Destroying Israel continues to be a desired and attainable goal candidly presented in Palestinian Authority discourse and education. The intensity of this hate message has increased on Palestinian Authority Television (PA TV) since Israel left Gush Katif in Gaza, as religious, political and educational leaders have encouraged Palestinians to perceive the events there as a first step towards Israel´s destruction.

Three PA TV programs stressed this goal last week. The first, a rebroadcast of a so-called "historical educational" program first aired in 2003, reiterated the PA teaching that Israel has no right to exist because all of Israel is "Palestine." Worse, it taught that Israel´s continued existence is, by its very nature, a threat to the entire Arab world.

The PA TV broadcast showed a map of all of Israel marked as Palestine under the PLO flag, while the narrator taught that if Palestine is not "whole," meaning if Israel continues to exist, it is like a fatal knife thrust into the heart of the Arab nation, which threatens it in its entirety. The following are the words:

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"The countries of our [Arab] homeland also have a heart...

"If the heart is whole and healthy, then all the other parts are whole and healthy. The heart of the Arab homeland is Palestine. The homeland remains whole and healthy if Palestine is whole and healthy...

"A stab in the heart is a deathblow.

"Throughout the generations of history there were those who directed the first stab at the heart of the Arab nation, to Palestine."
[PA TV, September 6, 2005 and July 1, 2003]

"Nothing compares to this joy, the oppressed overcomes the oppressor. But our happiness will be complete only with the return of all of our lands - the [West] Bank, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa, Safed, and other stolen cities".
[Dr. Ismaeil Al-Fara, lecturer at Al-Quds University, and director of the General Union for Disabled Palestinians in Khan Yunis, PA TV, September 2, 2005]

PMW has been warning for years about the dangers of this PA indoctrination to see Israel´s existence as illegitimate and temporary, especially among children. The results of this education were seen again this week as three children showed off their drawings of maps of "Palestine" on PA TV. All three children erased Israel´s existence in their drawings while the maps were tied in barbed wire symbolizing "Palestine" as ensnared by Israel.

These were some their explanations:

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Mahmoud Eid: "In this painting I wanted to emphasize the chains that the occupation puts on our people. I painted this map of Palestine, with the Palestinian flag to say to our people that Palestine is still Palestine, and that the Palestinians deserve it - not the Jews."

Udai: "I painted the map so we will not forget our place on the map."

Significantly, the children call all of Israel "Palestine" and all of Israel is said to be "the Occupation." These conclusions are not surprising - they are the direct result of ten years of PA education. PA schoolbooks - even those published last year - replace Israel with "Palestine" on all maps. In addition, the word "occupation" in the school books refers to all of Israel. For example:

... "Colonialism: Palestine faced the British occupation after the First World War in 1917, and the Israeli occupation in 1948..." [National Education, sixth grade, p. 16, PA ministry of Education, 2000, translated by Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace]

Palestinian Media Watch has reported on other examples of Palestinian children reflecting their education that Israel should be destroyed, thereby reflecting one of the central messages of their formal and informal education. One such example was a letter writing competition held by the PA Ministry of Education. The winner wrote of "returning" to Jaffa, a city in Israel. Read the bulletin here.

Palestinian Media Watch finds it significant that PA TV would choose to air these programs the day before Israel withdrew its troops from Gaza. These programs reinforce the messages the PA educational system has been delivering for years - and teach Palestinian children to see the peace process as temporary and Israel´s destruction as attainable and inevitable.