Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3266) to require the Secretary of State to submit annual reports reviewing the curriculum used by the Palestinian Authority, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on this measure.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3266, the Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act.

I thank my colleague, Mr. Sherman, for introducing this important legislation to prevent the spread of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatred.

We have known for decades that Palestinian children are taught from a young age to hate Israel and the Jewish people. Despite robust international discussion about these concerns, reports by nongovernmental organizations continue to show that Palestinian schoolchildren are being indoctrinated with deeply disturbing violent imagery.

For example, a review of the textbooks used in Palestinian schools in 2020 and 2021 showed that children are taught to read with passages that describe suicide bombings and the gruesome murders of IDF soldiers, to do math using numbers of martyrs and jihadists, and to learn history by asking them to discuss how the USA took advantage of the 9/11 attack.

These textbooks propagate the lie that the Jewish people control the media and politics and explicitly refer to Jews as ``enemies of Islam in all times and places.'' Children are taught to glorify the founders of the jihad movement and learn that jihad is ``a private obligation for every Muslim.''

We will never arrive at a peaceful solution for Israelis and Palestinians as long as Palestinian children are being taught hatred in textbooks.

Look at the brutal attack that over 2,500 Hamas terrorists carried out against Israel on October 7. Why else would Hamas terrorists call home bragging that they murdered Jews? Why else would they live stream their barbaric attacks?

That disgusting and gruesome cruelty is possible because these Hamas fighters were indoctrinated with hatred at a young age. They were taught to glorify terrorism and other so-called martyrs who killed Jewish people. This must end.

The Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act takes a first step to firmly establish Congress' position that the Palestinian Authority has not sufficiently eliminated inciteful and violent content from their educational curricula. It also requires the State Department to report to Congress on educational materials used in schools run by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, Hamas, and the Gaza Strip, and UNRWA.

A United States Government assessment of the content of these educational materials will carry tremendous weight in international efforts to eliminate hateful content and promote peace.

Since Hamas' attack, we have seen an appalling number of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel riots around the world and right here at home. I have condemned these in the strongest terms. I continue to speak out when they occur, and I have encouraged my colleagues to do the same.

That is why, earlier this year, I introduced legislation to combat the rise in anti-Semitism on college campuses, the Stop Anti-Semitism on College Campuses Act, which would defund institutions of higher learning that allow, promote, or sanction anti-Semitic events on their campuses.

That is why, just last week, Josh Gottheimer and I introduced the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would amend the education law to require the Department of Education to use the IHRA definition of anti- Semitism on its enforcement actions of discrimination laws.

The commitment we made after the Holocaust, ``Never again,'' is being put to the test. We have a responsibility to prevent the teaching of anti-Semitism not just here in the United States but around the globe. This bipartisan bill uses the tools available to the United States Government to do just that.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mast), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

We must continue to stand against anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias. It is essential that we ensure children are not taught to hate, and this starts with the materials they learn in school.

The first step is passing the bipartisan Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act, to ensure we have transparent, valid, and authenticated information.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to join me in support of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have been working on this bill for a long time. I introduced it in the 116th Congress and the 117th Congress, and both times it passed unanimously in the Foreign Affairs Committee. Now, finally, in the 118th Congress, we have it to the floor. I thank Mr. Mast from Florida for being the Republican lead on this bill and speaking for it here on the floor. Now, as I said, this bill passed unanimously three times through our committee, and I hope it passes unanimously by voice vote here on the floor.

Let us reflect on what has happened recently in Israel. Our Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, I think, summarized it well in his testimony yesterday: Young people chased down and gunned down at a dance party. Children executed in front of their parents. Parents executed in front of their children. Families in final embrace burned alive. People beheaded.

There was a family of four, a boy and a girl of 6 and 8 years old and their parents, around the breakfast table. The father's eye was gouged out in front of his children, the mother's breasts were cut off, the girl's foot was amputated, and the boy's finger was cut off before they were executed. Then the executioners sat down and had a meal.

