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Child
Incitement
By Ephraim Shore
In the Palestinian territories
today, children are systematically educated to hatred
and violence. Heroic posters of suicide bombers line
walls of schools, mosques and community centers.
In Palestinian conducted polls, the results are telling:
"72% of the children sampled from all the districts
of Gaza expressed the hope of becoming Shahids (martyrs)
in the confrontations" (1), and "79-80%
of the children expressed willingness to be Shahids(2).
25,000 children attending 90 summer camps (some UN-funded)
were exposed by the NY Times (3) as being paramilitary
camps: “Instead (of games), there is the chance
to stage a mock kidnapping of an Israeli leader by
masked Palestinian commandos, ending with the Israeli's
bodyguards sprawled dead on the ground. Next, there
is the mock attack on an Israeli military post, ending
with a sentry being grabbed by the neck and fatally
stabbed. Finally, there is the opportunity to excel
in stripping and reassembling a real Kalashnikov rifle.”
All maps in school textbooks show Palestine with no
Israel existing, and offer liberal amounts of anti-Semitism.
(4)
• In a new 6th grade book, children read about
Allah’s warning to the Jews “Oh you who
are Jews ...long for death if you are truthful...
for the death from which you flee, that will surely
overtake you.”
• Jews are said to be like donkeys: “Those
[Jews] who were charged with the Torah, but did not
observe it, are like a donkey carrying books...”
[Reading the Koran, Grade 6].
• “One must beware of the Jews, for they
are treacherous and disloyal.” [Islamic Education
for 9th Grade “I believe that the Jews are the
enemies of the Prophets and the believers.”[Islamic
Education, 4th Grade]
• “Remember: The final and inevitable
result will be the victory of the Muslims over the
Jews.” [Our Arabic Language, 5th Grade p. 67]
• “The clearest examples of racist belief
and racial discrimination in the world are Nazism
and Zionism.” [The New History of the Arabs
and the World]
Regularly broadcast PA music videos have actors depicting
Israelis carrying out executions of old men, woman
and children, or blowing up mothers with their babies.
In one, broadcast continuously in 2003, actors portray
a woman being murdered in cold blood in front of her
daughter. In another, a young girl on a swing turns
into a flaming inferno, and a football blows up when
kicked by a child(5).
Arafat himself called on Palestinian children to follow
the "martyrdom" example of Fares Odeh, a
13-year-old boy from Gaza(6). Heeding his call, a
13- and 14-year old, members of a teenage cell, were
caught in February, 2004 on their way to carry out
a terror attack(7).
One PA TV clip, aimed at younger viewers, features
a boy killed in Gaza arriving in heaven where there
are beaches, waterfalls, and a Ferris wheel. He says,
"I am not waving goodbye, I am waving to tell
you to follow in my footsteps." The accompanying
soundtrack plays, "How pleasant is the smell
of martyrs, the smell of land, the land enriched by
the blood, the blood pouring out of a fresh body(8)."
Arafat's deputy, Abu Mazen, admitted to a Kuwaiti
newspaper in June that Palestinian children have been
paid NIS 5 (about $1) for every pipe bomb they throw.
Children have been increasingly mobilized for suicide
attacks; their parents receive cash payments from
the PA, Iraq, and/or Saudi Arabia.
Sheikh Ikrimi Sabri, the PA-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem,
said, "There is no doubt that a child [martyr]
suggests that the new generation will carry on the
mission with determination. The younger the martyr
the greater I respect him(9)."
Signs on the walls of kindergartens proclaim their
students as "the shahids [martyrs] of tomorrow".
Sheikh Hassan Yosef, a Hamas leader, summarized this
process: "We like to grow them from kindergarten
through college(10)."
’1. Sout Al-Nissa’-Voice
of the Women, January 24, 2002
2. PA official daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 18,
2002
3. ("Palestinian Summer Camp Offers The Games
Of War", August 2, 2000)
4. [*Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace]
5. Palestinian Media Watch, Teaching Hatred via Music
Videos and Cultural Expression, pmw.org.il/new
6. The Jerusalem Post, July 13, 2003
7. Jerusalem Post, February 29, 2004
8. Palestinian Media Watch, ibid
9. Al-Ahram Al-Arabi (Egypt), October 28, 2000. See
MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 151, November 9, 2000,
'PA Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Discusses the
Intifada.'
10. Palestinian Media Watch
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