Apologists for Israel's continued occupation and control over Palestinian lives have long contended Israel is more interested in peace than the Palestinians. One exaggerated argument, repeatedly put forward to justify military rule, is that Palestinians teach their children to hate Jews.
Politicians in the U.S., especially during election campaigns, find that bashing Palestinians has no downside and yields a vote (and donation) jackpot.
Palestinian textbooks are scrutinized for any hostile reference to Israel -- or praise for Palestinian nationalism -- and every frame broadcast on Palestinian television stations is analyzed by experts to see if it contains any incitement to violence.
Palestinian-Israeli committees spent hours researching these issues and concluded that there is no textbook glorification of violence or hate. European and bipartisan American committees reached similar conclusions. But the anti-Palestinian attacks never stopped. All the efforts to respond scientifically and comprehensively to the unsubstantiated barrage of attacks failed to change the narrative that anti-Palestinian forces, especially in the United States, were keen on perpetuating.
Self-declared professor and historian Newt Gingrich led the charge by negating Palestinian existence. Speaking on a Jewish online television station, Gingrich contradicted what the Israeli government did in 1993 when it recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. By cherry-picking historical evidence to back his convoluted argument, Gingrich claimed that Palestinians are an 'invented' people.
A few days later when pressed by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos, Gingrich repeated the blood libel against Palestinians by saying that Palestinian math books use killing Jews as part of their numeracy education. "They have textbooks that say, if there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left? We pay for those textbooks through our aid money."
Of course, the textbook statement he referred to doesn't exist. The Associated Press went through the trouble of interviewing Israeli, Palestinian and American experts who have been deeply involved in the issue. Their conclusion was simple. According to researchers, Gingrich's claim --"is not in any of the texts." AP went further and stated, "A review of some texts by the AP, as well as several studies by Israeli, Palestinian and international researchers, found no direct calls for violence against Israel."
Fact-checking sites, pundits and politicians failed to deal with the issue. And despite the AP story, no major American journalist, columnist, debater or think tank has called for or demanded that Gingrich admit and apologize for this brazen lie. The U.S. government, which until recently funded Palestinian ministry of education projects, didn't set the record straight even though the U.S. presidential nominee implicated the U.S. government in paying to print books that "teach terrorism."
Still worse is what is happening in the U.S. Congress. A hold has been placed on U.S. funding for Palestinian health and educational programs. The hold, which was placed last fall by a Republican representative from Florida, is intended to punish the Palestinian Authority because its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, dared to ask the United Nations to recognize Palestine as a state
Even more perplexing is what happened in early January when it was revealed that restrictions placed on money already approved and allocated by the U.S. Congress included holding money for the Palestinian version of Sesame Street. The Washington Post, NPR and other U.S. media outlets reported that $2.5 million committed for teaching Palestinian children tolerance and mutual respect was part of the hold instituted by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.).
American politicians appear to be using precious little long-term thinking when it comes to Israel and Palestinians. Falsehoods declared on national television about textbooks are debunked by no one in the U.S. government. The silence appears to be less a consequence of ignorance than of fear. Politically, there is little to gain from saying an honest word regarding U.S. policy on Israel and Palestine. Consequently, the Republican-controlled Congress proceeds merrily on its course and holds up the funding that could rectify what experts agree is a non-existent problem of Palestinian textbook incitement.
Bashing Palestinians remains an easy political pastime, especially at election time. It is tragic, however, that demagogic electioneering -- and outright lies -- can lead to the loss of responsible children's television programming for Palestinian kids. And it is telling that broader funding for Palestinian civil society can be closed off simply because Palestinian leaders asserted the right of Palestinians to live free in a state of our own.
Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist and executive producer of Sharaa Simsim, the Palestinian version of Sesame Street.
Credit: thehill.com
Follow Daoud Kuttab on Twitter: www.twitter.com/daoudkuttab
The hate is all over the place
The videos of cartoon shows targeted at toddlers ie Farfur the bumblebee glorifying the suicide bombing psychopathic "Shaheeds"
The endless indoctrination that Jews are descended from pigs and apes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2J3my3pOIc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi-c6lbFGC4
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3303.htm
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3221.htm
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3146.htm
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3136.htm
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3136.htm
http://vimeo.com/35139757
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gzyeo1Z1I4&feature=related
You are a naked settler supporter, and that should simply speak for itself in assessing your inability to truly understand which side is ACTUALLY destroying the lives of millions of people, and which side simply SAYS disparaging things in response.
