
question/Commons/2020 -05 -01/41933 / 4 http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2020 -0322/Inception_report.pdf 5 http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2020 -0322/Inception _report.pdf

These include:

روح نيعلا – Translated as “horoscope” (the astrological forecast of a person's future).
It means the women who accompany Muslim believers in paradise.

لافطا هراجحلا – Translated as “children stones” (translator’s meaning is unclear).
It means Children of the Stone s, a well -known phrase denoting the Palestinian youth guerilla
movement.

سريب – Translated as “piers” (raised structures that rise above w ater).
It refers to Peres (Shimon) , the late Israeli President.

هسكنلا – Translated as “remembrance” (the act of remembering something)
It means setback, defeat or failure and specifically and very commonly, the Palestinian day of
commemoration of the 1967 War .


b. There are glaring omissions in the GEI word bank for an institute studying a modern
Palestinian curriculum. These include:
حلاس - weapon
يدنج - soldier
ةيحضت - sacrifice
ةبكن - Nakba
داهشتسا ‎ - martyrdom, death of a martyr, or "heroic death”
ديهش ‎ - martyr (singular)
ةلرسا \ ديوهت - Judaization
سامح - Hamas
مرحلا فيرشلا \ تيب سدقملا - Al -haram Al -Sharif \ Bait Al -Maqdas - two common names of the Al -
Aqsa Mosque
- ةرخصلا ةبق Dome of the Rock
،ضرا يضارا - Land, Lands
برح - War
مد ءامد , - Blood
رفاك رافك , - Infidel, Infidels
)شعاد( ةيملاسلإا ةلودلا ميظنت ISIS

c. The word "refugees" appears consecutively, nine separate times in English for no clear
reason , while appearing once in the parallel Arabic word bank translation.

d. GEI mentions, without reference, an April 2019 IMPACT -se report that does not exist.
Other existent IMPACT -se reports are not mentioned.

2. Lack of Experience
 The EU asked that “the study shall be carried out by an independent and
internationally recognized research institute”. 6
 GEI has no t published independent research of the full Palestinian curriculum , old
or new.
 There is no publicly available evidence that the researcher for t his project has
previously published anything on the Palestinian curriculum.
 GEI’s last published research on the Palestinian curriculum that is available,
covered only seven textbooks from a curriculum of over two hundred textbooks . The
most recent book in this short study was from 2013 . The study was published as a
single chapter in a book, a full five years later . By publication, those seven textbooks
were no longer taught.

The researcher for this project 7 does not appear to have previously publi shed research on the PA
curriculum, old or new. We cannot identify any recognized scholarly articles or analysis on this
issue , nor do any appear on the list of publications on the GEI website bio page.

GEI has made only a few highly selective forays into researching Palestinian text books and has
at no point published a full and proper review.

GEI’s last monograph on PA textbooks is from 2013 . It was published five years later in a single
chapter of a 2018 book .8 By publication, the books were obsolete. The chapter itself 9 analyzed
just seven PA textbooks from a curriculum of over 200 books. They were taken from curricula
taught 2 010 -2013 , provided few examples, and those that existed were mainly from a single
Grade 11 book. On this basis, the author formed far -reaching conclusions.

GEI has not published research of PA textbook s at all, post the PA’s sweeping 2016 curriculum
reform. GEI is funded by the federal and state German governments. Naturally, i ts expertise has
been in researching curricula is centered on Germany and Europe, rather than those in the Middle
East.


6 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E -8-2019 -000906 -ASW_EN.html 7 http://www.gei.de/en/mitarbeiter/riem -spielhaus.html 8 See GEI’s new book series , Palgrave Studies in Educational Media , with the prestigious publishing house
Palgrave Macmillan and its 2018 book: Multiple Alterities -Views of Others in Textbooks of the M iddle East :
http://www.gei.de/en/publications/psem.html 9 http://lib.uok.ac.ir:8080/multiMediaFile/15275266 7-4-1.pdf#page=88

3. Problematic Methodological Approach
 GEI is applying an over -complicated mix of methodologies . It is unclear as to how
the methodologies square with t he EU directive.
 The report does not reference a single Palestinian textbook that will be researched.
 No booklist is cited.
 Crucially , the full curriculum is not being reviewed.

