PA
journalist:
"A mother brushes her young son's hair
at 7:00, so that he will be killed at 7:30."
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook - June 26, 2007
A Palestinian journalist has expressed despair about the society of
death worship in Gaza. In so doing, he has corroborated PMW findings
documenting the death culture promoted in Palestinian Authority education.
The journalist wrote:
“We knew that they would do
it, especially in Gaza, where a mother brushes her young son's hair
at 7:00, so that he will be killed at 7:30, and where the children
learn that death is preferable to life! We knew that they would do
this, it was clear to us: with language overflowing with the rhetoric
of death and the norms of killing, in the religious rulings [Fatwas]
and in Friday and holiday sermons.”
[Ghassan Zaqtan, Al-Ayyam, June18, 2007]
The journalist's critical mistake is that
he seems to attribute the death culture only to Hamas, whereas it has
been the Fatah leadership and education that initiated and still actively
teach that death is preferable to life.
For example, a Palestinian Authority schoolbook
written by Fatah educators teaches 13- and 14-year-olds literally to
prefer death over life, while it is the "enemies" who cherish
life:
“O heroes, Allah has promised
you victory ... Do not talk yourselves into flight…Your
enemies seek life while you seek death. They seek spoils
to fill their empty stomachs while you seek a Garden [Paradise] as
wide as are the heavens and the earth. Do not be anxious to meet them
[enemies], for death is not bitter in the mouth of the believers.
These drops of blood that gush from your bodies will be transformed
tomorrow into blazing red meteors that will fall down upon the heads
of your enemies." [Reading and Texts Part II, Grade 8 (2002),
p. 16]
The words introducing this poem are: "Read
and enjoy."
PMW has been alerting the world in numerous
reports since November 2000 that the PA has been indoctrinating children
to see death as preferable to life. Senator Hillary Clinton severely
criticized this PA education when she introduced PMW's latest report
on PA schoolbooks earlier this year:
"When we viewed this report
[on PA textbooks] in combination with other media that these children
are exposed to, it basically, profoundly poisons the minds of these
children."
[Press conference introducing PMW report, US Senate, February 8, 2007]
The Director of the Palestinian Children’s
Aid Association, Firial Hillis, explained that it was an integral part
of the official educational policy to educate young children to aspire
to Shahada – Martyr's death. These are her words:
“The concept of Shahada
for him [the child] means belonging to the homeland, from a religious
point of view. Sacrifice for his homeland. Achieving Shahada
in order to reach Paradise and to meet his God. This is the best.
We also teach our children to protect the homeland, belonging and
to reach Shahada”. [PATV, May 4, 2003]
Click to view video on YouTube
or PMW website
Music videos that have run
thousands of times on PA TV have reinforced this message to children
to aspire to Shahada.
The following are some examples:
1. In a video broadcast on Fatah-controlled
Palestinian Authority TV hundreds of times from 2001 to 2004, a young
boy leaves a farewell letter to his parents and goes off to seek Shahada,
describing the death he achieves as "sweet." This PA clip
is designed to offset a child's natural fear of death by depicting Shahada
as heroic and tranquil.
Click to view video on YouTube
or PMW website
2. From 2000 to 2003, PA TV broadcast a music
video depicting the delightful Shahid paradise of Muhammad
Al-Dura, who died in a crossfire. The child actor is shown flying a
kite, frolicking on the beach and even at an amusement park. The clip
opens with an invitation to other children from Al-Dura to aspire to
death: "I am waving to you not in parting, but to say 'follow me'."
This video directing children to follow Al-Dura to paradise as Martyrs
was suddenly broadcast again in June 2006, after Israeli troops had
gathered at the border of the Gaza Strip after the kidnapping of Israeli
soldier Gilad Shalit.
Click to view video on YouTube
or PMW website
The result of such virulent PA indoctrination
is apparent, when listening to the interview on PA TV with two 11-year-old
Palestinian girls talking about Shahada and describing it as
a primary ideal and personal goal. They explain that "all Palestinian
children" view Shahada as more worthwhile than living,
because of its promised grand Afterlife.
Click to view video on YouTube
or PMW website
Christian monastery attacked in Gaza
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
- June 19, 2007
During the recent fighting
in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah, the Christian community in Gaza was
also targeted. The Palestinian paper Al-Ayyam reported that
“Armed masked men… stole, destroyed and burned down a monastery
and a church school in Gaza, after they bombed the main gate with RPG
shells… they destroyed the main gate of the monastery with an
RPG shell, and then entered the church and destroyed everything in the
monastery: The crosses, the holy books, computers and photocopy machines."