I have seen the pictures of Israelis kids taunting an old palestinian woman who was thrown out of her family home.
I hear the interviews with the settlers espousing their belief that it is their right to ethnically cleanse the west bank and East Jerusalem, and see the daily evidence of them making good on their threats.
Now, while I still have not seen anyone provide evidence of a system of hate being instituted in Palestinian schools that does not emanate from some radical settler friendly propaganda publication, It would seem to me that the nation that is ACTING on its hate in broad daylight is Israel; They are actively, illegally, stealing the land of the Palestinians, ethnically cleansing them, and using apartheid as a place holder while they do it. The settler children are CLEARLY taught to disregard these people and their rights.
You can't because it doesn't exist. Your comments are just the usual exaggerations
My point is that actions speak a great deal louder than words, and nearly the entire World condemns Israels treatment of the Palestinian people.
I understand that it is your job to downplay the horror of these things, and you never fail to try.
- Islamic Education, 9th grade: "One must beware of the Jews, for they are treacherous and disloyal."
- for fourth graders: ""I learn from this lesson: I believe that the Jews are the enemies of the Prophets and the believers."
- direct command for fifth graders: "Remember: The final and inevitable result will be the victory of the Muslims over the Jews."
All are direct quotes from official textbooks distributed and used in public schools in the PNA. Funded in part by US, EU and UN money.
- 6th grade book "Reading the Koran" - children read about Allah's warning to the Jews that because of their evil Allah will kill them: "...Oh you who are Jews... long for death if you are truthful... for the death from which you flee, that will surely overtake you... ". In other sections, they learn of Jews being expelled from their homes by Allah, and in another Jews are said to be like donkeys: "Those [Jews] who were charged with the Torah, but did not observe it, are like a donkey carrying books... " [Reading the Koran, grade 6. p.20, 23, 78].
- for the same 6th grade (apparently believed the formative and most receptive to lies) National Education refers to the Negev, Beersheba and the Sea of Galilee as part of "Palestine" even though these been part of the state of Israel since 1948: "Among the famous rocks of southern Palestine are the rocks of Beersheba and the Negev," and "Palestine's Water Sources - ... The most important is the Sea of Galilee."
- and in Our Beatiful Language for the same 6th grade, without comments, "...Palestinians, so that they would remember their stolen homeland and work for its salvation..." and it is referring, not to the disputed territories, but all of Israel"
What do else you expect?
You've clearly matched to one of demonstrations of modern anti-Semitism as illustrated in the Ottawa Protocol:
"Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel."
My congratulations to HuffPo for once again serving as soap box for modern Judephobes to spread their venom.
See, I'm not an Israeli though I'm Jewish. And you've just, as always, proved that your anti-Zionism in fact is anti-Semitism by definition of the EUMC confirmed by the Ottawa Protocol. And you progressivism is another pretense to hide your xenophobia, futile attempt to make it more respectable.
As for the facts, suffice it to quote one (just one!) example, taken from a PA textbook of Arabic: "Our Beautiful Language", Grade 7, Part 2 (2008) p. 67. It contains the very revealing fragment:
"[...] the Palestinian mothers have become unlike all other mothers in this world and continue for the sixth decade to bury their children with trilling cries of joy! …the Palestinian fathers continue to bury their sons calmly and promise to give the rest! …the Palestinian of whatever age, religion, gender and affiliation becomes a martyr project!"
Grade 7 -- i.e. 13/14 year old kids; being incited to become "martyr projects", so they can be burried "with trilling cries of joy" by their mothers and "calmly" by their fathers -- the latter likely to push also "the rest" (i.e. the "martyrs"' younger siblings) to become additional "martyr projects".
How many of these kids will become suicide bombers after being taught "Arabic" with such texts??
Another teacher, from central Israel, told YNet reporters about the challenges she encounters when working with her pupils. “When issues of equality are discussed, the lesson immediately goes out of control. The pupils attack us, the teachers, and accuse us of being leftists and anti-semites, saying that all Arab citizens of Israeli should be transferred out of the country because they want to destroy Israel”.
The same teacher said that hate speech is used especially when she teaches the case of the massacre at Kafr Qassem, in which innocent Arab civilians were intentionally shot dead by Israeli forces in their village in 1956 during the Suez crisis. The soldiers had been ordered to shoot on sight villagers returning from their fields, although they knew the villagers were ignorant of a curfew that had been declared that day. The civics chapter dealing with this event addresses the duty to disobey a “patently illegal order.”
