By Diana West, June 21, 2002
A new study tells American mothers that the safest way to get the kids to
school is to put them on the bus. Not so in Israel. After another Palestinian
terrorist incinerated another Israeli bus, a Netanya mother revealed the painful
difference to BBC News: “If my kids end up having to get a bus, I will give
them a loving speech before they go in case they never come back” – back from
the limb-littered killing fields suicide-bombers have made of Israeli cities and towns.
And Palestinian mothers? They, too, give a loving speech before their children
go, sometimes videotaping it, but all too many of them actually hope their
youngsters never come back. The sickening fact is, the strongest desire of
certain Palestinian parents is for their children to die, killing as many Jews as
possible, from infants to old people, in the process.
Take Mariam Farhat. When she got word her 19-year-old son, Mohammed, had
been shot dead after murdering five Israeli teens and wounding 23 others, she
told the Saudi-owned daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat: “I began to cry, ‘Allah is the
greatest,’ and prayed and thanked Allah for the success of the operation. I
began to utter cries of joy and we declared that we were happy. . . . I
encouraged all my sons to die a martyr’s death.” (Translation by Middle East
Media Research Institute.)
The maternal death wish may seem freakish, but Mrs. Farhat is not alone. “May
every bullet hit its target and may God give you martyrdom,” Naima el Abed
tells her son, Mahmoud, on a video released by Hamas that records the
23-year-old college student’s preparations for a rampage against Israel. “This,”
she says, “is the best day of my life.”
Almost as good, no doubt, as the day of her son’s funeral. This came after Mrs.
el Abed’s little terrorist was shot dead attempting to infiltrate a Jewish
community, killing two Israeli soldiers.
Consider the Palestinian scene of bereavement that followed: “All around her
were women, clapping and celebrating his death, while his father Hassan
quietly received congratulations,” the Associated Press reported. “Several of
their nine other children handed out candy to visitors. ‘I wish all my children
would be like him and carry out operations like that,’ Naima el Abed said.”
Chances are excellent that they will – and not just to please mom. The
Palestinian Authority may blindly blame Israel for creating a generation of
suicidal maniacs, but it is the PA itself that has helped nurture – if such a word
applies – such taboo-breaking evil through its relentless propaganda machine.
With subtitled clips from Palestinian-controlled television (available through
WorldNetDaily.com), MSNBC’s Alan Keyes this week gave American viewers an
eye-popping look at the pernicious role the PA plays in teaching young people
to kill and be killed.
It starts with state-sponsored sing-alongs for the romper-room set –
ditties about blood-drenched soil and warriors of jihad.
It continues with shows featuring girls in party dresses delivering
bloodthirsty harangues: “When I wander into the entrance of Jerusalem, I’ll turn
into a suicide warrior! I’ll turn into a suicide warrior! In battle-dress! In
battle-dress! In battle-dress!”
And it goes on through the seemingly continuous loop of
government-broadcast sermons. From one tele-imam comes, “Bless those who
wired themselves, putting the belt around his waist or his sons, and who enter
deeply in the Jewish community and say, ‘Allah is great.’ ”
Or: “Wherever you are, kill these Jews and these Americans who are like
them and support them.”
Mr. Keyes pointed out a young boy in one congregation.
Can a child thus indoctrinated ever make peace? This same boy is probably
now caught up in the latest Palestinian craze – trading charms, Pokemon-style,
that feature the faces of suicide bombers.
Maybe he’ll go on to Al-Najah University in Nablus, alma mater of this week’s
bus bomber, Mohammed “How beautiful it is to kill and be killed” al-Ghoul.
Al-Najah, it must be noted, was the scene of last fall’s commemoration of the
Sbarro pizza-parlor attack, complete with fake pizza slices, plastic body parts
and play explosions.
That PA sure teaches its children well – only not to create anything except what
Ghazi Al-Qusaibi, the Saudi Ambassador to London (infamous for his verses to
suicide-bombing), calls “the culture of martyrdom.”
As he recently told Al Sharq Al Awsat, according to MEMRI, in one of
the most chilling statements I have ever read, “When the culture of martyrdom
spreads among the Palestinians and the Arabs, the myth of Israel will come to
an end.” (Not, alas, at the ambassador’s own poetry-writing hands. He regrets
to say that age and weight disqualify him from personal “martyrdom.”)
We hear of the need to reform the PA, from its terror-abetting “security” forces
to its corrupt apparatchiks, but the subject of dismantling its poisonous
propaganda machine isn’t mentioned. As de-Nazification was once required,
“de-martyrfication” is one of today’s most urgent challenges.
