24 March, 2010
Vice President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel, ostensibly to renew negotiations between the Israel and the Arabs, demonstrates once again America’s failure to address the root causes of the conflict. Pressuring Israel to make concessions and condemning her for constructing homes in Jerusalem and in Yehuda and Shomron where Jews are legally permitted to build only encourages Arab intransigence, and convinces them to continue their war against the Jewish state.
When will the U.S. insist that the Arabs stop incitement against Israel in their media, schools and mosques? When will the U.S. demand that Arabs stop abusing their own children by subjecting them to TV programs and music videos preaching hatred of Jews, encouraging martyrdom, and denying Israel’s existence?
When will the U.S. insist the Arabs cease denying the historic connection of the Jews to the land of Israel? And when will the U.S. acknowledge that the Arabs have never recognized Israel’s right to exist?
Since the days of the British Mandate, the Arabs have resorted to violence in an attempt to shape British and U.S. policy. The Palestinian Authority, which is wrongly viewed as moderate, glorifies terror. To celebrate the 45th anniversary of the establishment of Fatah, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Palestinian Authority daily newspaper featured a special section praising terrorism and terrorists.1
The paper extolled the 1976 Savoy Operation during which terrorists captured the Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv and killed eight hostages and two soldiers. The bus hijacking by Dalal Mughrabi in 1978 in which 37 Israelis were murdered is described as a “Ribat (religious war).” A square in the Arab town of el-Bireh was recently named after Mughrabi. Fatah was applauded for firing missiles at Israeli cities from Lebanon during the 1980s. Accounts of ten senior terrorists, described as “heroic Shahids (Martyrs), were featured.2
Where is the outrage against Fatah and Hamas for manipulating their children by using alluring animated characters like Farfur, the Mickey Mouse character, Nahul, a bee and Assud, a bunny to that instill hatred against Jews and seek their destruction? “Kids fall in love with them, and then right in front of their eyes these characters …become shahids (martyrs for Allah),” notes Itamar Marcus, the director of Palestinian Media Watch. 3
Teaching children that Israel is “occupied Palestine” and that the Jews have usurped their land is another theme found on Hamas and Fatah television. During one month, each televised a program in which a group of children were dancing with large keys hanging around their necks. Hamas had the towns of Beit She’an, Haifa, Jerusalem, Ramle and Acre on their keys. Fatah’s keys had Haifa, Acre, Jaffa, Ramle and Jerusalem on them. To everyone the message was quite clear: the Arabs were the real owners of these cities, not the Jews.4
How will the Arabs rid their land of the Jews? The only way Hamas asserts is to kill them. Three different words were used by a Hamas children’s television program to describe how to purge the Jews from Arab land. All the Arabic expressions, Manhurin Naher, Nidbah- hom, Shaht mean slaughter. Nassur, the bear puppet, explained that the Jews must be “erased from our land.” To ensure the children understood precisely what this meant, the young host of the program added that “They’ll be slaughtered.”5
Hamas is clear that violence should not be directed against the Jews alone, since the U.S. is also their arch enemy. This message against America is contained in a children’s song broadcast on Hamas TV:
"Daddy gave me a present, a machine gun and a rifle.6
When I am a big boy, I will join the Liberation Army.
The army of [Izz Al-Din] Al-Qassam (Hamas),
which has taught us how to defend our homeland.
Our homeland is precious, precious.
We [are] victorious, victorious over America and Israel.
[Improvises:] Son of a bitch - what brought you to this land?"
Peace with Israel is not the goal of the Palestinian Authority either. In an interview on PA TV, Fatah spokeswoman Kifah Radaydeh stated: “It has been said that we are negotiating for peace, but our goal has never been peace. Peace is a means; and the goal is Palestine. I do not negotiate in order to achieve peace. I negotiate for Palestine, in order to achieve a state."7
At a preliminary conference of the Palestinian Youth Parliament in Ramallah.
