PMW releases new report in Norwegian Parliament on PA/Fatah child education
Fatah is educating children ages 6-15
to seek Israel's destruction
Click here to read the full report as a PDF
Today, as donor countries meet in Oslo to raise money for the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Media Watch’s new report on PA/Fatah education of young Palestinian children will be released in Oslo to members of Norwegian Parliament by PMW Director Itamar Marcus.
Far from preparing its people for a future alongside Israel, the PA/Fatah is educating its children that Israelis are colonialist invaders, that Israel has no right to exist, and that Israel’s replacement by Palestine is inevitable. Terror and murder are glorified, and Martyrdom is presented as an ideal.
These are the clear messages documented in the new PMW report, which examines Fatah’s education of children ages 6-15 through its Waed magazine.
Below is the executive summary and introduction to the report:
The PA/Fatah Vision for Israel's Destruction
A study of Fatah’s Waed magazine
for children ages 6-15
Click here to read the full report as a PDF
Executive summary
Fatah, the ruling political movement of the Palestinian Authority (PA), runs a youth movement for Palestinian children ages 6-15 called the Lion Cubs and Flowers (for boys and girls respectively) which publishes a children’s magazine called Waed (the promise in Arabic). The magazine is published on the youth movement’s website and distributed at Fatah and PA activities and in PA schools.
Fatah's education of children through Waed is the antithesis of peace education. Whereas not all the material in the magazine promotes hatred of Israelis and Israel, all references to Israelis and Israel are hateful.
Waed’s fundamental messages are that Israelis are foreign colonialist invaders, and therefore, Israel has no right to exist. Palestinians led by Fatah will continue the heroic armed struggle until the defeated invaders leave. There is no hint of Israel's legitimacy, nor is there a possibility that Israel will coexist alongside a liberated Palestine, whose borders will include all of Israel.
Fictitious history creates violent destiny
Fatah’s rewriting of the past generates its vision for the future. A fictitious 5,000-year-old “Canaanite Palestinian Arab” people is invented as the pretext for all Palestinian rights: “Since the third millennium BCE, in other words, 5,000 years ago. Its Palestinian residents settled it” (Waed, Issue 37, p. 22). The erasure of the authentic Jewish history in the land is the pretext for denying Jews any rights. Israelis are branded as “foreigners who came from all ends of the earth, foreigners who did not know Palestine and did not live in it – neither them nor their fathers and forefathers” (Waed, Issue 36, p. 2). Every city in Israel and every centimeter of Israel are said to be parts of the occupied Palestinian “homeland that was stolen.”
Accordingly, Israel is delegitimized as the “thieving entity” and Israelis are demonized as the “invading Jews.” Fatah proclaims it will destroy Israel by “liberating Palestine from the thieving Zionist entity” (Waed, Issue 32, p. 3). Israel's destruction is packaged in various euphemisms such as: “the period of Zionism will eventually pass,” and “there is no invader who… did not leave it [Palestine] defeated in the end, and that is what will happen to the Zionist invaders” (Waed, Issue 27, p. 23).
This inevitable “liberation of Palestine,” will be nothing less than Palestinian “victims” achieving justice, since Palestinians have the “absolute right to take back its rights in full” (Waed, Issue 26, p. 12).
Ultimate justice will be achieved with the expulsion of all the Jews. Fatah presents Algeria as the historical precedent: “At the end of the period of French colonialism… they all fled to France... Algeria’s experience assures that the Jewish settlers in Palestine will disappear in the end.” (Waed, Issue 28, p. 25, red emphasis appears in the original.)
Waed is emphatic that Fatah’s goal is to end Israel's existence and not merely its control over the West Bank. The references to “Palestine,” “stolen homeland” and “occupation” always include all of the State of Israel. So do all the maps of “Palestine.”
Palestinian rights: Terror and liberation are linked
The Palestinian “absolute right” to destroy Israel creates the “right” to use violence, coined “…right to wage an armed struggle to take back its stolen homeland” (Waed, Issue 28, p. 4). Moreover, “the liberation of Palestine will only be achieved through armed struggle” (Waed, Issue 27 p. 35).
