Academic article on PA incitement based almost exclusively on PMW material
Academic article on PA incitement
based almost exclusively on PMW material
based almost exclusively on PMW material
PMW note: The bold indicates material supllied by PMW. Links to the original PMW source have been added.
Title: Time to End Palestinian Incitement
by David Pollock, Kaufman fellow at the Washington Institute
Even as Israeli-Palestinian peace talks begin again, official Palestinian Authority (PA) media are still broadcasting girls singing about Jews as ‘the sons of apes and pigs,’ and still paying effusive tribute to Palestinian terrorists convicted for murdering Israeli civilians. To get these negotiations started, Israel agreed to release over one hundred such prisoners; but the Palestinian government continues to glorify them as heroes, offering them as role models for the next generation...
When examining day to day cases, the most common form of recent incitement, with nearly one hundred documented cases between March 2011 and December 2012 according to Palestinian Media Watch, is that of glorifying terrorists, often manifested in statements by PA officials. The list of honourees includes occasional mention of earlier assassinated Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) leaders like Abu Iyad (Salah Khalaf) and Abu Jihad (Khalil al-Wazir). Most frequently mentioned, however, are individuals convicted of terrorism since the PLO officially renounced it at the start of the Oslo process in September 1993, and including those recently released from or currently serving time in Israeli jails.
In a particularly striking case, at the end of 2012, the Fatah Facebook page posted an image of Dalal Mughrabi, a female terrorist who participated in the deadliest attack in Israel’s history – the killing of 37 civilians in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre. The image was posted with the declaration: ‘On this day in 1959 Martyr (Shahida) Dalal Mughrabi was born, hero of the ‘Martyr Kamal Adwan’ mission, bride of Jaffa and the gentle energizing force of Fatah.
Another theme of recent official Palestinian incitement is the demonisation of Israelis and Jews, often as animals. For example, on 9 January 2012 PA television broadcast a speech by a Palestinian Imam, in the presence of the PA Minister of Religious Affairs, referring to the Jews as ‘apes and pigs’ and repeating the gharqad hadith, a traditional Muslim text about Muslims killing Jews hiding behind trees and rocks, because ‘Judgment Day will not come before you fight the Jews.’ ...
Direct statements by PA officials often deny Israel’s historical legitimacy and accuse it of inherent injustice, even if they do not deny its existence or explicitly threaten to destroy it. For example, PA Deputy Minister of Information Al-Mutawakkil Taha told official PA daily newspaper Al Hayat Al Jadida in early 2012 that, ‘Israel has gone beyond all forms of oppression practiced by fascism throughout history’ and that it ‘does more than racist discrimination and ethnic cleansing.’ ...
It is difficult to make direct links from incitement of the kinds seen in Palestinian media to violent episodes. However, strong circumstantial evidence suggests a possible connection between particular messages and specific terrorist or other violent episodes. The Itamar massacre of March 2011 for example, in which five members of the Fogel family were murdered in their beds, followed a month of commemorations on PA media of other Palestinian terrorists – beginning with a DFLP (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine) militant who murdered two Israelis at the same West Bank settlement in 2002...
Finding ways to ensure the PA stop, or at least reduce, official incitement against Israel would have other positive effects, aside from potentially reducing the motivation for future would be terrorists. It would indicate that the PA was willing and able to take the kind of unpopular steps required to keep an agreement with Israel. Most important in the long run, it might gradually accustom or encourage more Palestinians to accept permanent peace with Israel, making a compromise agreement less risky and more durable.
[http://fathomjournal.org/time-to-end-palestinian-incitement/]