By Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, Palestinian Media Watch Bulletin,
September 14, 2005
Destroying Israel continues to be a desired and attainable goal candidly
presented in Palestinian Authority discourse and education. The intensity of this
hate message has increased on Palestinian Authority Television (PA TV) since
Israel left Gush Katif in Gaza, as religious, political and educational leaders have
encouraged Palestinians to perceive the events there as a first step towards
Israel’s destruction.
Three PA TV programs stressed this goal last week. The first, a rebroadcast of
a so-called “historical educational” program first aired in 2003, reiterated the
PA teaching that Israel has no right to exist because all of Israel is “Palestine.”
Worse, it taught that Israel’s continued existence is, by its very nature, a threat
to the entire Arab world.
The PA TV broadcast showed a map of all of Israel marked as Palestine under
the PLO flag, while the narrator taught that if Palestine is not “whole,” meaning
if Israel continues to exist, it is like a fatal knife thrust into the heart of the Arab
nation, which threatens it in its entirety. The following are the words:
“The countries of our homeland also have a heart…
If the heart is whole and healthy, then all the other parts are whole and
healthy. The heart of the Arab homeland is Palestine. The homeland remains
whole and healthy if Palestine is whole and healthy…
A stab in the heart is a deathblow.
Throughout the generations of history there were those who directed the
first stab at the heart of the Arab nation, to Palestine.”
A Palestinian academic expressed the same anticipation of Israel’s eventual
destruction, describing the joy of the Gaza withdrawal as incomplete until Israel
will be destroyed:
“Nothing compares to this joy, the oppressed overcomes the oppressor.
But our happiness will be complete only with the return of all of our lands – the
Bank, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa, Safed, and other stolen cities”.
PMW has been warning for years about the dangers of this PA indoctrination to
see Israel’s existence as illegitimate and temporary, especially among children.
The results of this education were seen again this week as three children
showed off their drawings of maps of “Palestine” on PA TV. All three children
erased Israel’s existence in their drawings while the maps were tied in barbed
wire symbolizing “Palestine” as ensnared by Israel.
These were some their explanations:
Mahmoud Eid: “In this painting I wanted to emphasize the chains that the
occupation puts on our people. I painted this map of Palestine, with the
Palestinian flag to say to our people that Palestine is still Palestine, and that the
Palestinians deserve it – not the Jews.”
Udai: “I painted the map so we will not forget our place on the map.”
Significantly, the children call all of Israel “Palestine” and all of Israel is said to
be “the Occupation.” These conclusions are not surprising – they are the direct
result of ten years of PA education. PA schoolbooks – even those published last
year – replace Israel with “Palestine” on all maps. In addition, the word
“occupation” in the school books refers to all of Israel. For example:
“Colonialism: Palestine faced the British occupation after the First World War in
1917, and the Israeli occupation in 1948…”
Palestinian Media Watch has reported on other examples of Palestinian children
reflecting their education that Israel should be destroyed, thereby reflecting one
of the central messages of their formal and informal education. One such
example was a letter writing competition held by the PA Ministry of Education.
The winner wrote of “returning” to Jaffa, a city in Israel. Read the bulletin here.
Palestinian Media Watch finds it significant that PA TV would choose to air
these programs the day before Israel withdrew its troops from Gaza. These
programs reinforce the messages the PA educational system has been
delivering for years – and teach Palestinian children to see the peace process as
temporary and Israel’s destruction as attainable and inevitable.
