Palestinian Authority libel:

Israel encourages PA child terror
for PR gain
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, March 25, 2004

Introduction
The standard policy of the official Palestinian Authority (PA) daily Al Hayat Al Jadida is to twist and distort news stories in order to portray the Palestinians as victims, regardless of the facts. Now, with the world's increased awareness of the role of Palestinian children in suicide terror, the PA has created a libel against Israel that again attempts to turn Palestinians into victims.

Today's official daily described as a "lie" Israel's report on yesterday's suicide terror attempt by a 14 year old. The Israeli report, documented on TV and broadcast around the world, shows a young Palestinian boy wearing an explosive belt. Israeli soldiers guide the boy to safely remove the bomb belt.

Last week Israeli soldiers stopped a 10 year old who carried a suicide belt planted by Palestinian terrorists without his knowledge. That, too, was called a lie by the PA daily.

Most interesting, though, is the reason the Palestinian Authority has given for the Israeli "lie." According to the PA, Israel creates lies about PA child terror in order to encourage other Palestinian children to be involved in terror, which in turn helps Israeli PR.

The following is the PA explanation of "Israel's lie" as it appeared in the PA daily:

"The occupation, [Israel] in this situation and with this lie, is playing with its own blood, and it is like they are encouraging children to go from stone throwing to use of explosives, and involvement in actions which are beyond them. Israel's focusing accusations about children [in suicide terror] is in fact an open invitation to other children to imitate the accusations, because it is characteristic of children to blindly imitate. The occupation's [Israel's] public relations gain through this false accusation may come back as a boomerang, but it is clear in this case that the occupation is striving to plan public relations lies. "
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida March 18, 2004]

In this way the PA is once again misrepresenting itself as victim instead of perpetrator.

PA Media's "New Sharon":
Weak and Defeated
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, March 17, 2004

Introduction
The Palestinian Authority (PA) media has dramatically changed its portrayal of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon since he announced his plan to unilaterally leave the Gaza Strip.

The PA media had always depicted Sharon as the cruel and inhuman killer of Palestinians, from Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon, until today. Now he is depicted as "Sharon the defeated" and "Sharon the weak," who is extremely vulnerable. This change in image can be seen vividly in this week's political cartoons, which are already showing a new, beaten Sharon.

The following four political cartoons from the official PA daily, two published before his retreat plan and two published this week, demonstrate Sharon's changed image:

Before the proposed plan: Sharon the cruel and inhuman, who eats Palestinians alive
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, February 24, 2003	Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 13, 2001
After the proposed plan: Sharon the weak and defeated, is eaten alive
Text on shark: "Gaza" Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 15, 2004	Text on water: "Gaza" Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 13, 2004

PA: Blaming Israel, US for Arab Terror
Itamar Marcus, March 12, 2004

Introduction
Blaming Israel and the West for all the defects in Palestinian and Arab societies is a standard practice of the Palestinian elite, who try to deflect responsibility for the difficult conditions they have inflicted on their people. In addition to blaming Israel for hardships in general, they accuse Israel of being responsible for acts of terror, corruption, killings, drug abuse, etc., for which they themselves are culpable.

This week saw a series of blatant libels in the Palestinian Authority-controlled news media that fit into this continuing pattern. On the social level, the imprisonment  of Palestinian women was blamed on Israel. On the terror front, two terror attacks by Arabs killing Arabs in Israel and Iraq were blamed on Israel and the US.

Women in the PA Last week PMW reported on the widespread acceptance of discrimination against women in PA society, as documented by a Palestinian poll of school children. If anything, Israel had a positive influence on the conditions of women in Gaza and the West Bank in the years before the Oslo Accords. Yet the cartoon published in the official daily Al Hayat Al Jadida [above] marking "International Women's Day " libels Israel as the one imprisoning Palestinian women by having the women trapped by chains made of the Star of David.

