By Itamar Marcus and Ruthie Blum, Palestinian Media Watch Special Bulletin.
September 21, 2001
The Arab world has been attempting to depict America as a victim of their
support for Israel and are claiming that the Arabs have no inherent
anti-American bias. However, there is nothing farther from the truth. The
Palestinian Authority has been teaching their people for years that the PA sees
the Palestinian conflict with Israel and the United States as two branches in the
general total global war of Islam against the West and all other religions.
An 11th grade PA textbook describes the inevitable victory of Islam over the
West with words that become ever so chilling following the World Trade Center
horror:
“… We do not claim that the collapse of Western civilization, and the transfer
of the center of civilization to us will happen in the next decade.
Nevertheless has begun to collapse and to become a pile
of rubble.” [“Some Outstanding Examples of Our Civilization” for Eleventh
Grade]
In Palestinian Authority schoolbooks, Western society and values, especially
those the United States, are portrayed as corrupt, that will inevitably lead to
their demise. At times this Western demise is seen as a natural process arising
from the innate Western corruption.
In other texts the children are taught that the Jihad Muslim fighters will
be victorious over the West through Jihad (Holy War for Allah).
The following are citations from two Palestinian school textbooks that reflect
attitudes prevalent in Palestinian society:
“In the present period, which exceeds all previous periods in terms of the
material and scientific advances taking place, social, psychological and medical
scientists in the West are perplexed by the worrying increase in the number of
people suffering from nervous disorders…and the statistics from America in this
matter are a clear indication of this.”
“Western civilization, in both its branches – the capitalist and the Communist –
deprived man of his peace of mind, stability and noble human examples whom
he can respect, when it turned material well-being into the exemplary goal, his
money leading him nowhere, except to suicide…”
“Western civilization is the representation of the highest form of material life
achieved by man, but this alone does not bring him happiness, as you have
seen. There is no escape from a new civilization.The Western world is not
capable of fulfilling this role. There is only one nation capable of discharging
this task and that is our nation …”
“… We do not claim that the collapse of Western civilization, and the transfer
of the center of civilization to us will happen in the next decade or two
or even in fifty years, for the rise and fall of civilizations follow natural
processes. And even when the foundations of a fortress become cracked, it still
appears.to be at the peak of its strength. Nevertheless has
begun to collapse and to become a pile of rubble.”
“Since the beginning of our reawakening … We awoke to a painful reality and
oppressive imperialism and we drove it out of some of our lands and we are
about to drive it from the rest…”
“Islam, The True Religion: The Victory of Islam: This religion will defeat
all other religions and it will be disseminated, by Allah’s will, through the
Muslim Jihad fighters.”
