Speaker: Palestinian schools impede peace
By Amy R. Kaufman
The Israeli government has turned a blind eye to hate education in Palestinian schools, and the imprint on today’s children could derail the peace process far into the future, said Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch, in his Nov. 15 talk at Portland State University.
The event was co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland’s Community Relations Committee and Portland Chapter of Hadassah.
“We must have an education process that is not an impediment to peace so we can have peace with the Palestinians,” said Marcus, who appeared with Sen. Hillary Clinton at a recent Senate hearing where they jointly released PMW reports on Palestinian schoolbooks and television shows.
Clinton said at a Nov. 12 press conference, “The videos we viewed at that Senate hearing were a clear example of child abuse. This propaganda is dangerous … because it profoundly poisons the minds of these children. … This has dire consequences for prospects of peace for generations to come.”
The author of many books, Marcus has spoken before the British, Australian and French parliaments, the European Union and the International Relations Committee of Congress.
He said audiences are universally horrified by PMW’s reports.
“No one knows what incitement means until you can see it,” he said.
Marcus said the religious terms jihad and shahada, used by Arafat to incite the Intifada, have taken root in Palestinian children, whose educational materials mirror “a spiraling degeneration into religious extremism.”
Marcus said 70 to 80 percent of Palestinian children now aspire to shahada (martyrdom).
He screened part of a video that aired on Hamas TV after the March bombing in which a Palestinian mother of two killed herself and four Israelis.
“Mommy, what are you carrying in your hands besides me?” asks a child narrator. “Instead of me, you carried a bomb in your hands. … Now I know what was more precious than us.”
At the end, a 5-year-old opens the mother’s drawer and takes out the explosives, vowing to follow in her mother’s footsteps.
In a TV show derived from Disney’s Mickey Mouse, Farfur the mouse espouses Islamic world domination. He is beaten to death on air by an “Israeli” and becomes a martyr. After PMW revealed the content of the program, pressure from world media forced Al-Aksa TV and the Palestinian Authority to take it off the air temporarily, said Marcus.
Clippings from Palestinian educational films contained the following statements: “Jews are a virus similar to AIDS from which the whole world is suffering.” “Jews are the ones who did the Holocaust. They opened the ovens for us to bake human beings.” “Jews by their very existence are preventing the redemption of humanity.”
In its April 2007 study of Palestinian schoolbooks, PMW noted a history textbook covering World War II details Hitler’s “race theory” but never mentions the Jews or the Holocaust.
The abolition of hate education in Palestinian schools was one of the three main tenets of the Road Map and should be a precondition for any future agreement, said Marcus.
Marcus said when a member of British Parliament asked him how to stop the indoctrination of Palestinian children, he advised him, “You in Europe who are going to support the peace process—use that support as leverage. … Demand peace education.”
Marcus said the view of the Israeli government is, “We won’t worry about this now; we’ll worry after we have an agreement.”
He told the Portland group, “Israeli citizens are not as aware as you are today in this room.”
When he does present the material in Israel, he said, “Inevitably, one of the responses is: ‘Why haven’t I seen these videos? Why is Israeli TV hiding this?’”
Marcus said he is working to create a force of “one thousand volunteers who will give the same presentation throughout Israel and on campuses throughout the United States.”
“Awareness will create insistence, and there will be change,” he said.
If the indoctrination of Palestinian children continues, he said, “We are condemning these kids to another generation of conflict.”
Born in New York, Marcus made aliyah in 1975. As advisor to the minister of religion from 1995 to 1996, he became aware of the need to monitor the Arab press. He was appointed to the Tri-lateral (American, Israeli and Palestinian) Committee to Monitor Incitement and works with the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
PMW reports are available at info@pmw.org.il, and excerpts are posted on the Internet.