As Israel celebrates 68 years, the PA continues to deny Israel's right to exist
As Israel celebrates 68 years,
the PA continues to deny Israel's right to exist,
and promises that all Israel will become "Palestine"
the PA continues to deny Israel's right to exist,
and promises that all Israel will become "Palestine"
by Itamar Marcus
As Israel celebrates 68 years of independence, the Palestinian Authority still actively disseminates its ideology that denies Israel's fundamental right to exist in any borders. The PA regularly proclaims and actively teaches Palestinian children that all of Israel is an illegitimate “occupation,” and that Israeli cities such as Haifa, Jaffa - Tel Aviv, and Acre are all “occupied” cities. Palestinians are taught to anticipate a future without Israel when all of Israel will be part of the “State of Palestine.”
Palestinian Media Watch has reported that Mahmoud Abbas himself has stated that he views Israel since its creation as an “occupation.” He also challenged Israel’s right to continue to exist:
Mahmoud Abbas at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva:
"Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, don't you ask yourselves: Until when will the Israeli occupation of our land continue? After 67 years(i.e., since Israel's establishment in 1948), until when? Do you think it can continue, and that it benefits the Palestinian people?"
[Official PA TV, Oct. 28, 2015]
Mahmoud Abbas:
"I do not deny that countless obstacles and difficulties stand before us, but all of these are no match against our will. We have been under occupation for 67 or 68 years (i.e., since Israel’s establishment in 1948). Others would have sunk into despair and frustration. However, we are determined to reach our goal."
[Official PA TV, March 11, 2016]
Following Abbas’ lead, the PA routinely presents Israel's creation as an “occupation,” denying Israel's legitimacy and its right to exist.
All Palestinian children are taught in their 12th grade schoolbook that in 1948 “Palestine” was stolen by “Zionist gangs,” and the State of Israel is not genuine but is a “so-called state”:
“Palestine’s war [1948-1949] ended with a catastrophe that is unprecedented in history, when the Zionist gangs stole Palestine and expelled its people from their cities, their villages, their lands and their houses, and established the so-called State of Israel."
[Arabic Language, Analysis, Literature and Criticism, grade 12, p. 104]
Most significantly, official PA TV actively teaches children that since all of Israel is an “occupation” with no right to exist, they should anticipate its destruction: “Haifa, Jaffa, Acre (i.e., Israeli cities)... will return to us some day and will not be under the rule of the occupation.” [Official PA TV, Oct. 4, 2014] Palestinian children are taught not to even mention the name “Israel.” Note in the following example from the official PA TV children’s program, The Best Home (now named Children’s Talk), the critical reaction of the PA TV host, when the boy mentions the name “Israel”:
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Boy, guest on show: “I have never entered Israel or Gaza.”
TV host: “What Israel? It’s our land.”
Boy: “Israel is our land - the 1948 lands.”
Host: “It’s our land, occupied Palestine.”
Boy: “The 1948 lands.”
Host: “Our land, occupied Palestine. It's Haifa, Jaffa, Acre (i.e., Israeli cities). These are our occupied lands, the 1948 lands that Israel occupied in 1948. Israel occupied them in 1948. These are Palestinian lands and will remain Palestinian.Allah willing, they will return to us some day and will not be under the rule of the occupation.”
[Official PA TV, Oct. 4, 2014]
Click to viewThese are repeating messages on this PA TV children’s program. Israel is an “occupation” and therefore inevitably all of Israel is destined to be under the “State of Palestine.”
See the following three examples:
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Puppet Marwan (image of Tel Aviv in background): "This is Tel Aviv. It was named Tel Aviv after Jaffa was occupied. Can you believe it? Jaffa was here and it became Tel Aviv..."
PA TV host: "My friends, I am telling you that for sure Jaffa, and not only Jaffa but also Haifa, Acre, Nazareth and all the Palestinian cities occupied in 1948 will return to us one day."
PA TV host: "My friends, I am telling you that for sure Jaffa, and not only Jaffa but also Haifa, Acre, Nazareth and all the Palestinian cities occupied in 1948 will return to us one day."
[Official PA TV, May 23, 2015]
This was broadcast to children three times by official PA TV on March 6, May 15 and May 23, 2015.
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Official PA TV host: "My friend, do you know what the ’48 lands are?"
Boy: "Yes, the occupation of lands by the Israelis in the year 1948."
Official PA TV host: "These are the lands that are under the occupation’s [Israel's] rule at the moment. Do you know cities from among them, can you remind me - the ’48 lands?"
Boy: "Haifa, Jaffa, Acre."
Official PA TV host: "Correct, and Nazareth and many more cities in these lands... This information should be inside of us all the time. The occupation must know that we fully believe and are confident that all of this land belongs to us, the ’48 lands (i.e., all of Israel) are all ours and will return to us, right?"
Boy: "Yes, of course."
