map of "Israel" on PA-TV
map of "Israel" on PA-TV

Even as Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas declares his demand for "only" all 6,205 kilometers of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, his official TV station shows a PA flag covering all of Israel.

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a media watchdog group that monitors the media in the Palestinian Authority, reports on a clip broadcast by Fatah-controlled Palestinian television this week. The clip shows a map in which Israel, in its entirety, is painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag - black, white, red and green. The message is that the PA strives to replace all of Israel, and not just Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

A PA map that "wipes out" the Jewish State
(www.pmw.org.il, Oct. '07)

Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook of PMW write that the broadcast of the map at this particular time renders the matter of even greater concern. "As preparations for the American peace conference continue," they write, "the leaders of the Palestinian Authority have announced their demands for a future Palestinian state with an area of 6205 square kilometers. This would include the Gaza Strip, the West Bank [Judea and Samaria - ed.] and [eastern] Jerusalem. However, the message they have conveyed to their people for years, and continue to convey on the eve of the conference, is that 'Palestine' exists and it replaces all of Israel."

As documented by PMW for many years, the idea of turning Israel into an Arab-Palestinian state is part of a formal educational approach throughout the Palestinian Authority. "The picture painted for the Palestinian population, both verbally and visually, is of a world without Israel," PMW writes. "This uniform message of a world without Israel is repeated in school books, children's programs, crossword puzzles, video clips, formal symbols, school and street names, etc."

Street names in the PA have been changed to memorialize terrorists, for instance, and PA textbooks regularly include references to the "Israel is Palestine" canard. For instance, a 12th-grade literature book states, “Palestine’s war ended with a catastrophe that is unprecedented in history, when the Zionist gangs stole Palestine and expelled its people from their cities, their villages, their lands and their houses, and established the State of Israel.” [Arabic Language, Analysis, Literature and Criticism, grade 12, p. 104

Crossword puzzles in the official PA newspaper, Al Hayat al Jadida, have included clues such as “A Palestinian city” - with the proper answer being, in various places, Haifa, Lod, and Ashkelon; all three, of course, are present-day Israeli cities within the pre-1967 borders. Another clue calls Yad Vashem Holocaust Center a "Jewish Center for eternalizing the Holocaust and the lies."