Media watchdog organizations have revealed an uptick in youth-
directed anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian media and society in
the past week, with initiatives sponsored by the Palestinian
Authority, the UN, and European non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported that in the wake of Israel’s
transferal last week of the remains of 91 terrorists to the PA, PA TV
used its youth programming as a platform to lionize the terrorists
as “the greatest role models.” PMW reported that the program, Speak
Up, is “co-produced by PA TV and PYALARA,” a youth-focused NGO funded
in part by the EU.
The program’s two hosts, a young man and young woman, exchange
insights about the virtues of the repatriated terrorists, some of
whom were responsible for the most notorious suicide bombings against
Israel: “Unfortunately, we couldn’t part from them [the terrorists]
or even embrace them,” the man says, “but were satisfied standing
before their bodies, standing up before their sanctified message: The
homeland won’t die, but we will die for it.”
Picking up where the male host left off, the woman said: “These
[Martyrs] are more honored than all of us… They are the greatest role
models for us, not only because they fought and struggled for the
homeland, but also because they went beyond the sacrifice [of] strain
and effort, to the stage where they actually sacrificed their lives
for the homeland.”
Their displays of reverence was consistent with the official line of
the PA, which honored the terrorists with funerals fit for national
heroes.
Another report by PMW uncovered a puppet show for Palestinian
children in east Jerusalem – sponsored by the UN-supported
Palestinian NGO Burj Luq-Luq Social Center Society – that managed to
turn an event promoting non-smoking into a platform for anti-Israel
propaganda. The educational event started with one puppet saying: “I
wanted to stand before the audience and sing to Jerusalem, which is
being kept from us. Jerusalem, whose youth are being killed by the
Jews, to sing and to say: Jerusalem, we are coming, Jerusalem, the
time of death has arrived. Jerusalem, we will not surrender to the
enemies or be humiliated.”
Another puppet continues: “I, and many other youth like me, think
that cigarettes will help us to grow, to turn into men. Jerusalem
doesn’t need men who hold cigarettes. It needs men who hold machine
guns, not cigarettes.”
Watch the video, courtesy of PMW, below:
According to PMW, the Burj Luq-Luq Social Center Society’s website
states that the organization “maintains strategic ties with: …the
French consulate, the Swiss Development Agency, the Youth Development
Department, which belongs to the Association of Arab Studies
the ‘Orient House,’ the Italian Institutions Union, the Faisal
Husseini Institute,.. UNFPA…, the [Palestinian] Ministry of Youth and
Sports… UNICEF, UNESCO…”
Finally, MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) translated
a featured article on the Al-Quds Brigades website which highlights
an end-of-year ceremony for a kindergarten in Gaza. The military wing
of Palestinian Islamic Jihad reported that the attending children
dressed up in military uniforms, and acted out scenes of jihad armed
with wooden rifles as well as torture at the hands of Israeli
soldiers.
The article explained that the children of Gaza “are raised on the
love of jihad, of resistance and of Palestine, and on the massacres
and crimes of the Zionists– to the point that their lives, even in
kindergarten, have become similar to those of the resistance
fighters.”
The kindergarten teacher was quoted as saying: “In our annual end-of-
year celebrations, we focus on having them enact the role of jihad
and resistance fighters for the sake of Allah.” She also said that
her aim is to raise “jihad fighters and commanders who will defend
the soil of Palestine and Jerusalem.”
The article also quoted a uniform-clad child brandishing a wooden
rifle, who declared: “When I grow up, I will [join] the ranks of the
Islamic Jihad, and resist the Zionist enemy and fire rockets at him
until I die as a martyr and join my father in Paradise.
“I love the resistance, the martyrs and Palestine,” he added. “When I
grow up, I want to blow myself up among the Zionists on a bus and
kill them in a martyrdom operation.”
The article noted that this “magnificent and glorious scene” takes
place annually in kindergartens throughout Gaza.
