Susie Dym is spokesperson for Mattot Arim, an Israeli NGO working toward peace-for-peace since 1992. However, she was born in London. Her great-uncle was a Member of Parliament in the UK House of Commons for over 30 years.
Great Britain recently proudly announced anti-Israel sanctions allegedly prompted by “illegal" acts by Israel/ Israelis.
Actually - Israeli so-called "settlements" are fully legal; see former dean of Yale Law School Prof. Eugene Rostow’s writings on Section 80 of the UN Charter. Whereas, what really is illegal, is posting online content which glorifies terrorists and violence.
And this oped will expose that practice is alive and well - at the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit. However, Britain is not issuing any sanctions at all against this museum. Instead, Britain is actually partnering with this violence-glorifying museum -- aiding and abetting it.
Here are the details:
The Palestinian Museum
“The Palestinian Museum", inaugurated in 2016, has physical premises in Birzeit in Area A of Judea and Samaria, and digital platforms which are online. On their platform, go right to this link: There you will find a poster of the notorious Dalal Mughrabi who perpetrated an appalling terrorist attack in 1978, on a Haifa-Tel Aviv bus. 37 Israelis were slaughtered; twelve were children. A US photographer nearby was also murdered. The caption on the Dalal Mughrabi page reads: “Martyr of the Palestinian Revolution“.
The Palestinian Museum also has an online archive “to shed light on the different aspects of Palestinian … legacy". There you’ll find photos of an Arab kindergarten and a school, both named after this “martyr", and 3 more photographs of Mughrabi.
And these “museum" materials are actually used by radical Islamic websites. For example, islamicity.org posted one of the Dalal Mughrabi posters, crediting the museum, and reminiscing that: “Dalal's group hijacked a bus … 39 Israelis were killed…. [Dalal] inspired thousands of young Palestinian and Lebanese women to follow in her footsteps…. This month, and every March, Palestinians commemorate a Palestinian heroine who sacrificed herself for her country."
The “Palestinian museum" archive also includes “portraits" of Sameer al-Qintar (Samir Kuntar) in Beersheba Prison. Even radical left Haaretz described Kuntar as perpetrating “one of the most traumatic terror attacks in Israeli history". Smadar Haran, a young Israeli mother, related that Kuntar took her husband Danny and 4 year old “down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat…. Then he smashed my little girl’s skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar."
The “Palestinian Museum" archive also hosts an entire “Marwan al-Barghouthi Collection" and explains: “Marwan al-Barghouthi is a Palestinian freedom fighter… a symbol of the Palestinian Revolution and the Palestinian National Liberation Movement." This “collection“ features photographs documenting Barghouti posing with other terrorists in prison.
Barghouti was convicted of killing 5 people.
Another poster in the archive, issued by a students’ group at Birzeit University, marks the 12th anniversary of the “murder" (sic) by Israel of Engineer Yahya Ayyash.
Ayyash was responsible for dozens of bus-bombings and other terror attacks - which killed 100 Israelis and injured 400 more.
Yet another poster is entitled 'The Heroic Shaheed, The Commander Abu Jihad, Martyr of the War for Independence'. The poster is part of the museum’s “permanent collection" being one of the “documents that form an important part of the history of the Palestinian revolution", according to the Museum’s website.
Abu Jihad (father of the Jihad or holy war) masterminded deadly terrorist attacks in which at least 125 Israelis were murdered.
A photograph preserved in the Palestinian Museum’s archive shows the grave of Ali Hassan Salameh “at the Cemetery of the Shaheeds" (martyrs).
Salameh masterminded the infamous Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes.
And so on.
The Palestinian Museum encourages children to imbibe its “knowledge"
The Palestinian Museum has a Teachers’ programme which “is based on creating a link between teachers, schools, and the museum" namely “school research projects that link the curriculum and the knowledge provided by the museum through its … digital spaces."
The museum’s Education Programme “encourages children… bringing the museum’s culture to the new generation". The Palestinian Museum, in cooperation with the Palestinian Ministry of Education, receives nearly one hundred government school visits every year.
Britain’s extensive connections to the Palestinian Museum
Wikipedia says “The Palestinian Museum" is a “flagship project" of a non-profit organization which claims to develop Palestinian “humanitarian projects". This NGO calls itself the Welfare Association (Taawon). It has a counterpart of the same name in the UK which is recognized as a charity - registered with the Charity Commission of England & Wales under Reg. No. 1020238. As a charity (sic), Taawon UK is exempt from British tax on donations it passes to the Palestinian Arab terror-glorifying museum.
The British Council (britishcouncil.org) also funds the Palestinian Museum, according to the museum website. The Council’s function is to “support peace".
Their “Patron" is His Majesty King Charles III, the King of England.
The UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has also funded the Palestinian Museum.
The Palestinian Museum held an entire "Conservation for Digitisation" project in collaboration with the British Library - which is “the national library of the UK."
In 2022 the Palestinian Museum established a textile conservation studio in collaboration with the UK's famous Victoria and Albert Museum - which is funded by the British Government. V & A officials gushed about “colour schemes of red, green, black and white - the colours of the Palestinian flag" which, they said, were “an embroidered message of resistance".
The first Director General of the Palestinian Museum, Mahmoud Hawari, was the Lead Curator of the British Museum. Was he unaware of any of the terror glorification content? Hard to believe.
Will Britain put a stop to this?
Much has been written about the anti-Israel bias of the BBC. Britain is boycotting Israeli products claiming false charges of "settler violence." it turns out, however, that British policies include actual turning of a blind eye to glorification of real, proven, admitted Arab terrorism -- not just anti-Israel policy.
Now that this is all out in the open - will anyone put a stop to it?
Sadly, that is not at all clear. We shall just have to wait and see.