Thank you for the truth.
Either way, I have a lot of trouble taking seriously anything you post as "facts."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awni_Abd_al-Hadi
This is a miracle.
Professor Azmi Bishara: There Is No "Palestinian Nation", Never Was !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3n5-yG-6dU
the PA Ministry of Education does something far worse: It glorifies murderers and terrorists. The PA Ministry of Education has two of its schools named after Dalal Mughrabi (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 23, 2006), the woman who led the most lethal terror attack in Israel’s history, the Coastal Road massacre bus hijacking in which 37 civilians were killed.
What exactly is the PA message to its children regarding terror? When the Ministry of Education makes children study in a school that venerates a terrorist who killed 37 civilians, its message is very clear: Terror and killing Israelis is not only justified but is even worthy of honor.
Mr. Daoud Kuttab is just spinning. I have nothing against Mr. Kuttab. Sometimes he has excellent blogs. But this one is too obviously spin, and Daoud knows better. Some people have excellent memories. (Een goed geheugen)..
*Newt* has no government position and has nothing to do with the issue, Roel.
Copy that, touche!
F&F
Institutionalized hatred on the one side verses a small minority of aberrations who are shunned and condemned by the wide majority of Jewish Israelis
I do have experience with Christian, Muslim, and Jewish relations here in Southern California. Besides the many Christians and Jews, there are at least a million Muslims living here. What violence there has been has been mostly against Muslims, not by them. Likewise, we had a crazed gunman killing Jewish children a few years ago, but there was no link to Muslims in that violence. There was a case from over ten years ago when a crazed Jewish extremist murdered a Muslim peace activist, but fortunately such violence has been very rare.
We also had a case where a man was intercepted trying to sneak into the United States from Canada, with the aim of planting explosives at the Los Angeles airport. Thank goodness he was arrested at the border! Obviously his aim was not only to kill innocents, but to incite hatred and violence locally.
If I ware in his position, with so much evidence that contradict his assertion, I would ask to withdraw my piece, out of shame.
It appears this is not what this "journalist" has done, still eager to promote his "narratives", i.e. short fictional stories designed for political expediency.
It is sad, indeed, very sad that this is what journalism has come to...!!
not one comment refuted my central argument which the AP has documented. No text books have the statement Gingrich made, no politician, media or the US government which is falsely accused of funding these 'claimed' incitements have had the courage to admit the mistake or call on Gingrich to do so. Furthermore the same pro Israeli politicians are defunding a program teaching Palestinian children tolerance. I stand by my central theme
The Palestinians have changed their textbooks so that all hate speech has been removed. But hate speech remains on TV and in the mosques.
“These textbooks do not give Palestinian children an education; they give them an indoctrination. When we viewed this [PMW] report in combination with other media [from other PMW reports] that these children are exposed to, we see a larger picture that is disturbing. It is disturbing on a human level, it is disturbing to me as a mother, it is disturbing to me as a United States Senator, because it basically, profoundly poisons the minds of these children.”
http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2008/02/dear-senator-cl.html
Wouldn’t it have been better, Senator Clinton, if you have verified that this accusation was true before you gave it credence by disseminating it further? I appreciate that you don’t personally have time to do what Professor Brown did, and check out the actual textbooks for yourself, but if someone on your staff could have just done a quick internet search on CMIP, this should have been enough to set off a few alarm bells, warning you that you might not want to bet your reputation on the reliability of anything that CMIP has to say about the Palestinians
But don't rely on my word about what constitutes the Truth about Palestinian education of the next generation...go to www.palwatch.org and look at the sources themselves.
FYI: I would be the first person to embrace a Two State Solution if it seemed likely that our Palestinian neighbors desired to live in peace alongside a secure Jewish state. Every move the PA and Hamas leadership makes - and everything they broadcast in their media to children *and* adults - has convinced me that their goal is the destruction of Israel, not co-existence.
http://www.mideastyouth.com/2010/06/10/what-truth-does-israel-hide-as-told-by-naeim-giladi-an-iraqi-jew/
Did you not bother to notice it is not news but the opinion of some person named Ahmad H. Aggour.
Zero credibility.
The concert, which had been planned for weeks in advance, was only announced publicly once the plane had taken off. Although just a distance of 40 kilometres away, the delegation of musicians could only spend a few hours in the Gaza Strip for the concert due to security concerns."