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 9, 2004]

 

"Yesterday two members of the Palestinian National Security were killed during a bombing by the occupying forces near the Bet Hanoun crossing. " [PATV news, Mar. 7, 2004]

"The USA does not miss any chance to ignite the ethnic fire in Iraq & Iraq, for them, is a theater for terrorist acts and experiments through which [they] can spread religious wars among the Islamic countries from the Atlantic Ocean and to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Indonesia, or what Washington considers the Big Middle East. The massacres of Karbala and Kazemiya are none but the beginning of more and larger massacres, which will reach every Arab and Muslim country in this Big East, if America will succeed in committing this devil's plan. "[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Mar. 7, 2004]

"..An Israeli intelligence officer periodically visited the house of one of the bombers from Jerusalem, Yousuf A-Saghir & [and] one of the Israeli [intelligence] agencies is responsible for the explosion, as occurred in the throwing of two hand grenades at a bus stop in Be er Sheva several weeks ago & The Palestinian security agencies have several indications of the existence of an external party behind the last action and the series of actions that occurred lately that have a political goal to embarrass the Palestinian Authority &
[After] the latest military action [suicide attack] by the "Islamic Jihad "... Ibrahim Al Halabi who recruited the two bombers and planned the attack, [Halabi] confirmed that he works for the Israeli Intelligence and that he planned the attack at their request ..."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 8, 1998]

"The "Mossad" is among us.. I think that there is the smallest chance that these attacks [series of bombings in Turkey] were planned by "Hizbullah" (of Turkey) or "Alqaida"... Right after the [earlier] bombing in the two Synagogues, without going through the check points in Ataturk airport, ... team members of ZAKA [Israel's disaster victim identification organization] arrived ... Does anyone here know the contents of their suitcases? Several days later, we lost 12 Martyrs in Eastern Turkey." [Al-Ayyam, Nov. 30, 2003]

"Hidden Zionists hands are still acting in France in the same way they used to act in Arab countries- Iraq, Egypt and Morocco, blowing up and attacking Jews and Jewish synagogues in order to force them [the Jews] to immigrate [to Israel]. Lately there was an attack on a synagogue, so the Israeli ambassador in France called for the Jews in France to immigrate [to Israel]. There are Israeli or Zionist hands that carry out attacks against the Jews to force them to immigrate [to Israel] since Israel suffers from emigration." [Hafez Barghouty, editor of PA daily on PA TV, January 5, 2004]

PA Minister Saeb Erekat's Duplicity:
Glorify Suicide Terrorism in Arabic,
Condemn it in English
Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, March 4, 2004

The Palestinian Authority's (PA) chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, is the latest PA official to demonstrate that PA leaders send one message to their people in Arabic and an entirely different message to the world media in English.

This week's news includes a striking example of this duplicity. Upon hearing that three Palestinian children, aged 13, 14 and 16, were caught by Israel on the way to a suicide mission, Erekat was quick to create the impression for the English media that the PA opposes such actions.

"That´s absolutely unacceptable," Erekat told the Associated Press. "Our children should have hope and a future and should not be suicide bombers. We want them to be doctors and engineers."

The great hypocrisy of Erekat's statement is that he and the PA leadership have been the driving force indoctrinating PA children to aspire to Shahada - Death for Allah. As PMW has reported, it was only a few months ago that Erekat and other top PA leaders, including Yasser Arafat, sponsored a soccer tournament honoring 24 Shahids ("Islamic Martyrs"), including such arch-terrorists as Yechya Ayash, the first Hamas suicide-bomb maker, who masterminded the Palestinian suicide bombings; Adin Al Kassam, the name of the suicide terrorist wing of the Hamas; Raid Carmi, a regional head of a suicide terrorist unit; Jamal Mansour of Hamas; and Salah Drowza of Hamas.

As a sponsor, Saeb Erekat was present at the tournament honoring the terrorists, and personally distributed the trophies. [Al Ayyam, Sept. 21, 2003, Al Quds, Sept. 29, 2003]

The coverage by the PA media of the foiled suicide mission is also telling. Although all three PA dailies -- Al Hayat Al Jadida, Al Ayyam and Al Quds -- covered the capture of the teenagers, there were no reports in these papers or in other PA Arabic media of any comments by Erekat opposing the idea of teenagers as suicide bombers.