Boy: "Yes, the occupation of lands by the Israelis in the year 1948."
Official PA TV host: "These are the lands that are under the occupation’s [Israel's] rule at the moment. Do you know cities from among them, can you remind me - the ’48 lands?"
Boy: "Haifa, Jaffa, Acre."
Official PA TV host: "Correct, and Nazareth and many more cities in these lands... This information should be inside of us all the time. The occupation must know that we fully believe and are confident that all of this land belongs to us, the ’48 lands (i.e., all of Israel) are all ours and will return to us, right?"
Boy: "Yes, of course."
[Official PA TV, Nov. 13, 2015]
The PA TV host here teaches Palestinian children that Israeli Arabs are not faithful citizens, but hope for Israel's destruction, so that “it will all exist under the name of “the State of Palestine."
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Official PA TV host: "Some of the Palestinians who lived on the ’48 [lands] (i.e., Israeli Arabs) did not leave... and now they are guarding our land from the occupation’s [Israel’s] abuse. They live under severe racism but their presence protects our land, despite the fact that the occupation fully rules everywhere, but they guard their existence as Palestinians and guard the place as Palestinians. They believe that all of the land will return to Palestine, and to Palestinian rule, and to the State of Palestine, and it will all exist under the name of ‘'the State of Palestine.'"
[Official PA TV, Dec. 4, 2015]
This message is not only to children. The PA National Security Forces, which are under the control of Mahmoud Abbas, posted last month on its Facebook page a photo of Tel Aviv with the text:
“This sea - it is mine
And the pier (i.e., of Tel Aviv) - it is mine
The foreigners must leave”
[Facebook page of the PA National Security Forces, April 13, 2016]
An article in the official PA daily last month that it reprinted from the London-based Al-Hayat, asserted that Tel Aviv is not Israeli and all Israeli “occupiers” will eventually have to leave as “all of Israel is occupied Palestine.”
“The terrorist [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu promises not to give up the Golan. I say to him (through a third party because I cannot speak with him) [parentheses in source] that Tel Aviv is not his. The Golan is part of Syria, and all of Israel is occupied Palestine...
What I say is that the occupation of Palestine (i.e., all of Israel) is an evil thing that will end with the return of the occupiers to the place from where they came. I do not expect that the justice will include putting the members of the Israeli government on trial as the Nazis were put on trial after the fall of the Nazis, but just that they will leave, as Mahmoud Darwish requested when he said to them that they ‘pass between fleeting words’ and that they should take their names and get out from on us.
All of their news is a crime or lies... I challenge them daily to bring me one Jewish archeological remnant from Jerusalem, or to show us a rock from the alleged Temple.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 26, 2016,
op-ed by Jihad Al-Khazen reprinted from London-based Al-Hayat]
The following are additional recent examples of the PA’s standard practice to deny Israel's right to exist by defining all of Israel as an “occupation,” the “Palestinian interior,” or the “1948 (occupied) territories”:
Examples of the use of this terminology:
Qalqilya governor says Israeli occupation began in 1948
"During the conference organized by the Al-Quds Open University... [Qalqilya] District Governor [Rafe' Rawajbeh] noted that the crime of [the Israeli] occupation stretches from 1948 to the present, and emphasized that the occupation is a crime..."
[Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 13, 2016]
"Yesterday evening, the establishment of the Loyalty and Reform Party within the 1948 territories (i.e., Israel) was announced in Nazareth, in the presence of party leaders and popular and political leaders."
[Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 12, 2016]
PA daily calls Israel "1948 territories"
"About 70,000 residents of occupied Jerusalem, its surroundings, and the 1948 territories (i.e., Israel) held the afternoon prayers yesterday, at the Al-Aqsa Mosque plaza."
[Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 2, 2016]
PA daily refers to Israel as "1948 territories" and Israeli Arabs as "1948 Palestinians"
"The Mossawa Center for the rights of the Arab citizens within the 1948 territories (i.e., Israel) presented the challenges facing the 1948 Palestinians 40 years after Land Day."
[Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 1, 2016]
PA daily refers to Israel as “the territories occupied in 1948”
“The [PLO] Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs stated yesterday [Jan. 21, 2016] in a report that the number of prisoners who have served more than 20 years in the occupation’s prisons has risen to 38 prisoners, most of them sentenced to life, and 14 of them from among residents of the territories occupied in 1948 (i.e., Israel).”
[Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 21, 2016]
The results of this PA ideology and education to see all of Israel as an “occupation” and temporary are very problematic. A poll published by the Washington Institute in 2015 showed that a significant majority of Palestinians believe that even after a final peace agreement with Israel, they should continue to fight against Israel until Israel is destroyed:
“Fifty-eight percent of West Bankers and 65 percent of Gazans say that even if a ‘two-state solution’ is negotiated, ‘the struggle is not over and resistance should continue until all of historic Palestine is liberated.’”
[Washington Institute, July 23, 2015]