They appeared to be members of Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, however,
the Hamas has directed the blame at the Palestinian Authority police.
It should be noted that while this may have been a Hamas attack on the
church, the Christian community has been suffering under Fatah rule
as well. Ever since the West Bank cities were given over from Israel
to the Palestinian Authority the Christian population has been living
under very difficult conditions.
Palestinian writer Khaled
Abu Toameh recently reported in The Jerusalem Post on the ruin
of the Christian community of Bethlehem:
"The conditions
of Christians in Bethlehem and its surroundings had deteriorated ever
since the area was handed over [from Israel] to the PA in 1995….
'Every day we hear of another Christian family that has immigrated
to the US, Canada or Latin America… The Christians today make
up less than 15 percent of the population'… "Samir Qumsiyeh
[said]: "I believe that 15 years from now there will be no Christians
left in Bethlehem."
When the West Bank was under Israeli
administration the Christian population of Bethlehem was over 60%.
This attack on the Gaza church, though
more aggressive than the actions in Bethlehem, seem to be part of a
Palestinian pattern of marginalizing the Christian community.
The article from Al-Ayyam appears below. As the story of
the Christian community in Bethlehem is important for the understanding
of the Christian predicament under the Palestinian Authority, The
Jerusalem Post article has likewise been reprinted below.
Al-Ayyam, June 18, 2007
Armed masked men, said to be part of Al-Qassam [Hamas] Operational
Force, stole, destroyed and burned down a monastery and a church school
in Gaza, after they bombed the main gate with RPG shells…
Father Manuel Muslem, the leader of the Latin community in Gaza, said
that the armed men who carried all sorts of weapons, including machine
guns and RPG launchers, burst in to the monastery and the Al-Wardiya
Church school yesterday after they destroyed the main gate of the
monastery with an RPG shell, and then entered the church and destroyed
everything in the monastery: The crosses, the holy books, computers
and photocopy machines… And he explained that the damage caused
to the monastery, only on the inside, will require over 100,000 Jordanian
Dinar to restore, all the more so the walls and the outer gates which
were damaged by the shells and were entirely destroyed.
Muslem indicated that he got a phone
call from President Mahmoud Abbas, who expressed his identification
and his love for the people of the Christian community… similarly,
President Abbas promised the church that the [Palestinian] Authority
will be the faithful protector to its people, without differentiating
between a Christian and a Muslim.
In a response to the blame directed
at the [Hamas] Al-Qassam Brigades and the Operational Force…
the spokesman of the Operational Force, Islam Shahwan, said that the
events of theft, destruction and burning of some of the institutions
are absolutely not part of the values and measures of our people…
[That] those who attacked the Al-Wardiya
Church school wore the clothes of the Operational Force and bore symbols
saying “Al-Qassam,” Shahwan explained that, concerning
the Al-Qassam Brigades, since there was a agreement with them, and
they completely left the street, only men of the Operational Force
and of the Palestinian police stayed there. He denied [the claim]
that this destructive way is the way of the Operational Force.
[Al-Ayyam, June 18, 2007]
The Jerusalem Post
Bethlehem Christians claim persecution
Jan. 25, 2007
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
A number of Christian families have finally decided to break their
silence and talk openly about what they describe as Muslim persecution
of the Christian minority in this city. The move comes as a result
of increased attacks on Christians by Muslims over the past few months.
The families said they wrote letters to Palestinian Authority Chairman
Mahmoud Abbas, the Vatican, Church leaders and European governments
complaining about the attacks, but their appeals have fallen on deaf
ears. According to the families, many Christians have long been afraid
to complain in public about the campaign of "intimidation"
for fear of retaliation by their Muslim neighbors and being branded
"collaborators" with Israel. But following an increase in
attacks on Christian-owned property in the city over the past few
months, some Christians are no longer afraid to talk about the ultra-sensitive
issue. And they are talking openly about leaving the city.
"The situation is very dangerous," said Samir Qumsiyeh,
owner of the Beit Sahur-based private Al-Mahd (Nativity) TV station.
"I believe that 15 years from now there will be no Christians
left in Bethlehem. Then you will need a torch to find a Christian
here. This is a very sad situation." Qumsiyeh, one of the few
Christians willing to speak about the harsh conditions of their community,
has been the subject of numerous death threats. His house was recently
attacked with fire-bombs, but no one was hurt.
