Stephen M. Flatowis President of the Religious Zionists of America (RZA) He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995 and the author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror. Note: The RZA is not affiliated with any American or Israeli political party.
Summer camp in America evokes familiar images: children playing ball, hiking wooded trails, swimming in lakes, learning to canoe. Camps are about discovery, camaraderie, and building character in safe and healthy ways. Sadly, across the ocean, Fatah—the so-called “moderate” faction in Palestinian Arab politics—is running its own version of summer camps. But their mission is not play, friendship, or education. Their mission is indoctrination.
Reports from MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) and Palestinian Media Watch reveal the chilling reality. At a Fatah/PLO camp in Bethlehem, children chanted prayers for Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, Ahmed Yassin, and other terror leaders—asking God to “have mercy” on them. In other camps, children march in military formation, wear uniforms, and are taught to handle weapons.
Some camps are named after infamous terrorists like Dalal al-Mughrabi, who led the 1978 Coastal Road massacre that killed 38 civilians, including 13 children.
Instead of sports and campfires, children perform skits glorifying “martyrdom,” staging mock funerals for “fallen heroes,” and even carrying signs declaring: “I am Martyr number…” One camp erected a sculpture of “Palestine” that erased Israel entirely from the map.
This is not camp fun. This is militarized indoctrination.
Think about what this means. The formative years of childhood—when minds are curious and impressionable—are being poisoned with messages of hate. Palestinian Arab leaders are ensuring that the next generation is not preparing for peace, but for perpetual war. The world wrings its hands over why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict never ends. One answer is staring at us in the face: children are being groomed not for compromise, but for combat.
This is not fringe behavior. These are Fatah camps—the same Fatah that Western diplomats call “partners for peace.” The same Fatah whose leadership attends peace conferences while its youth movements prepare children to die. How can there be peace when the very concept of peace is absent from a child’s earliest experiences?
Children everywhere deserve the same simple joys: to swim on a hot day, to go to the camp canteen for a cold soda, to laugh with friends, to imagine a hopeful future. Teaching them that their highest calling is to kill—or be killed—is not just immoral. It is child abuse. It guarantees more suffering, for Palestinian Arabs and Israelis alike.
As long as Palestinian Arab society elevates martyrdom above life, the dream of peace will remain just that—a dream. The international community should stop pretending otherwise. It is time to hold Fatah accountable for poisoning children’s minds and betraying their futures.