So while in English, Erekat's diversion for the media is, "We want them to be doctors and engineers," in their real world, Palestinian children see suicide terrorists as the role models created for them by Erekat and the PA leadership. We have yet to read that Erekat or the PA has sponsored a tournament named for doctors and engineers.

Finally, two additional PA reactions to the capture of the three teenagers are noteworthy:

1. "The Prisoner's Club called on all the legal institutions to act to stop [Israel's] policy of arresting children and minors... which is a violation of all conventions and international humanitarian agreements." [Al Ayyam March 3, 2004]

2. The parents of the three "called for legal and humanitarian organizations to intervene for their release so that they could continue their education." [Al Ayyam March 3, 2004]

Instead of focusing on why the teenagers were arrested, they present these would-be assassins as victims -- just as Palestinian society, at the same time that it promotes and glorifies terror, continues to present itself as the victim.

• MUSIC VIDEOS the PA produced and broadcast hundreds of times defining
  Shahada - death for Allah as "sweet".
  
• PMW bulletin on a soccer tournament for 12- year- old boys named
  for the suicide terrorist who killed 31 at Passover Seder
  
• PMW bulletins on summer camps named for woman suicide terrorists Wafa Idris
  and Ayyat Al Akhras

Poll: Palestinian children
favor discriminating
against women and minorities
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, March 1, 2004

Introduction
A poll of Palestinian high school students' attitudes towards women and minorities has revealed "alarming" opinions, according to the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam.The poll revealed a strong rejection of equality for women in society, with as many as 73 per cent of the students feeling that women should be limited to "traditional occupations."Opinions regarding political involvement are also problematic. A full 52 per cent reject a woman's right to "have position on a Municipal Local Council," while 23 per cent would deny women the right to vote in elections.Limiting women's freedom is likewise seen as acceptable by significant numbers of children. A third of Palestinian children surveyed believe that hitting a woman is "permissible under specified circumstances," and 23 per cent reject a woman's right to chose a husband "freely."Attitudes to minorities are also discriminatory. Sixty per cent of the students polled are unwilling to have a friend from a different religion, while 24 per cent do not want a friend with a different skin color.The poll was conducted by the ALPHA Institute for Research and Statistics, and was distributed by the Center for Women's Affairs in Gaza.

The following are the results of the poll: [Al-Ayyam, Feb. 19, 2004]

Palestinian Children's attitudes to women and minorities:

Limiting Women's Occupations:
"73% [Grades 9 and 12] agree to limit women's work to traditional occupations."
"16% [Grade 12] support women's right to work as taxi drivers."

Limiting Women's Freedom
"33% [Grade 12] believe that hitting a woman is permissible under specified circumstances."
"23% [Grade 9] do not accept a woman has the right to chose a life companion freely."
"32% [Grade 9] do not accept a woman's right to chose her own clothes."

Limiting Women's Political Involvement:
"52% [Grade 9] do not accept that women can have positions on a Municipal Local Council."
"37% [Grade 9] do not accept women's right to vote in elections."

Children's attitudes to different races, religion, sex and handicapped
"60% [Grade 12] expressed unwillingness to choose a friend who is not of their religion."
"24% [Grade 12] do not welcome the idea of friendship with others, who have a different skin color."
"51% [Grade 12] are not willing to choose a friend who is not of their sex."
"9% [Grade 12] do not welcome the idea of friendship with people from other countries."
"No more than 60% [Grade 9 and 12] favor handicapped rights in the areas of occupation, education, and presenting candidacy for elections."

Relentless PA Hate Incitement
against the US and the West
Itamar Marcus, February 27, 2004

Introduction
Despite continuing United States and Western European support for Palestinian political aspirations, the tightly-controlled official Palestinian Authority (PA) media relentlessly incites hatred and violence against the US and the West.

