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Indoctrinating of Palestinian kids still
an underplayed core barrier to peace.
A
ny peace deal between Israel and
the Palestinians would be stymied
out of the gate by a Palestinian
Authority-sanctioned education system
that's essentially a lesson plan
for hatred and terror — for
cultivating a fundamentally
poisoned message to sway
highly impressionable kids.
This revelation isn't new
But a new investigation by
a respected Israeli research
service exposes the scope of
the propaganda emanating
from Palestinian Authority
Robert
(PA.) schools and other
Contribu
official educational outlets.
Edito
Such brainwashing is one of
the gravest impediments to
hopes for lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The P.A. governs Palestinian-controlled
areas of the West Bank via its Fatah politi-
cal party. It also would technically preside
over the Gaza Strip were Fatah and Hamas,
the terrorist organization now ruling that
coastal strip, to truly join forces.
International debate over the deal struck
between world powers and Tehran to
limit Iran's nuclear development program,
a critical and urgent global concern, has
overshadowed the July 21 release of a
compelling investigation by Israel-based
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). The
probe merits its moment in the public
spotlight because no peace pact between
Jerusalem and Ramallah stands a chance
without quick reversal of the P.A. educa-
tional system's approach.
Embedded Provocation
Over the years, PMW has documented
how Palestinian Authority classrooms
represent crucibles for repulsing Israel, the
Jewish state. Israel has done itself no favors
by continuing to be a military occupier of
the disputed biblical lands of Judea and
Samaria that make up the present-day West
Bank. But Israel has found itself in that
defensive posture because of Palestinian
leaders who have embraced a philosophy of
hatred and violence toward Israel and who
have rejected its repeated gestures toward
resuming meaningful talks.
In a summary of its special report
"Palestinian Authority Education: A
Recipe for Hate and Terror; PMW
recounts how the P.A. has named schools
after terrorists, how school activities
include visits to the homes of these "mar-
tyrs for Allah:' how teachers liken terror-
ists to role models and imagine a world
without Israel, and how a PA.-funded chil-
32
August 6 • 2015
dren's magazine glorifies Adolf Hitler.
Particularly troubling is how kids are
welcome to recite poems on official P.A.
TV shows that describe Jews as "pigs and
monkeys", "enemies of Allah" and
"most evil of creations" — and
describe Israel as "Satan with a
tail:'
"When a boy told a P.A.
TV news reporter that he had
learned in schools to 'fight the
Jews and kill them: his state-
ment was included in the P.A.
TV evening news report without
comment or correction:' accord-
ing to PMW, whose founder and
director, Itamar Marcus, is a pas-
sionate champion for change in
how the P.A. educates its kids.
Mandela Influence
Last summer, I visited the Robben Island
jail cell of longtime political prisoner and
anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela,
who inspired the peaceful revolution from
white-only rule and became South Africa's
first black president.
He died in 2013. It was
intriguing when Marcus
invoked in his report of
P.A. education a quote
from Mandela's 1994
autobiography, Long
Walk to Freedom:
"No one is born hating
Mandela
another person because
of the color of his skin or his background or
his religion. People must learn to hate; and
if they can learn to hate,
they can be taught to
love, for love comes more
naturally to the human
heart than its opposite"
Marcus added,
"Tragically, the
Palestinian Authority,
under the leadership
of Mahmoud Abbas, is
doing what Mandela
warned against: The P.A.
is teaching its children
to hate. The P.A. and
the politically dominant
Fatah movement, also
headed by Abbas, teach
Palestinian children
Abbas
through their official
communication structures that Jews and
Israelis possess inherently evil character
traits. Fighting them is, therefore, said to be
heroic and even Allalis will. Terrorists who
have murdered dozens of Israeli civilians
are said to be national heroes and Islamic
martyrs."
That's a chilling picture, to say the least.