In April 2019 the EU announced that the study of the PA curriculum had been commissioned in
order to identify “ any possible lack of compliance with UNESCO standards of peace and
tolerance in education ".10 There are no mentions of UNESCO standards within the inception
report.

Rather the proposed methodology, as best one can determine, is a mix of a Stanford University
group’s standards for textbooks and a qualitative approach derived from Grounded Theory. It is
unclear as to how this methodology is in line with the EU directive.

This combination of standards over -complicate the methodology. Sign ificantly, GEI’s
methodology does not include the UNESCO standard of unbiased information .11

“Triangulation” is cited with no explanation of what this entails . T he discourse analysis is
additionally undefined. Qualifying statements in the explanation of the methodology (‘where
possible’) allow for a less rigorous study. There is no clear explanation as to the classification of
Arabic language studies which appear to have been partially categorized as a science.

Moreover, the report doe s not reference a single Palestinian textbook that will be researched for
the study meaning there is uncertainty about the grades , semesters or subjects that have been
included.

GEI does not offer to cover the entire PA curriculum and the proposed sc ope and methodology
cover s only 72.3% of the PA curriculum for grades 1 -12 ( 160 books out of 221 ).

Note on GEI and IMPACT -se Collaboration

IMPACT -se’s research was published in GEI’s new book series 12, Palgrave Studies in
Educational Media, with the prestigious publishing house Palgrave Macmillan in two chapters of
a 2018 book titled Multiple Alterities -Views of Others in Textbooks of the Middle East.

In their 2018 book (p. 211 -212) GEI describes IMPACT -se’s research and methodology as:

“ba sed on page -by -page scrutiny of the books under study singling out each reference
to the Other and to peace, be it in a form of text, photograph, illustration, map, chart or
10 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E -8-2019 -000906 -ASW_EN.html 11 Based on UNESCO Recommendation concerning education for international understanding, cooperation and
peace and education relating to human rights and fundamental freedoms, adopted by the General Conference at its
eighteenth session, Paris, November 19, 19 74, Article V.14. 12 http://www.gei.de/en/publications/psem.html

graph. Special attention was given to cases of non -reference, which are no less
im portant in textbooks research. The evaluation of the specific method of messages of
each reference (or non -reference) was made according to UNESCO recommendations
and principals. This way a clear picture had been drawn of the general attitude to the
Other and to peace in this region .”13

In GEI’s book of 2018 they describe Groiss’s methodology (p. 212) as resulting in ‘ a clear
picture had been drawn of the general attitude to the Other and to peace in this region .’14


13 http://lib.uok.ac.ir:8080/multiMediaFile/152752667 -4-1.pdf 14 http://lib.uok.ac.ir:8080/multiMediaFile/152752667 -4-1.pdf

geschätzte Lesezeit: 9 min

LONDON — A post-Brexit row, described as “a comedy of errors,” has broken out between the European Union and Britain over a review of Palestinian school textbooks that was commissioned before Britain left the EU on January 31, 2020.

Israel-based education watchdog IMPACT-se states that preliminary reviews of the textbooks, carried out by the German Georg Eckert Institute, contained numerous errors. First among them: IMPACT-se claims that the institute was actually looking at the wrong textbooks.

According to IMPACT-se, the institute examined books used in Israel’s Jerusalem municipality Arab schools, and not those used in the Palestinian territories.

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The Israel-based nonprofit organization IMPACT-se, or the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, analyzes Mideast and global school textbooks, teachers’ guides, and curricula and submits regular reports on the level of prejudice and intolerance found within.