Qumsiyeh said he has documented more than 160 incidents of attacks
on Christians in the area in recent years. He said a monk was recently
roughed up for trying to prevent a group of Muslim men from seizing
lands owned by Christians in Beit Sahur.
Thieves have targeted the homes of many Christian families and a "land
mafia" has succeeded in laying its hands on vast areas of land
belonging to Christians, he added.
Fuad and Georgette Lama woke up one morning last September to discover
that Muslims from a nearby village had fenced off their family's six-dunam
plot in the Karkafa suburb south of Bethlehem.
"A lawyer and an official with the Palestinian Authority just
came and took our land," said 69-year-old Georgette Lama.
The couple was later approached by senior PA security officers who
offered to help them kick out the intruders from the land. "We
paid them $1,000 so they could help us regain our land," she
said, almost in tears.
"Instead of giving us back our land, they simply decided to keep
it for themselves. They even destroyed all the olive trees and divided
the land into small plots, apparently so that they could offer each
for sale."
When her 72-year-old husband, Fuad, went to the land to ask the intruders
to leave, he was severely beaten and threatened with guns. "My
husband is after heart surgery and they still beat him," Georgette
Lama said. "These people have no heart. We're afraid to go to
our land because they will shoot at us. Ever since the beating, my
husband is in a state of trauma and has difficulties talking."
The Lamas have since knocked on the doors of scores of PA officials
in Bethlehem seeking their intervention, but to no avail. At one stage,
they sent a letter to Abbas, who promised to launch an investigation.
"We heard that President Mahmoud Abbas is taking our case very
seriously," said Georgette Lama. "But until now he hasn't
done anything to help us get our land back. We are very concerned
because we're not the only ones suffering from this phenomenon. Most
Christians are afraid to speak, but I don't care because we have nothing
more to lose."
The couple's Christian neighbor, Edward Salama, said the problem in
the city was the absence of law and order. "We are living in
a state of chaos and lawlessness," he said. "The police
are afraid of the thugs who are taking our lands." Salama expressed
deep concern over the conditions of Christians in Bethlehem, noting
that many were leaving the country as a result of the deterioration.
"When I see what's happening to Christians here, I worry a lot
for our future," he said. "They are targeting Christians,
because we are seen as weak."
The Lamas said they decided to go public with the hope that the international
community would intervene with the PA to halt the land-grab. "We
will fight and fight until we recover our land," Fuad Lama said.
"We will resort to the courts and to the public opinion for help.
"Unfortunately, Christian leaders and spokesmen are afraid to
talk about the problems we are facing. We know of three other Christian
families - Salameh, Kawwas and Asfour - whose lands were also illegally
seized by Muslims."
A Christian businessman who asked not to be identified said the conditions
of Christians in Bethlehem and its surroundings had deteriorated ever
since the area was handed over to the PA in 1995. "Every day
we hear of another Christian family that has immigrated to the US,
Canada or Latin America," he said. "The Christians today
make up less than 15 percent of the population."
People are running away because the Palestinian government isn't doing
anything to protect them and their property against Muslim thugs.
Of course not all the Muslims are responsible, but there is a general
feeling that Christians have become easy prey."
From the Nile to the Euphrates -
PA continuous libel (1997 -2007)
about secret plan to conquer Arab nation
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook - June 12, 2007
 Lies and libels have been
used for many years by the Palestinian Authority to present Israel as
a dangerous existential threat to the Arab and Muslim world. One of the
repeating libels, that Israel is planning to conquer Arab lands, including
lands in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia – “from
the Euphrates until the Nile” – was repeated this week in the PA daily
Al-Ayyam.
For many years
the Palestinian Authority (PA) has promoted this “Euphrates to the Nile”
libel, and below PMW has cited more than 20 additional Palestinian references
in recent years. As with all effective propaganda, detailed fictitious
allegations are often advocated to make the lie sound credible.
The following are some of these PA fabrications:
-
The term
"From the Nile to the Euphrates your land, oh Israel,” is written
above the gates of the Knesset.
-
The term
"The Nile to the Euphrates” appears on Israeli money
-
The two
blue stripes on the Israeli flag represent the Nile and the Euphrates
and the Star of David represents the state of Israel.
-
Israeli
children in school are taught through repetition of the expression:
“Land of Israel -from the Nile to the Euphrates.”
