In addition to the standard pedagogical use of maps that ignore Israel's existence, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is kicking off a new school year of brainwashing of Palestinian schoolchildren with a novel form of indoctrination: claims that women are witches and Tel Aviv is an Arab city.

According to Israel Behind the News, a new school curriculum for grades 1-4 launched by PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah during a ceremony in Ramallah last week has drawn criticism for demonizing women and containing “factual and historical” errors. A map in one of the textbooks, for example, refers to the West Bank city of Ramallah as the “center of Palestine,” while Jerusalem is referred to as a city that is located south of Ramallah. This suggests that Ramallah, the headquarters of the PA leadership, is the de facto capital of the Palestinians. Critics complain that this undermines the Palestinian claim to Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. “Why has Jerusalem been marginalized in the new textbooks?” they demanded. “This is indeed disgraceful!”

Another error relocates the interior West Bank city of Bethlehem to the coast of the Gaza Strip. “Bethlehem now has its own beach,” was one of many sarcastic responses made on social media.

The new textbooks are also being criticized for referring to Tel Aviv in a map of “Palestine” that does not mention Israel. The map refers to Tel Aviv by its Arabic name, Tal Al-Rabi’a. Critics argue that this is a mistake because Tel Aviv is a modern name that “is not linked to the history of Palestine.”

Then there is the demonization of women as witches and sorceresses. One image features a witch under the Quran verse that reads: “I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the accursed.” Another image of a witch is accompanied by a verse from the Quran that refers to the “evil of malignant witchcraft.”

Within hours of its release, Palestinians, particularly female activists, complained and called on the PA leadership to remove it immediately, calling it a “scandal” and “distortion of facts.” They said that a curriculum full of errors and “distortions of facts” was a guaranteed recipe for raising a new generation of illiterate and misinformed Palestinians.

“Children in grades 1 and 2 are being taught that women are witches or hags,” some protested. “The lesson they are being taught is that the first half of society is Muslim, while the second half is infidel.”

“Using women in this manner harms their image… and is an insult to their sacrifices,” remarked Lubna Al-Ashkar of the Women’s Technical Affairs Committee. “This is completely unacceptable because it presents women as the cause for all disputes and evil in Palestinian society. Witchcraft and sorcery are not restricted to women alone, and we call on the Ministry of Education to quickly amend the images.”

Amal Khraisheh, chairwoman of the Palestinian Working Woman Society, said that the “atypical” images featuring women as witches and sorceresses “enhance the masculine culture about the status of women in society and obliterate the sturdy and developmental womanly presence by limiting it to sorcery and witchcraft.” She said that the absence of supervision over the performance of the PA, especially the Ministry of Education, has been an injustice to Palestinian women. “This will create a negative image of women in the midst of our children — one that will be difficult to change in the future,” she cautioned. “We will do our utmost to change this negative impression of women.”

PA officials responded that the new curriculum is experimental, and they promised to make corrections in the textbooks.