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December 12th, 2020 
Awake Goy 
Norway’s Parliament has backed cuts in aid to the Palestinian Authority amounting to some 30 million Norwegian krone, equivalent to $3.4 million. The move comes in response to the Authority’s failure to reduce incitement to violence against Jewish Israelis in its school curriculum. European leaders have grown increasingly concerned that their aid money is being used to fund a curriculum which routinely teaches Palestinian children to hate Jews, reject Israel, and aspire to martyrdom. The Norwegian Storting was this week the most recent to translate this concern into policy, when lawmakers opted to cut the state aid budget to the Palestinian Authority by 30 million krone. The move was spearheaded by the Progress Party. Explaining their decision, MP Sylvia Listhaug, deputy leader of the Progress Party, commented “The Palestinian school curriculum abounds with calls for violence and hatred against Israel and for martyrdom to be glorified. It is quite clear that Norway cannot support this, therefore we want to cut this item.”Geir Toskedal MP, a Christian Democrat member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, was in agreement, saying: “We have long been uneasy about both textbooks and teaching programs in the Palestinian territories. It is very important that the school focuses on peace and cooperation.” This is not the first time that Norway has withheld money from the PA over hate education. In June, Foreign Affairs Minster Ine Eriksen Søreide announced that the government would withhold half of the year’s funding due to the PA’s education system unless it stopped using textbooks which incite hatred and violence. Soreide also said that she raised the issue in a meeting with the PA Education Minister, Marwan Awartan, on May 21 and in February with Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.This decision followed a cross-party endorsement by the Storting in December 2019 again to withhold funding from the PA. That decision was made following a report issued by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) which the coalition of MPs said displayed “examples of content in the school books” that were “devastating to the peace process and the development of democracy in the region.” This year, IMPACT-se returned to the Storting, along with Norwegian pro-Israel group MIFF, to present updated findings to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee members, among others.
if(window.location.pathname.indexOf(“647856”) != -1) {console.log(“hedva connatix”);document.getElementsByClassName(“divConnatix”)[0].style.display =”none”;}Commenting on this week’s decision to again withhold funding, IMPACT-se CEO, Marcus Sheff, said: “Last December, the Norwegian parliament voted to withhold funds to the Palestinians until the textbooks were changed. That change did not happen. This year, parliament has again shown its responsibility by endorsing a cut to the PA aid budget.”Norwegian legislators from across the political spectrum are simply not satisfied with the same worn platitudes coming from Ramallah and parroted in Europe about improvements to the textbooks being imminent,” he added. “It is clearly not and until the hate and incitement is removed from Palestinian textbooks, the EU and European nations need to take note of Norway’s leadership on the issue, stop being a party to the daily incitement of Palestinian schoolchildren and to the embarrassing abuse of their own taxpayers’ funds.”Indeed, an analysis of the current curriculum, released in September of this year, found no substantive changes for the better, despite assurances earlier this year that egregious examples of antisemitism and hate education would be eliminated. Rather, of the 152 modifications made to the books from the previous school year, 88% either kept the problematic material intact or amplified it. “Not a single krone should go to Palestinian education until this is clarified and they have stopped [ hate education],” Progress Party MP Himanshu Gulati said in reference to this week’s decision. He added that he regretted “that it has taken us so many years to take a strict line against these things. It is very good that it is now happening.” and that he “regrets that it has taken us so many years to take a strict line against these things. It is very good that it is now happening.”Marcy Oster contributed to this report.
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