After IMPACT-se analyzed the preliminary German research, which it obtained through a Freedom of Information request, the nonprofit concluded it was “plagued by poor comprehension of Arabic, missing terminology and factual inaccuracies.”

Asked by The Times of Israel about the alleged errors in the forthcoming report, the German Georg Eckert Institute had no comment on IMPACT-se’s claims and issued a statement that “the study of approximately 150 textbooks, published by the Ministry of Education under the Palestinian Authority since 2017, will be finished and made available in October 2020, according to the agreement between the EU and the Georg Eckert Institute.”

On May 11, 2020, UK’s Minister for the Middle East James Cleverly told Parliament that June 2020 was the final completion date for the interim report, with the full report set to be completed “later in the year.” According to a spokesperson from the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID), the final report is due to be published at the end of 2020.

DfID declined to divulge how much the UK contributed towards the first “inception” report. The European Union paid €217,833 for the second “interim” report.

Britain, via DfID, has, however, funded a variety of Palestinian civil service projects, including paying the salaries of Palestinian teachers — the most expensive item in the PA Education Ministry budget.

Last year, DfID gave GBP 20 million ($26.2 million) to fund Palestinian teachers’ salaries and an additional GBP 65.5 million ($86 million) to the UN Relief and Works Agency, which supports the education of 500,000 Palestinian refugees across the Middle East, including over 320,000 children in the West Bank and Gaza Strip using the official Palestinian Authority curriculum.

Britain maintains that it doesn’t fund the writing of texts and only pays salaries of “vetted teachers” — that is, those who are not official Hamas members — who work in Palestinian schools. But IMPACT-se says it is teachers who write and use the textbooks.

Overlooking anti-Semitism

Lobby groups in Britain, including the parliamentary Labour and Conservative Friends of Israel, have repeatedly asked the British government to investigate what was being taught in Palestinian schools across the curriculum.

To date there have been two reports carried out by the same teams at the Georg Eckert Institute: an “inception” report, paid for by the UK, and an “interim” report, which has been paid for by the EU.

An initial 177-page summary of the interim report — since removed from the Georg Eckert website — shows identical research to the first inception report, as well as identical staffers, headed by Aurelia Streit.

Streit is a former intern at the House of Commons for the Labour MP Afzal Khan, a member of Labour Friends of Palestine.

According to three Conservative British parliamentarians who have voiced their concern to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, an IMPACT-se breakdown of the material in the as-yet unpublished interim report says there are “troubling examples of incitement to violence and antisemitism [which] appear to have inexplicably been entirely overlooked.”

Raab will be the senior cabinet minister responsible for handling the claims because the Foreign Office and DfID are set to merge shortly.

House of Lords members Eric Pickles and Stuart Polak, together with MP Stephen Crabb — say that information about the Georg Eckert research “raises fundamental questions about the whole inquiry,” which “seems likely to fall far short of the standard the UK government and Parliament can reasonably have expected.”

“Members in both Houses of Parliament have expressed concerns about the content of teaching material supplied by the Palestinian Authority for use in schools. [There is] a curriculum that glorifies violence and encourages discord,” they told Raab.

Noting that books surveyed by the German institute appear to be the textbooks used in Jerusalem municipality Arab schools, rather than those used in Palestinian schools, Pickles, Polak and Crabb have expressed concern about the institute’s methodology and research, and ask for publication of the interim report as soon as possible.

Early warning of inflammatory material

In March this year, Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se, made a presentation in the British parliament about the content of actual Palestinian textbooks, drawing attention to inciting material such as a reading comprehension exercise featuring a story which describes a Molotov cocktail on a bus full of Jewish civilian passengers, using the expression “barbecue party.”

A story for an Arabic language lesson describes suicide bombings in which Palestinians “wore explosive belts, thus turning their bodies into fire burning the Zionist tank.” Another textbook talks about Jews controlling global finance, media and politics for their own benefit.