Palestinian Authority president and Fatah chairman Mahmoud Abbas reiterated this point: “I say this clearly: I do not accept the Jewish State, call it what you will." Abbas was given a large framed map of "Palestine," covering the entire area of Israel.8
When PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, another Arab leader inexplicably presented in the West as a moderate, paid a condolence call to the family of Faiz Faraj, the terrorist who tried to stab an Israeli soldier in Hebron in February, he sent an important message to the Arabs that he supports terrorism. Instead of condemning violence, Fayyad denounced “in extremely harsh terms the action of the occupation forces carried out as part of the ongoing campaign to suppress the non-violent protests of residents in the various regions.”9
There is no subtlety in what the Arabs are saying or doing. When a sermon broadcast over PA TV under the control of Mahmoud Abbas calls for the destruction of the Jews because they are “the enemies Of Allah [and] enemies of humanity,”10 what alternative do the Arabs have but to to liberate their land through jihad? They have shown that they will use whatever means to defeat the Jews, even if it means poisoning the minds of their own children and sacrificing them in homicide bombings.
Settlements have never been an impediment to peace, and never will be. They are used as tactic to dupe the gullible and as an excuse to attack the Jews. Israel’s first president Chaim Weizmann understood the fundamental reason for the Arab/Israeli conflict when he said, “The real opponents of Zionism can never be placated by any diplomatic formula: their objection to the Jews is that the Jews exist, and in this particular case, they exist in Palestine.”
Dr. Alex Grobman’s latest book The Palestinian Right to Israel will be published by Balfour Books in April 2010.
1. Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, “Fatah prides itself on deadly terror attacks.” Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), (January 15, 2010).
2. Ibid; Khaled Abu Toameh, “Fatah holds ceremony naming square after terrorist.” Jerusalem Post. (March 15, 2010); Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, “Fatah officials celebrated popular inauguration of terrorist square.” PMW (March 14, 2010). Palestinian Authority TV began its broadcast on the 32nd anniversary of the terror attack by praising it as: "A glorious chapter in the history of the Palestinian people... [near Tel Aviv] in the heart of the occupation state. The operation shocked the occupation entity." Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, ““PA TV Interviews terrorist’s sister on anniversary of terror attack.”PMW (March 13, 2010)
3. Aryeh Dean Cohen, “Tube of Hatred” Jerusalem Post (August 10, 2009), Online Edition; Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, “Mickey Mouse Again: Disney Images adorn studio while mass murder is glorified.” Palestinian Media Watch (September 9, 2008); Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, “Hamas TV teaches kids to kill Jews,” PMW (September 23, 2009).
4. Ibid; Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, “PA still teaches kids that all of Israel is ‘occupied.’” PMW (October 19, 2009); Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, “Palestinian TV children’s quizzes teach that there is no Israel.” Palestinian Media Watch. (September 2, 2009); “Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV Children’s Puppet Show: ‘We Must Rise Against the Zionist Criminal, the Enemies of Allah, and Liberate Jerusalem and All the Holy Places.’” MEMRI. Special Dispatch 2864 (March 17, 2010).
5. Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, “Hamas TV teaches kids to kill Jews.” PMW (September 23, 2009). See “Palestinian Hate Education since Annapolis, taxpayersalliance.com (February 2, 1010).
6. Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, “Palestinian child sings about victory over Israel and the US: Daddy gave me a present, a machine gun and a rifle." PMW (February 8, 2010); see also Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, “PA TV news report: Child vows to ‘liberate Palestine’ with weapons” PMW (February 1, 2010).
7. Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, “Fatah official: “Our goal has never been peace. Peace is a means; the goal is Palestine.” PMW (July 12, 2009).
8. Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook,”Mahmoud Abbas: ‘I do not accept the Jewish state, call it what you will.” PMW (April 28, 2009); Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, “High school graduates at official Fatah ceremony: Haifa and Jaffa are ‘Palestine.’” PMW (August 4, 2009).
9. Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook,”PA Prime Minister honors dead terrorist with condolence visit.” PMW (February 14, 2010).
10. Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, “Jews are the enemies of Allah and humanity” “The Prophet says: ‘Kill the Jews.’” PMW (February 1, 2010).
11. Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1949), 290.