We heard an intercepted telephone call where a terrorist called his mother and said gleefully: ``I have killed 10 Jews with my own hands. I'm using the dead Jewish woman's phone to call you now.''

How does such a horror occur? It occurs when generations are raised to hate, to kill, to behead, to murder, and it is a product of the schools that we have seen for decades on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

I point to a particular fifth grade textbook which glorifies a terrorist who in 1978 went forward and killed 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, many of them pictured here. This is who is glorified. This is who is held up to Palestinian children as the model for them to follow.

We should not be surprised that there is, therefore, significant support for the Hamas doctrine: ``From the river to the sea . . . '' All Jews must be killed; that is their position. That is what holds their organization together.

I know the scenes that come now from Gaza are horrific. People say: ``Let's stop the fighting. Let's have a cease-fire.'' Well, what would happen then? We don't have to wonder, because just today, Ghazi Hamad, a high-ranking official of Hamas, said exactly what would happen. He said: We will repeat October 7 one, two, three, four, five times, as many times as it takes, until Israel is annihilated.

That is what happens if we have a cease-fire, unless we have the kind of cease-fire that we should have, one in which Hamas releases all the hostages and disarms. Then we can have a cease-fire.

In the years to come, after the actions being taken in Gaza, we will again wonder: Is another generation being educated to repeat these crimes in future years?

How are these students educated? They are educated in schools run by UNRWA, the U.N. organization, and paid for in large part by the United States. While we have responsibilities

around the world, the oil-rich Arab states contribute only a portion, a small portion of what UNRWA spends. America contributes half and more than half.

When we resumed funding for UNRWA in 2021, it was with the understanding that the schools would change, and we reached the 2021 framework for cooperation. So far, not so good. It appears as if the books continue.

Mr. Speaker, what this bill does is requires a formal report to tell us what, unfortunately, we know informally, and that is that education for terrorism has continued.

With this formal report on its way, UNRWA will understand that what is happening in its schools will be exposed and that the American Congress will not continue to fund them if they don't meet the responsibilities.

Now, it is said that they have to rely on Palestinian Authority textbooks. No, they simply have to change their policy.

I look forward to meeting the humanitarian and educational needs of the Palestinian people in a way that builds toward peace, not in a way that holds out to Palestinian fifth graders as an example someone who would kill 38 civilians, including 13 children.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the United States and many of our allies have long been concerned about Palestinian textbooks that contain blatant anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist references that incite hatred and violence toward the Jewish people.

In May, the European Parliament went so far as to pass a resolution condemning the Palestinian Authority over the hateful content of its textbooks and conditioned future funding for education on the removal of that anti-Semitic material.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, which administers many schools in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, is required by its mandate to use host country books.

Let me say that again in another way. UNRWA does not write Palestinian textbooks, the Palestinians do, and UNRWA is required to use the host nation's book under its mandate.

The bill before us tasks the Secretary of State to write a report to Congress that reviews the curriculum, including textbooks, leaflets, pamphlets, magazines, and other instructional materials used in UNRWA schools. This report will be important and will help both the Congress and the executive branch understand the full scope of the problems, work to improve these textbooks, and remove the content that is not only untrue but leads to further violence and instability in the region.

I will add one more important comment about UNRWA. Despite the issue related to the Palestinian Authority's textbooks that we are discussing at this moment, thousands of UNRWA employees, many of whom have yearslong relationships with the U.S., remain in Gaza doing dangerous humanitarian work. Some have, sadly, lost their lives.

Let's keep them in mind as this conflict continues, but let's also keep in mind that Israel must defeat Hamas.

I am proud to cosponsor this legislation and ask my colleagues to vote in support of this important bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and, importantly, the author of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Manning), the vice ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume for the purpose of closing.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague Mr. Sherman made mention of the stated intent of the terrorist scheme to destroy Israel, to try again and again. I want to share an email I got today talking about what is going on right now.