Remember, Marcus is talking about the
EA., Israel's supposed peace partner, not
Hamas or its Gaza-based partner in terror,
Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Even more disturbing is the P.A. com-
mitment to discourage or discredit peace-
building contacts between Palestinian and
Israeli youth — branding such contacts
"a crime against humanity:' according to
PMW.
The PLO Take
On April 30, I joined a discussion in
Ramallah, the West Bank seat of govern-
ment for the PA., between a Temple Israel
of West Bloomfield
delegation and Xavier
Abu Eid, communica-
tions adviser to the PLO
Negotiations Support
Unit "We refuse to teach
to hate Jews:' he told us.
The Yasser Arafat-
Eid
founded Palestine
Liberation Organization
is the negotiating oversight arm for Fatah
and its chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat. The
PLO recognized the State of Israel's right to
exist in 1988, but will never acknowledge it
as a Jewish state in deference to the Israeli
Arabs living there, Eid insisted.
Eid maintained that "problematic issues"
plague Palestinian and Israeli textbooks.
He's right: Israel continues to clean up dis-
tortions in its teaching materials. But Eid
argued that Palestinian teens and preteens
who hurl stones at Israeli soldiers do so out
of frustration to living "under an occupa-
tion:' not because of anything they may
have learned via government channels.
"Whoever says that either wants to dehu-
manize Palestinians or doesn't know what's
going on here' said Eid, a smart, crafty guy
who articulately makes the Palestinian case
when the news media or Western diplo-
mats come calling.
Eid's well-honed but deceptive narrative
reinforces why the P.A. needs to engage in
introspection and alter ideology in pursuit
of a spur toward creating a peace-promot-
ing educational framework, as PMW sug-
gests.
The dispiriting truth is that a sudden
positive shift in P.A. educational direction
still would require maybe two generations
of painstaking cultural and political reboot-
ing to completely overcome the hostility
toward Jews and Zionism long infused into
Palestinian youth.
❑
n the midst of their Israeli-born par-
ents' bitter divorce battle in Oakland
County Circuit Court, the three young
children of Omer Tsimhoni and Maya
Eibschitz-Tsimhoni are in a great place
to help find their way – a Jewish sum-
mer camp.
Along with Jewish schools, Jewish
youth groups and Israel experiences,
such camps help build Jewish identity
and interest in their young charges as
well as nurture all-around character.
The Tsimhoni children, ages 9, 10 and
14, are caught in the crosshairs of a
custody battle before Oakland County
Family Court Judge Lisa Gorcyca. So a
summer camp opportunity that blends
nature's wonder with Jewish values
should be a welcome partial antidote to
the strain and struggle of their parents'
legal maneuvering.
On June 24, Gorcyca ordered the kids
to Mandy's Place, a dorm-style wing of
the Oakland County Children's Village
detention center. The ruling: They were
in civil contempt of court for refusing to
have lunch with or even speak to their
father after she had ordered them to
have a "healthy relationship" with him.
Mandy's Place is a temporary setting
for abused or neglected children. On
July 10, after her bold order grabbed
international headlines, Gorcyca re-
directed the kids to the nearby Jewish
summer camp.
Meanwhile, the judge is wading
through the legal briar patch surround-
ing the divorce proceedings in hopes of
coaxing the parents toward a satisfac-
tory resolution that yields productive,
not alienating, joint legal custody.
In an unrelated research study of the
long-term impact of Jewish overnight
camp, the New York-based Foundation
for Jewish Camp concluded: "The
bonding experience of camp not only
builds a long-lasting taste and yearn-
ing for community, it also create habits
of Jewish practice. It makes Judaism
part and parcel of life's most joyous
moments. Moreover, those moments are
experienced as integral parts of life in a
beloved community."
Summer camp ends in mid-August so
campers and their families can prepare
for the new school year. Chances are
their month-long stay at a Jewish sum-
mer camp will have helped the Tsimhoni
kids rediscover better times in a Jewish
context – a takeaway that should give
the family a leg-up in pursuing the
"healthy relationship" Judge Gorcyca is
angling so emphatically for.
❑