Email |  Print | RSS | Comment |  

 Email |  Print

Sun, March 13, 2011 | Prime Minister’s Office press releases: Anti-Israel Incitement and Examples

Signature of participant in Fatah Forum: Hitler wrote in his book ‘My Struggle’ - “I could have killed all the Jews in the world, but I left a few so that you would know why I destroyed them” (Dec. 12, 2010)

Anti-Israel Incitement in the Palestinian Authority

From the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office website:

Strategic Affairs Ministry Director-General Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser today, briefed the Cabinet on Palestinian Authority incitement against Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to establish an index designed to assist in professionally and transparently monitoring the level of incitement, within the Palestinian Authority, against the Government and citizens of Israel. This was in order to motivate the Palestinian Authority to halt the incitement and promote a culture of peace.

The index of the last quarter of 2010 indicates a continuation of incitement against Israel in the PA. Familiar patterns of incitement reappeared, including — inter alia — the glorification of terrorists and jihad as part of the national ethos, severe libels against Israel, anti-Semitic stereotypes in the official Palestinian media and the denial of any connection between the Jewish People and the holy places.

The index checks — on a quarterly basis — the Palestinian media, education system curriculum, leaders’ remarks, sermons, advertisements on the Internet, basic documents, etc. The examination assesses the relative weight of the foregoing in the incitement and in building a culture of peace.

The index is divided into four main areas: Explicit incitement towards violence and terrorism, encouraging an atmosphere of violence and terrorism, incitement towards hatred and demonization, and not preparing hearts for peace.

Among the findings were revealed several examples of the extreme demonization of Israelis and the use of anti-Semitic motifs. Prominent among these is a guide for a program on PA television that purports to show methods of torture used by the Israel Prison service, such as burning prisoners with irons and amputating organs. Official Palestinian television broadcast a children’s program in which viewers were told that, “The Jews are our enemies,” and that, “Israeli soldiers are wild animals.”

At the start of today’s Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that we are witnessing severe incitement.

“We know that there is supposed to be a soccer game there in memory of a suicide terrorist who murdered and wounded dozens of people on Jaffa Road, in Jerusalem. Regrettably, we see the PA awarding scholarships to the families of murderers. We see that they name squares after terrorists who murdered dozens of Israelis. These do not jibe with education for peace,” the Prime Minister said.

You can download the Incitement and Culture of Peace Index (Last Quarter, 2010) here.

Examples of Palestinian Authority Incitement

Incitement against Israel, which frequently turns into genuine anti-Semitic incitement, is an inseparable part of the fabric of life in the Palestinian Authority. Thus, anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic messages are regularly heard in both the private and official media and in mosque sermons, and are studied in school textbooks.

Terrorists are given an honored status and become models for emulation in Palestinian society, both in the media and via ceremonies held by insitutions affiliated with the PA.

Institutionalized and systematic incitement against Israel has never ceased in the PA,even during the height of the diplomatic process in the 1990s.

Examples from Recent Months:

— On 9.3.11, Abu Mazen’s advisor Sabri Saidam, delivered a speech in which he emphasized that Palestinian weapons must be turned towards Israel. He demanded that the Palestinian people be attentive to the living conditions of martyrs’ families and said that the anniversary of the death of Dalal Mughrabi (one of the perpetrators of 1978 coastal highway massacre) should be marked by inaugurating a square in her name in the city of El-Bireh.

— On 6.3.11, the PA’s official newspaper, Al Hayat Al-Jadida, published an item to the effect that the management of a youth club in Ramallah planned to hold a soccer tournament in memory of Wafa Idris, a suicide bomber.

— On 9.2.11, the official Palestinian television station broadcast a clip from a campaign entitled “Women as Exemplars”, during which Dalal Mughrabi (see above) was extolled. In the summer of 2010, several children’s summer camps were named after her.

— On 24.1.11, the Governor of Jenin issued a Presidential Grant worth $2,000 to the family of Palestinian terrorist, Khaldoun Samoudi, who was killed while trying to detonate two bombs against IDF soldiers at the Beka’ot Crossing.

— On 2.1.11, Al Hayat Al-Jadida reported that Azzam Al-Ahmed, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, attended a gathering on the 46th anniversary of the establishment of Fatah, held in the village of Turah, south-west of Jenin, during which models of settlement buildings were blown up. He reviewed terrorist attacks that had been perpetrated by Fatah and said that, ” Fatah is a mass movement which believed in popular revolution and wrested its right to use all means of resistance in order to achieve its aim.”

— On 30.12.10, Al Hayat Al-Jadida reported that Israel aspired to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to build the Third Temple on its ruins.

— On 26.10.10, Palestinian television broadcast a documentary about the work of Palestinian medical teams including a fictitious scene in which an Israeli soldier shoots a Palestinian in the head.

— On 6.10.10, Al Hayat Al-Jadida carried an interview with Palestinian Minister Amr Aloul in which the latter said that Israel is, “An apartheid state that carries out state terrorism against the Palestinians.

— On 10.9.10, official Palestinian television broadcast a short film in which it was said that Jewish prayer at the Western Wall is, “a sin and impurity.”

— On 21.6.10, official Palestinian television broadcast a children’s program in which it was saoid that, “The Jews are our enemies,” and that, “Israeli soldiers are wild animals.”

— On 28.5.10, official Palestinian television broadcast a report on the family of a Palestinian security prisoner, during which her nieces were interviewed and said that they wanted to bear arms against Israel.

— The “History of the Arabs and the World in the 20th Century” 12th-grade textbook, used in the PA, teaches about World War II. It includes Nazi ideology but does not mention the Holocaust at all.

— On 10.3.10, Al Hayat Al-Jadida reported that the Palestinian Authority had postponed the inauguration of the Dalal Mughrabi Square in Ramallah following an official Israeli protest. This did not prevent dozens of young people from unofficially dedicating the square.A spokesman for the Palestinian security services said that the dedication of the Square had been postponed, “for technical reasons and not at Israel’s request.” He added that, “Neither israel nor anyone else is capable of preventing us from being proud of our history.” PA Minister of Culture Saham Al-Barghouti said that, “It is our right to honor our martyrs and name a street after the martyr Dalal Mughrabi on the anniversary of her martyrdom. It is the right of the Palestinian people. However, the Israelis’ interference with this right indicates how the Israelis violate our rights.”

— On 27.12.09, official Palestinian television reported that President’s Office Director-General Tayib Abd A-Rahim presented condolences, on behalf of PA Chairman Abu Mazen, to the families of the three terrorists who were killed by the IDF after murdering Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai. He gave the families condolence telegrams from Abu Mazen and told them to acknowledge them as martyrs of the Palestinian revolution. He said, on Abu Mazen’s behalf, that “The occupation authorities perpetrated an action that had been planned for some time and was the cold-blooded assassination of Fatah activists, which contravenes morality and the repeated, false claims about the apparent morality of the IDF. Without doubt, the occupation authorities perpetrated a wild and barbaric assassination, maliciously and in cold blood.”