It says: Among the IDF soldiers killed in Gaza yesterday, eight were in a single armored personnel carrier that was hit by a rocket- propelled grenade. They were part of the Givati infantry brigade. One of them, 2nd Lt. Pedayah Mark, lost his father in a terror attack on their family car near Otneil 7 years ago. Pedayah, who was 13 years old at the time, was injured along with his mother. His uncle was among those murdered in Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7.

The terrorists continue to attack and attack, oftentimes striking the same family. We need to make sure we change what the kids are learning.

H.R. 3266 is an important tool in our fight against the hatred and in support of peace in Palestinian education, the education of the children.

Let me add one more statistic. In the attack on October 7, 20 children under 18 were orphaned, both their parents were killed. Eighteen young people between the age of 18 and 25 lost both parents. Ninety-six children under 18 lost one parent.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues, every one of them, to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak specifically, as both sides have mentioned, as to what goes on in this education within these UNRWA/Palestinian Authority-run schools. People can find images of these. Nobody is going to be able to see them on camera. Let's read them specifically.

An example of a fourth grade Palestinian math problem: ``The number of martyrs in the First Intifada is 2,026 martyrs, and the number of martyrs of the Al-Aqsa Intifada is 5,050 martyrs. The number of martyrs in the two intifadas is_____ martyrs?''

This is another example, a seventh grade physics problem people can look at, and we can find many examples of this. This is on Newton's second law: ``During the first Palestinian uprising, Palestinian youths used slingshots to confront the soldiers of the Zionist occupation and defend themselves from their treacherous bullets. What is the relationship between the elongation of the slingshot's rubber and the tensile strength affecting it?'' This is their physics work.

Another example, again, from Palestinian Authority-run schools in conjunction with the United Nations, a geography question. This one asks sixth graders to define the borders of Palestine which completely erase the existence of Israel.

They are not interested in a two-state solution. I agree. I don't think a two-state solution is a good idea, but they are interested in a one-state solution in which no Israel exists at all. That is what is being taught in the schools, and that is what no U.S. taxpayer dollars should be sent to support at all. That is the purpose of the request for the information on what is going on with this U.N.-funded education.

I just offer the reminder that these are not Hamas-run schools. They are not Palestinian-Islamic Jihad-run schools. They are not Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade-run schools. They are not Lions' Den-run schools. They are Palestinian Authority-run schools, what we could consider the Palestinian government; the Palestinian government that at one point has been a majority of Hamas members in that government.

In these Palestinian authority-run schools, this is their government teaching. It is the U.N. teachings. This is what the teachers--maybe not considered Hamas, but let's consider them rank-and-file Palestinians--are teaching the students. This is what the rank-and-file students across the area are learning. This is what their parents are seeing them taught. I think this is what we are seeing be professed by extremists across Times Square, Harvard, Tulane, and other places, and I consider it extremely anti-Semitic and dangerous.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Representative Brad Schneider, for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to support H.R. 3266, the Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act, bipartisan legislation I cosponsored, introduced by Representatives Brad Sherman and Brian Mast.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is necessary because we continue to see the use of textbooks and other educational materials in schools run by the PA and UNRWA containing anti-Israel content which perpetuates anti- Semitism, victimhood, and martyrdom, erases Israel from the map, and even glorifies violence and terrorism.

Children in the West Bank and Gaza deserve the chance to learn without using textbooks that are biased, promote intolerance, and demonize or mischaracterize Israel.

That is why this bill would require the State Department to investigate, report to Congress, and make publicly available important information about the content of the curriculum used in these schools.

The PA and UNRWA have a responsibility to address and remove problematic content in textbooks that violates the U.N.'s own principles of neutrality and tolerance.

We know that no child is born to hate. They have to be carefully taught. Educational materials that teach them hate by demonizing Israel only make it harder to resolve the conflict and achieve lasting peace.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this important bipartisan bill that I am proud to cosponsor.