Israeli civilians are also legitimate targets of this “right.” The murder of a 26-year-old Israeli woman was described as “a heroic car ramming operation.” Dalal Mughrabi, the bus hijacker who led the mass murder of 37, including 12 children, left a “clear and unforgettable impression,” and is praised in several issues of Waed. Terrorists are coined the “heroic fighters of Palestine;” imprisoned terrorists are “self-sacrificing fighter prisoners;” killed terrorists are “Martyrs” and “heroes;” while terror attacks are "daring self-sacrifice operations.”
Jewish history rewritten as Palestinian history
Jewish history and archaeological evidence that confirm the primary connection of the Jews to the land of Israel are presented as Palestinian history and artifacts. Events that happened to Israel/Judea/Jews—including the invasions by the Babylonians, Greeks and Romans thousands of years before the formation of a Palestinian people—are rewritten as Palestinian history. Waed presents a picture of an ancient coin as proof of an ancient “Palestinian currency”—the “Canaanite shekel.” Ironically, the coin chosen was a Judean shekel, with the ancient Hebrew script spelling “Yehud” (Judea).
Most significantly, it is impossible to ignore the PA/Fatah's falsification of history as merely the PA’s internal identity building, because the false history has a much more sinister goal: It serves as justification to destroy Israel:
Over thousands of years it has proven that… there is no invader who invaded this land and did not leave it defeated in the end, and that is what will happen to the Zionist invaders (Waed, Issue 27, p. 23).
Demonization
In addition to delegitimizing Israel the state, the PA/Fatah demonizes Israelis as individuals, calling them evil, racist, bloodthirsty killers, through expressions like the “giant Israeli murder machine,” “Zionist gangs” and “the blood of Gaza's children did not quench the thirst of the Israeli monster.” Among the many libels it disseminates, the magazine accuses Israel of Nazi-like horrors.
For the PA/Fatah, this fabricated history is what creates the vision for the Palestinian destiny. The Waed message: Israel was created by theft, its continued existence is a crime, and its termination via the armed struggle is justified and inevitable. The education transmitted to children via Waed will be the driving force for Palestinian hate and terror for another generation.
Introduction
Fatah is the political movement that has ruled the Palestinian Authority (PA) since the PA’s inception in 1994. Fatah’s Mobilization and Organization Commission runs a youth movement called the Lion Cubs and Flowers (for boys and girls respectively), which sponsors activities for children.
Three to four times a year, the youth movement publishes a magazine called Waed (The Promise) which defines itself as “a cultural-educational monthly that deals with issues related to children ages 6-15.” The magazine includes quizzes, crossword puzzles, short stories, and educational material. It is published on the youth movement’s website and distributed at Fatah's children’s activities, at PA and Fatah summer camps, in PA elementary schools, and other places. (See Appendix 1)
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has examined Waed’s messages to young children about peace, Israel, Jews, and terror, as presented in the last 17 issues, starting with December 2014 and ending with September 2021. Waed reveals explicitly that:
- The PA and Fatah continue to reject Israel’s right to exist
- Palestinian terrorists, even murderers of civilians and children, are glorified by PA/Fatah as Palestinian heroes
- PA/Fatah anticipates a future Palestinian state that will replace all of Israel—accompanied by the removal of all Jews from the land—as the only just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- PA/Fatah assures Palestinian children that a future world without Israel is inevitable
Waed is significant because it clearly shows how Fatah renders the past and present, as well as its vision of a future without Israel.
For years, PMW has presented many governments with the problematic messages the PA/Fatah transmits to young children through the many frameworks it controls, such as PA TV, culture, sports, and formal education. This has generated international pressure on the PA to change. Waed, however, has not been exposed to foreign scrutiny until now, and consequently, it may represent a more pristine expression of the PA/Fatah’s vision not inhibited by foreign pressure.
Senior Fatah leaders head Fatah’s Mobilization and Organization Commission, which runs the youth movement that produces Waed. The current Commissioner, Jamal Muhaisen, is a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, and before him, the Commissioner was the current Deputy Chairman of Fatah, Mahmoud Al-Aloul.
Additionally, the Fatah-produced Waed is significant since Fatah is the same party that has always ruled the PA, and many senior Fatah leaders are also the leaders of the PA. For example, Mahmoud Abbas is Chairman of the PA and Chairman of Fatah. Muhammad Shtayyeh is the PA Prime Minister, a Fatah Central Committee member, and was appointed Fatah Treasury Commissioner in 2017. Waed magazine is not only a window into the vision of one Palestinian political movement; it is a window into the vision of the PA itself. (See Appendix 2)