A principle of PA ideology is to present the various conflicts around the world involving Muslims and Arabs as part of a war between civilizations that the West led by the United States is fighting against Islam and the Arab world. They incite their people to support violence because the US "runs a dirty war against all that is Arab and Muslim. " As victims they, the Palestinians, will lead the war against the West. The editor of the official PA daily, echoing Bin Laden ideology , insists there exists a "American -European- Russian alliance ", promoting Muslim- Arab subjugation, and that the Palestinians are at the forefront of the war that will "shake the earth under the feet of the blood and oil sucking neo- imperialists, the thieves of natural resources murderers of nations. " [See full texts below.]

President Bush, in this global war context, is depicted not merely as a leader of the "enemy United States", but is the enemy of all civilization, the "Fuhrer of the globalization era, " a greater danger than Hitler, leading the world to destruction: "The new Fuhrer [Bush] will return the world to the Stone Age, " while Hitler only left "tens of millions of dead. "

Given this Palestinian ideological hatred against the US it is not surprising to find active opposition to tracking down the terrorists who murderered 3 Americans diplomats in Gaza in October. Both Arafat advisor Jibril Rajoub, and the Union of Palestinian Journalists called the American pressure on the PA to find the killers extortion.  The Journalists Union even condemned a PA daily for publishing a US State Department ad offering a reward for help in finding the terrorists. The ad was likewise called "extortion. " [See below]

As mentioned above, this anti American hatred continues at the very time that the US continues to give political and financial support to the PA. Indeed, the Palestinian editor had no trouble [or possibly it was intentional] placing the news item [cited above] rejecting PA co-operation in finding the murderers of the three Americans on the very same page as a large ad by USAID offering scholarships to Palestinian students. The great irony is that those three Americans murdered by Palestinians were in Gaza to grant USAID scholarships to Palestinians.

It is significant that the PA doesn't limit its hatred of the US to attacks on current US policy and leaders, but teaches as a recurring theme that America is rotten at the essence. The PA often delegitimizes America's founding years as the theft of land, and this week attacked the killing of "Indian children " by the early American settlers.

The total message the PA continues to send to its people is that the US and the West are paramount enemies of the Palestinians and the Arab world, and must be fought.

The following are selections from articles that incite hatred and violence against the US and the West that have appeared in recent weeks in the PA media.

1. Bush is "Fuhrer of the globalization era "
"The world stands today at the edge of a dangerous slope which threatens the destiny of all humanity. The President of the most powerful nation in the world suffers from megalomania and thinks he's a prophet. He uses military force to rearrange the world as he likes. &No doubt that the personality of President Bush will be juicy material for tens of psychology books, for he has many characteristics of historical figures that left a negative impact on course of global history lead by the Fuhrer of Germany, Adolf Hitler, and his Nazi and racist proclamations... The Cuban President, Fidel Castro who has deep knowledge of President Bush's history already called him "Fuhrer of the globalization era or the new world order. " But he forgot that the Fuhrer of Germany, Adolf Hitler, ruled [only] one state, with limited options at the stage where humanity hadn't reached its current level of frightening scientific and technological development. While [Bush] the "Fuhrer of the new world order " received the reins of an American empire with more than half the world's weapons of mass destruction, with frightening economic, financial, and technological potential. And while the German Fuhrer's adventure ended with tens of millions of dead and wounded, and partial destruction of several countries this adventure of the new Fuhrer [Bush] will return the world to the Stone Age. " [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 16, 2004]

2. Union of Palestinian Journalists and Jibril Rajoub:
US pressure to find murderers of Americans is "extortion " .
"The Union of Palestinian Journalists announced that it views with severity the steps of the Palestinian newspapers, who published paid advertisement on the fifth of this month, from the US State Department, announcing the reward of $5 million to anyone who will bring information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the attack [killing 3 Americans] ... The [Journalists] Union emphasized, that the advertisement is an affront to national sovereignty, and contributed to the state of extortion and the pressure that the US is applying against on the Palestinian Authority in this matter. "
[Al-Ayyam, Feb. 9, 2004]

