A U.S. Senate hearing this past Thursday examined whether US financial support to the PA is helping fund hate indoctrination. Itamar Marcus, of the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) watchdog organization, and Morton A. Klein, President of the Zionist Organization of American, were among those who testified.
Marcus, whose organization has long documented hatred and incitement disseminated by the Palestinian Authority, described at the hearing the many means by which the PA indoctrinates children with the "values" of hatred against Israel, violence and suicide terrorism. The hearing opened with the screening of a 20-minute PMW video documentary entitled "Ask for Death" - depicting how the PA has indoctrinated its children to seek Shahada - martyrdom - through music videos and other means. The video can be seen at here.
The hearing was held on October 30, by the Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. The subcommittee is chaired by Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa), and Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), who is not a subcommittee member, also took an active part in the hearing. She requested to participate after having met with Mr. Marcus and seeing documentation of the nature of PA indoctrination. Speaking at the hearing, and in a subsequent conference call with reporters, Ms. Clinton strongly denounced recent PA broadcasts featuring children praising terrorism and declaring their desire to become martyrs.
Excerpts from Marcus' testimony before the subcommittee,
"...This incitement is advanced by the PA through the entire social-educational structure, including sporting events and summer camps, and the media including music videos for children and schoolbooks. Jews and Judaism are presented as inherently evil, Israel's existence as a state is de-legitimized and denied, and fighting Jews and Judaism is presented as justified and heroic.
"The PA Ministries of Education and Sport have turned the most abhorrent murderers of Jews into role models and heroes for Palestinian youth. [For instance, a] tournament for 11-year-old boys was named for Abd Al-Baset Odeh - the terrorist who murdered 30 in the Passover Seder suicide bombing. This past summer, during the period of the US-sponsored Road Map, numerous summer camps were named for suicide bombers... As recently as September this year, PA Chairman Arafat and 13 PA leaders jointly sponsored a soccer tournament honoring arch terrorists... Each of the 24 soccer teams was named for a terrorist or other Shahids [Martyrs], including some of the most infamous murderers like Yichye Ayash, the first Hamas bomb engineer, who initiated the suicide bombings...
"While music videos around the world are used to entertain children, in the PA they are used to indoctrinate children to hatred, violence, and Shahada. Regularly-broadcast PA music videos have actors depicting Israelis carrying out execution-style murders of old men, women and children, or blowing up mothers with their babies. In one music video broadcast continuously in 2003, actors portray a woman being murdered in cold blood in front of her daughter. In another, broadcast tens of times in 2003, the image of a young girl on a swing turns into a flaming inferno, and a football blows up after being kicked by a child. Children are taught through these videos not only to hate and to be violent, but are openly encouraged to aspire to death through Shahada [Martyrdom]. Clips designed to offset a child's natural fear of death, portraying child Shahada as both heroic and tranquil, have appeared on PA TV thousands of times over three years. One clip for children ends with the words: 'Ask for Death - the Life will be Given to you.' In another, a child writes a farewell letter and goes off to die. Children who have achieved death through suicide missions have been turned into PA heroes and role models by the PA leaders.
"The hatred, anti-Semitism and Shahada-encouragement appear in the PA schoolbooks as well. The poem The Shahid in a new PA schoolbook includes the phrase: 'I see my death, but I hasten my steps toward it' [Our Beautiful Language, grade 7, p. 97]... This education will perpetuate the conflict into the next generation.
"It is important to note that the PA is making use of foreign funding to promote this hatred among its children. Summer camps named for suicide bombers this summer were funded by UNICEF. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 22, 2003]. Renovation of a school named for Dalal Maghrabi, a terrorist who participated in the murder of 36 including an American, was funded by USAID [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 30, 2002]. And whereas the PA announced two days later that they had changed the name in order to receive the USAID funding, PA press reports indicated that the name was still being used. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, August 16, 2002].
"The following concrete steps should be taken by the PA immediately:
* Music videos promoting hatred, violence, and Shahada must never again be broadcast on PA TV.
* The practice of naming schools, cultural events, educational programs, sport events and trophies after terrorists and suicide bombers must cease. Educational institutions and cultural frameworks currently named for terrorists must be changed.
* PA children must be taught that Israel is a legitimate country with a right to exist.
* There is no greater incitement against Israel's legitimacy as a state, than to mark the word Palestine, or occupied Palestine, in place of Israel on all maps in the PA. These maps must be removed from Palestinian schools, schoolbooks and TV broadcasting and be replaced by maps that show Israel by name in Arabic...
* The hatred and anti-Semitism in the PA schoolbooks must be removed..."
The PLO/PA representative in Washington, Hassan Abdel Rahman, also testified. He initially claimed that the PMW film's translations of PA schoolbooks and speeches are "mistranslations." When challenged by the Senators on this point, Rahman then claimed that even if they were not mistranslated, "they are just expressions of religious belief, and it does not matter what they are saying, if it's a religious belief."
ZOA President Klein's testimony refuted a number of Rahman's allegations. In one dramatic example, in response to Rahman's claim that the PA wants to live in peace with Israel, Klein held up a piece of Rahman's own official PA stationery, which shows a map of all of Israel labeled "Palestine."
In response to Rahman's claim that most people in America and Israel support the creation of a PA state, Klein cited a recent McLaughlin poll showing 71% of Americans opposing such a state, and a recent Geocartography poll showing that 61% of Israelis opposing it.
In response to Rahman's claim that most PA Arabs oppose terrorism, Klein cited polls showing that roughly 70% of them support suicide bombings. He also noted a poll taken earlier this month that found that 59% of PA Arabs support continuing violence against Israel, even if Israel surrenders all of Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and eastern Jerusalem.
Refuting Rahman's claim that Israel had stolen Arab lands from "Palestine," Klein explained that there never was an independent country called Palestine, and challenged Rahman to "name one Palestinian king or queen." Rahman did not respond.