This inflammatory material was missing from what was excerpted from the George Eckert Institute review. The institute’s findings say that Palestinian Authority editors have “a serious involvement… with conflict-related connections… and careful consideration and differentiation towards Israeli individuals.”

However, the institute had been looking at the Jerusalem municipal textbooks, not those of the PA, claims IMPACT-se.

“The UK rightly led calls for an international review into the concerning content of Palestinian textbooks,” MP Crabb told The Times of Israel. “Government ministers have demonstrated a clear preference for transparency by encouraging the EU to publish the overdue interim report ahead of the new academic year. We urge ministers to get to the bottom of reports of basic translation errors and the presentation of Israeli textbooks as Palestinian Authority textbooks.”

“As DfID merges with the Foreign Office, a cohesive new strategy for UK support to the Palestinian people, taking these concerns into account, is crucial,” Crabb said.

The Conservative politicians, asking the Foreign Secretary for assurances that the UK government intends to publish the report, insist that “British taxpayers have the right to know what it is actually being taught” in Palestinian curriculums they partially fund.

The left-leaning Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) has expressed similar concern, writing to Middle East Minister Cleverly to ask for clarification.

LFI vice-chairman MP John Spellar told Cleverly: “Specific examples which are singled out for praise by the researchers are not contained in PA textbooks, but those used by pupils in the Jerusalem municipality’s Arabic-language schools. If this is not an error, I’d be grateful for an explanation as to what interest the British government and EU have in studying textbooks which are funded by Israeli taxpayers and which are not used in PA schools?”

I’d be grateful for an explanation as to what interest the British government and EU have in studying textbooks which are funded by Israeli taxpayers and which are not used in PA schools?

“If accurate, IMPACT-se’s allegations seriously undermine the credibility of the textbook review and call into question its utility as a means to deal with the issue of incitement to violence in the PA curriculum,” Spellar added.

‘Zero tolerance’ for violence

A DfID spokesperson told The Times of Israel that the UK government has a “zero tolerance” approach towards incitement to violence. DfID “lobbied our European partners to conduct a thorough independent review of textbooks used in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which is now underway.”

“This review is ongoing, and the final report is not due to be released until the end of 2020. We will study its findings carefully,” they said.

Britain, the DfID said, did not comment on leaked reports of inaccuracies, a position echoed by the former minister who commissioned the UK research, Alistair Burt, who retired from parliament in 2019.

“As minister, I supported the inquiry into Palestinian textbooks, as allusions to violence, for whatever purpose, have no place in children’s textbooks, not least in the fraught context of the unresolved issues between the Palestinian people and Israel,” Burt told The Times of Israel. “All children deserve a life free of the atmosphere of terror and oppression which still pertains there, and look to their respective leaderships to deliver this.”

Allusions to violence, for whatever purpose, have no place in children’s textbooks

“The inquiry has not yet completed its work, but I would expect it to fulfill its full remit, and I believe that should remain the view of the UK government,” he added.

IMPACT-se’s Sheff calls the whole chain of events “really regrettable.”

“The European Union and the UK had the opportunity to add to our collective understanding of these extreme textbooks and to fulfill their duty of care to Palestinian students,” Sheff said.

“Instead, the review has been a comedy of errors from start to finish. The researchers have reviewed the wrong textbooks, taking textbooks for Israel’s Arab schools in Jerusalem, earnestly praising them and presenting them as coming from the Palestinian Authority’s curriculum.

“The researchers’ introduction contains embarrassing mistranslations of basic Arabic, a lack of familiarity with Palestinian culture and, bizarrely, the citing of non-existent research. This is not a particularly complex project. It is hard to fathom how it went so wrong.

Adding insult to injury, he said, the report has been “plagued” by delay.

“The British government clearly wants it made public as soon as possible, but the EU has declared it is staying under wraps. Frankly, given the debacle this research project has become, one can understand why,” Sheff said.