"The security advisor of President Yasser Arafat, Jibril Rajoub ... blamed Washington for extortion in the affair of the killing of the three Americans in Gaza last October &[he said]: Count Bernadot was murdered in 1948 and to this day his murderers were not arrested and not brought to trial. Many Americans were murdered in Iraq and Afghanistan, without locating the murderers. Israel attacked an American ship in 1967 and those responsible were not brought to trial. Why do the Americans insist on extorting us ...? "[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 5, 2004]

3. The Palestinians will "shake the earth under the feet of the blood and oil sucking neo- imperialists " - the "American European Russian alliance "
"...The right wing lobby, [which] controls Washington and runs a dirty war against all that is Arab and Muslim. It is a Fascist right that formed an alliance with the Fascist Israeli Colonialists & The American European Russian alliance is acting to empty the International institutions, both the UN and the High Court of Justice, of their content ...
It may be that the Europeans think that the submission of the Arab regimes turned the Arab land to wasteland and that the subdued nations won't act against the neo-imperialism, but they are wrong. This is because the torch of struggle, which accompanies our nation for nearly a century against all types of imperialism, will not be extinguished, but [the Palestinian nation] will continue to lead the Arab nation and will continue to awaken the Arab nation to shake the earth under the feet of the blood and oil sucking neo- imperialists, the thieves of natural resources and murderers of nations. "[Editor in Chief, Hafez Al-Barghouti, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 6, 2004]

"... [Regarding fighting ] the American enemy ... the Arab land, in Palestine and Iraq in particular, will ignite under the feet of the intruders ...The political and military balance of power is not completely against the Arabs ...There are very vulnerable spots and internal crises that the Bush Sharon alliance suffer, and the Arab resistance is able on the various burning fronts ...to force this alliance to pay a dear price..."[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 9, 2004]

4. "Destruction that the Americans did to Indian children"
"[Regarding] the destruction that the Americans did to Indian children ... we read from time to time testimonies and documents, among them an article by a writer from Atlantic Monthly that exposes the colonialists invasion, that committed the white man against the children... On the return from the mission to destroy the Indians in the year 1637 under the command of John Endicott an eyewitness describes: "When they [the Indians] saw us on their beaches they hurried to approach us in blessing and called to us, "Hello". When we reached the river the Indians soon figured out, that we came to burn their fields and destroy them ". [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 6, 2004]

Nasser: "Israel is not deterred from anything. Israel was established on the basis of theft. Israel, the State of Israel, is the Satan's offspring, a Satanic offspring. Israel was founded on theft from the first moment. It was founded on the basis of robbery, terror, killing, torture, assassination, death, stealing land and killing people. On this basis, Israel was founded and will continue this way, never able to exist because its [Israel's] birth was unnatural, a Satanic offspring, and cannot exist among human beings. . . . Only in this way can Israel exist. It is not capable of existing naturally as other nations in the world."
Woman Interviewer: "The very existence [of Israel] is unnatural, is not logical. The root, the root itself is rotten."
Nasser: "This state is based on racism, biblical concepts, death, killing and destruction ...."
Nasser (on the exchange of 400 Arab prisoners for one Israeli and three bodies of Israeli soldiers): ". . . We see that Israel is trying to delude the world, and delude the Arabs and the Palestinians psychologically - that one Israeli will be exchanged for a thousand Palestinians. Meaning - Israel is interested in planting among the Palestinian, the Arab or the world the concept of value - the value of a Jew and the value of an Arab. But it is not true..." [Interrupted]
Interviewer: "This concept appears in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that they [the Jews] are at a high level [of existence] and the rest are at a low level."
Nasser: ". . . It [Israel] does all it can to take as many prisoners of war as it can, for example, 10,000 Arab prisoners in exchange for the release of a hundred [Israeli] prisoners of war. By this, Israel is trying to put a value on an Arab and a value on an Israeli or Jew . . . Israel is an aggressive country, a racist country, an ideologically hostile country, which hates all the goyim, all the foreigners. Israel is a Satanic offspring."