European Union aid to the Palestinian Authority is being held up as EU officials discuss conditioning it on reforms to Palestinian textbooks, PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki confirms to official PA radio.
The story was first reported by The Times of Israel in late February.
The EU is normally the PA’s largest single donor, helping to pay the salaries of Ramallah’s many civil servants. But little aid has been disbursed since 2020.
The aid’s disbursal was stymied when EU official Oliver Varhelyi sought to condition around $10 million in aid on textbooks meeting international standards, creating a bureaucratic quagmire.
A Palestinian student reads her textbook on the light rail at Shuafat, Jerusalem, September 30, 2014 (photo credit: Elhanan Miller / Times of Israel)
In a February interview, a diplomat familiar with the discussions criticized the proposed conditionality.
“Should such substantive financial aid be linked to one element of the relationship between Europe and the Palestinians?” the diplomat said at the time.
Palestinian textbooks have long been a subject of controversy. Critics accuse them of containing incitement to violence and glorifying terror, while the PA defends them as simply reflecting the Palestinian national narrative.
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