This is not education.

It is indoctrination—with multiplication tables, teacher praise and smiley stickers.

Just one week after October 7, nine-year-olds at the Palestinian Authority-run Al-Kuwait Primary Mixed School were asked to create multiplication problems “based on the war in Gaza.”

The children wrote equations calculating:

How many rockets Hamas would fire.
How many “Jihad fighters” would enter Israeli communities.
How many Israelis would be killed.
And how many children would become “martyrs.”

The teacher did not challenge the glorification of violence.
She praised it:
“Excellent!”
“Champion!”
“Wonderful! Mercy and peace to the Martyrs of Gaza.”

The school then reportedly published seven of the children’s exercises on its Facebook page.
At other PA schools, children were brought before assemblies to recite poems celebrating October 7 as a day of pride, victory and joy.

Hatred is not inherited.
It is taught.

And this is what gives meaning to the slogan:
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

The river is the Jordan.
The sea is the Mediterranean.

And between them lies the entire State of Israel.
It is not a demand for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
It is a demand for a Palestinian state in Israel’s place.
It means the end of Israel as the sovereign Jewish state—with the fate of the more than seven million Jews living here conveniently left unanswered.

Some Western activists insist that they imagine one democratic country where everyone will live equally.

But Palestinian children are being taught something very different.

Peace cannot be built while children are taught to turn mass murder into arithmetic, terrorists into heroes and Israel’s destruction into liberation.

The world keeps demanding that Israel make peace with the Palestinian Authority.

Perhaps it should begin by demanding that the Palestinian Authority teach its children to want peace.

Credit: Visegrad24 The provided text from Visegrad24 presents a highly critical evaluation of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) educational system, using specific examples of curriculum integration to argue that the education system fosters indoctrination rather than peace.

Below is a critical and logical analysis of the statement, examined through the lenses of educational pedagogy, political rhetoric, and geopolitical context.

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1. Pedagogical Analysis: Education vs. Indoctrination

The core premise of the excerpt highlights a fundamental tension in educational theory regarding the boundary between contextualized learning and political indoctrination.

Contextualization in Learning: Modern pedagogy often encourages teachers to use real-world contexts to make abstract concepts, like mathematics, relatable to students. However, standard pedagogical guidelines dictate that such contexts should remain neutral or prosocial (e.g., calculating food distribution, budgeting, or tracking population growth).
The Slippage into Indoctrination: Incorporating highly politicized, violent, and militaristic themes into elementary mathematics—such as counting casualties, rocket counts, or combatants—diverges from objective education. When an educator applies positive reinforcement ("Excellent!", "Champion!") to tasks celebrating violence, it fulfills the operational definition of indoctrination: teaching a partisan doctrine uncritically and embedding emotional bias into foundational cognitive skills.
Psychological Impact: From a developmental perspective, normalizing warfare and casualties in early childhood education can desensitize young learners to violence, complicate trauma processing in conflict zones, and entrench intergenerational hostility.

2. Semantic and Slogan Analysis: "From the River to the Sea"

The text deconstructs the phrase "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," identifying a stark divide between Western interpretations and local realities.

Geographic Literalism: The statement correctly identifies the geographic boundaries: the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Within this territory lie Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Logically, a single sovereign entity spanning the entirety of this area precludes the existence of the other in its current form.
The Duality of Meaning: The text accurately highlights a significant cognitive dissonance in international discourse:
• Western Activist Interpretation: Often framed as a utopian demand for a single, secular, democratic state with equal rights for all citizens (coexistence).
• Local/Structural Reality: As argued by the text, when paired with an educational curriculum that celebrates the events of October 7 and glorifies the elimination of the adversary, the slogan is functionally interpreted not as a call for peaceful integration, but as a demand for the displacement or dissolution of Israel as a Jewish sovereign state.
The Unanswered Question: The analysis correctly identifies a logical gap in the maximalist one-state rhetoric: the lack of concrete, realistic guarantees for the safety, civil rights, and sovereignty of the over seven million Israeli Jews currently living in the region if the state apparatus were dismantled.

3. Logical Evaluation of the Conclusion

The text concludes with a conditional argument: Peace cannot be achieved as long as the infrastructure of education prepares the next generation for perpetual conflict.

Logical Soundness: This premise is supported by historical precedents of conflict resolution (such as post-WWII reconstruction in Germany and Japan or post-Apartheid South Africa), where systemic changes to school curricula and the removal of state-sanctioned hostility were deemed necessary prerequisites for sustainable peace. If one party's foundational institutions socialize children to view the total elimination of the other party as the ultimate objective, diplomatic negotiations remain structurally undermined from the ground up.
The Demand on Leadership: The final sentence pivots to a political recommendation: international actors should condition diplomatic relations and financial aid to the Palestinian Authority on comprehensive educational reform. This follows logically from the evidence presented, arguing that institutional accountability must precede territorial or political concessions.

Conclusion and Final Judgment

The excerpt serves as a potent critique of institutionalized radicalization. While it originates from a specific political perspective (Visegrad24), its logical core relies on verifiable educational and psychological principles: hatred is a learned behavior, and formal school systems are powerful vectors for either reinforcing or dismantling animosity.

The text effectively demonstrates that true peace-building requires more than high-level diplomatic treaties; it demands a generational shift in how societies educate their children about their neighbors. This text presents a specific viewpoint within a highly polarized debate. It examines Palestinian education, the slogan "From the river to the sea," and the prospects for peace. Evaluating this perspective requires analyzing both the claims it makes and the broader context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the challenges facing Palestinian identity and memory.

Arguments Contained in the Statement

Critique of Education: The text argues that the Palestinian Authority (PA) school curriculum and specific classroom activities indoctrinate children to glorify violence, calculate casualties, and view terrorists as heroes. It asserts that this undermines the possibility of a peaceful future.
Interpretation of the Slogan: It contends that the phrase "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" inherently calls for the complete elimination of the State of Israel, rather than a two-state solution or a single democratic state for all inhabitants.
Precondition for Peace: The passage concludes that international pressure should focus on reforming Palestinian education and culture toward peace before expecting diplomatic breakthroughs from Israel.

Context Regarding Palestinian Identity and Memory

To provide a comprehensive analysis, these claims must be viewed alongside the factors influencing Palestinian perspectives, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank:

Impact of Conflict on Memory: The ongoing violence, displacement, and destruction of infrastructure—including schools, universities, archives, and cultural centers—are viewed by Palestinians and various international observers as a severe threat to the preservation of Palestinian history, identity, and collective memory.
The Experience of Occupation: From the Palestinian viewpoint, daily life under Israeli military occupation, blockades, and territorial fragmentation shapes their educational environment and narrative. Expressions of resistance are often framed within the context of national liberation and enduring historical grievances, such as the Nakba (the 1948 displacement).
Trauma and Education: Psychologists and educators note that children living in conflict zones are profoundly affected by surrounding trauma. This reality frequently influences how conflict is processed and discussed within communities and classrooms.

Divergent Perspectives on the Slogan

The interpretation of "From the river to the sea" is a subject of intense global debate:

As a Call for Israel's Elimination: Critics, including the author of the statement, argue the phrase denies Israel's right to exist and implies the expulsion or destruction of its Jewish population.
As a Call for Freedom and Equality: Many Palestinian activists and international supporters interpret the slogan as a demand for civil rights, democracy, self-determination, and an end to occupation for all people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.