The Palestinian Authority's PBC (Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation) has come under fierce attack from an unexpected direction: Meretz MK Ran Cohen. Political journalist David Bedein reports that Cohen went as far as asking Communications Minister Ruby Rivlin to consider recalling the license granted by Israel to the PA in 1994 that allows the PBC free access to airwave transmissions in Israel.
Cohen told Bedein that his ire was raised by a recent study of Dr. Guy Bechor of children's programs on the PBC. Bedein notes that Bechor's study tracks "the consistent trend of the PBC since its inception in 1994 to indoctrinate a generation of children to commit suicide attacks and to make war on the Jews and on the Zionist entity." Cohen called the PBC broadcasts and telecasts "subversive and racist," and wrote a letter to the director of the PBC asking for an end to broadcasts and telecasts that incite Arab youth, even within Israel, to conduct suicide attacks and to wage war against the very State of Israel.
Asked why MK Cohen was taking this position now, after eight years of PBC incitement, Cohen said that the time had come to admit that neglecting the issue of official PA incitement was the greatest mistake made by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. "Rabin thought that we should deal with this kind of thing after we would solve everything else," Cohen said, "and we now know that Rabin was wrong. Rabin made a mistake, and that there is no reason to repeat that mistake."
Bedein, head of Israel Resource News Agency, further reported that Cohen appeared on a radio program with a PBC program editor, Muhammad Assayad. The latter read a prepared statement accusing MK Cohen of being a "stooge for the Israeli right wing and the settler radio station Arutz-7." Cohen laughed and responded that he had just come from a Peace Now rally and that he was leading the Knesset fight to cut funding for Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. When Assayad was asked by the show host how the PA would respond if official Israeli radio and TV were to run programs promoting the murder of Arab children, he hung up the phone.
Cohen told Bedein that his ire was raised by a recent study of Dr. Guy Bechor of children's programs on the PBC. Bedein notes that Bechor's study tracks "the consistent trend of the PBC since its inception in 1994 to indoctrinate a generation of children to commit suicide attacks and to make war on the Jews and on the Zionist entity." Cohen called the PBC broadcasts and telecasts "subversive and racist," and wrote a letter to the director of the PBC asking for an end to broadcasts and telecasts that incite Arab youth, even within Israel, to conduct suicide attacks and to wage war against the very State of Israel.
Asked why MK Cohen was taking this position now, after eight years of PBC incitement, Cohen said that the time had come to admit that neglecting the issue of official PA incitement was the greatest mistake made by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. "Rabin thought that we should deal with this kind of thing after we would solve everything else," Cohen said, "and we now know that Rabin was wrong. Rabin made a mistake, and that there is no reason to repeat that mistake."
Bedein, head of Israel Resource News Agency, further reported that Cohen appeared on a radio program with a PBC program editor, Muhammad Assayad. The latter read a prepared statement accusing MK Cohen of being a "stooge for the Israeli right wing and the settler radio station Arutz-7." Cohen laughed and responded that he had just come from a Peace Now rally and that he was leading the Knesset fight to cut funding for Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. When Assayad was asked by the show host how the PA would respond if official Israeli radio and TV were to run programs promoting the murder of Arab children, he hung up the phone.