 Repeatedly presenting Israel
as a country that plans to expand and destroy other countries is an integral
part of Palestinian hate promotion. Palestinians are more likely to feel
justified fighting and killing Israelis when it is presented as an act
of self-defense. The repetition of this charge over so many years should
categorize this almost as an ideology.
This week the
PA presented the "Nile to the Euphrates” libel again as an principle so
intrinsic to the State of Israel it is said to be written above the gates
of the Knesset: “From the Euphrates until the Nile, your land
oh Israel.”
Former Israeli PM,
Ariel Sharon, on a map of Mid-East
looking at the Nile.Caption: "From the Euphrates to."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 5, 2003]
Below
is this latest version of this libel, and more than 20 other references
from among the many times this libel has been made in the past:
Click here to see previous
PMW reports on Lies and Libels
A video clip
which has been airing on PA TV since 2001 depicts a classroom of Jewish
children wearing kippot (religious skullcaps) in front of the Israeli
flag, repeating after a teacher: “The Land of Israel from the Nile
to the Euphrates”. The video clip is shown as if were an actual
classroom in an Israeli school. The child actors speak Hebrew
.[PA TV, since January 31, 2001]
Click here
to see the video
"In 1967,
it [Israel] occupied all that was left of Palestine in addition to the
larger Arab territory... before initiating the third stage, in order
to make the slogan written on the top of the gates of the Knesset come
true: “From the Euphrates until the Nile, your land
oh Israel.”
[Al-Ayyam, June 4, 2007]
“…The Zionists’
aspirations are not limited to Palestine from the sea to the river,
and not to Egypt and the Sha’am lands [includes parts of Syria, Lebanon,
Jordan and Israel], extending to Iraq and Al-Medina, or from the Euphrates
to the Nile … the idea of ‘the greater Middle East’ includes
[lit: swallows] many countries in the Islamic world…”
[Al-Risalah, December 7, 2006]
Political
sciences lecturer, Dr. Hamd Al-Fara claims that “Israel already realized
with success its dream to be from the Nile to the Euphrates
– since, currently, Israelis from the Mossad [Israeli secret service]
are in Iraq, and there is an Israeli embassy in Egypt.”
[PA TV, July 7, 2006]
“The Israelis
think in a completely different way. They think that the problem is
summarized with how to get away with the loot they looted during unusual
circumstances, in the near and distant past, that is the land of Palestine
they hold serves as a departure point to the [territory] between the
Euphrates and the Nile.”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nihad Munir Al-Rees, March 20, 2006]
Barakat Al-Fara
of the PLO, former Palestinian deputy ambassador to Egypt:
“The June 67 war took place and emphasized that the Zionist enemy did
not set as a goal only Palestine, but it set as a goal the Arab nation,
from the ocean to the gulf, and it plans a Jewish state which will spread
out from the Nile to the Euphrates…”
[PA TV, January 1, 2006]
“There is
a fairy tale or a slogan of the global Zionist movement which states
that the borders of Israel are from the Euphrates to the Nile.
When [the settlements] were destroyed, and when the settlers were banished
from the settlements, the Palestinian people, all the free people and
all Arabs erased this fairy tale.”
[PA TV, August 5, 2005]
“There is
no escape, but to clarify to the world that our enemies, that Zionism
in particular, yearn to establish their state to control the world from
east to west, and not the greater state of Israel from the Euphrates
to the Nile, but they stare and want to establish their state
over the entire planet earth.”
[PA TV, June 18, 2004]
“The Arabs
and Muslims must consolidate a political-military defense strategy,
in which the armed masses will participate… I emphasize the word ‘defense’…
for taking a defensive stance and a defensive initiative, which are
meant to prevent the most dangerous and the worst [thing] of all, that
is seen in the horizon, that is approaching comes from the United States,
that is allowing Israel to establish the Israeli empire from the Euphrates
to the Nile including the city of Medina [the second most sacred
site in Islam, the burial site of the Prophet Muhammad].”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, September 22, 2003]
Headline:
“Why are the Palestinians committed to the Hudna [ceasefire] and the
Roadmap, and the Israelis are acting as opposed to it?” by international
law lecturer, Dr. Hana Isah:
“There is no doubt that the politicians in Israel are not interested
in stability, and as a result, they escape from any agreement we will
sign with them, since their goal is to extend their theft and their
arrogant repression with all that concerns Palestine… ‘The land of Israel
from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates, from Lebanon to
the Nile.’ This slogan is the basis which drives the foundation
of Israel since the foundation of the Zionist movement until today,
and the future.”
[Al-Hayat Al’Jadida, August 10, 2003]
[Ahmad Halas
Abu-Maher, Fatah secretary in the Gaza Strip] confirms the matters:
“We are not only fighting for the Palestinian people. We are fighting
in defense of the Arab nation and on this region, in which every people
is a target for Israeli aggression. The slogan of Israel is ‘from the
Nile to the Euphrates,’ in geographic terms. But in
terms of its interests, Israel is larger than that. It extends to the
entire Arab and Muslim territory. Therefore, when we are fighting and
being killed in Gaza and Jenin, it is for the sake of the entire Arab
nation.”
[PA TV, July 29, 2002]
Abu-Karsh:
“Even the Israeli flag, the blue line and the second blue line, and
the Star of David in the middle, this is what is between the two rivers,
that is the Nile and the Euphrates.”
Abu-Sharakh: “The Zionist project still exists. They want a greater
state of Israel from the Euphrates to the Nile. If
it will not happen in the next 50 years, they will ask [to make it come
true] within the next hundred years, until their hopes and their aspirations
in establishing a greater state of Israel will be realized. And this
must be understood by the Arab nation and the entire world… They [Israelis]
think about the state of Israel from the Euphrates to the Nile
as something that cannot be avoided. From the Euphrates to the
Nile.”
[PA TV, July 17, 2002]
“The Zionists
are behind the plot aiming to disconnect the rivers that extend from
outside the Arab homeland in, such as the Euphrates and the
Nile. The Zionists stole the Palestinian water and founded
projects that transferred the water from the north to southern areas.
They control the southern waters and steal them, and established the
settlements above the water sources.”
[PA TV, March 22, 2002]
“Zionism decided
in the Basel committee in 1897 that Israel will be established between
the Nile and the Euphrates, and this is what Israel
aspires to realize. Therefore, every piece of land that we achieve is
a withdrawal from the Zionist idea.”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, February 11, 2002]
“The Hebrew
state adopted an official flag – a blue Star of David (symbolizing the
state of Israel), between two blue lines symbolizing the Nile
River and the Euphrates which the Zionist movement viewed as
its borders.”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, October 28, 2001]
“Poor Israel:
Its primitive, childish dream “the land of Israel from the Nile
to the Euphrates” is reduced to a flag with a Star of David
and two blue lines, one of them is the Nile, in the imagination, and
the other is the disappointing Euphrates. These two lines will approach
inwards, and will squeeze the Star of David until it bursts. This is
what it [Israel] chose for itself…”
[“The Voice of Women” in Al-Ayyam, July 19, 2001]
“… All the
killing is followed by an intensive bombing of the national security
outposts… what does it mean if not a declaration of an encompassing
war on the Palestinian people, if not the determination to realize the
constant goal of Zionism, of extending the occupation territory as far
as possible, from the Euphrates to the Nile…”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 19, 2001]
Friday sermon
by preacher Dr. Muhammad Madi:
“Arabs and Muslims! The Zionist slogan, the slogan of the Jews’ state
in Palestine – from the Nile to the Euphrates. It is
written in their books and on their coins…”
[PA TV, May 4, 2001]
“The Palestinians
view the Israeli flag as a symbol for the greater Jewish state that
spreads out from the Nile to the Euphrates according
to the Zionist dream: the two blue lines symbolize the two rivers, and
the Star of David between them is the symbol of the state. The Palestinians
pride themselves in their flag with the four colors, which represents
the blood, the war, and the peace…”
[Al-Ayyam, May 14, 2000]
“A strategy
was consolidated by some of the ones who hold a Jewish perspective,
which was subsequently known as ‘Zionism’ aiming to establish a national
homeland for the Jews in Palestine – or according to the traditional
idea which sets the borders of the state of Israel from the Nile
to the Euphrates.”
[Al-Ayyam, February 12, 2000]
Hussein Abu-Shanab:
“The map storm reminds us of the three superpowers [that emerged] in
the [original] map in the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’… Herzl sent
a furious letter to these nations and demanded they change the mandatory
borders of Palestine so that they include the Litany River, that is
‘from the water to the water’ – [a slogan] expressed by the poster spread
over the Knesset ‘from the Euphrates to the Nile.’
Sharon’s declarations to journalists following the Palestinian-Israeli-American
triple-meeting were for abolishing the process… considering that the
historical homeland, according to the Zionist perspective, is from the
Nile to the Euphrates…”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, December 21, 1997]
To see other examples from PMW's
archives click
here
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