Israel Hayom on PMW Waed Report: “‘Encouraging terror’: This is how PA kids are brainwashed”

“Palestinian Media Watch report: Fatah’s magazine for children praises murder”

"Terror and murder get sympathy, Israel has no right to exist, and death as a Martyr is the ideal – this is the content presented to Palestinian children in the magazine Waed, which is published by the Fatah organization. These are the findings of a new report by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which reached Israel Hayom.

The report, which deals with the education that the PA instills in Palestinian children through the magazine, was presented this week by PMW to members of the Norwegian Parliament in Oslo. The magazine is for ages 6-15, and is published by the Fatah children’s organization, which is responsible for education. There is no official information about its distribution, but the estimation is that it has high distribution given that it is a magazine of Fatah [and is distributed in PA schools].

Among the messages published in the magazine: Israel is a colonialist and invading state, Israel has no right to exist, and Palestine will replace Israel in the future. Terror and murder get praise and sympathy, and death as a Martyr is promoted as an ideal. The report found that in a systematic manner, the magazine’s readers – young children and youth – are presented a warped and falsified history meant to justify and strengthen denying Israel’s right to exist.

In a symbolic manner, the report was released in the Norwegian Parliament on the same day that a donor state conference comprised of 16 states was held in Oslo, which dealt with increasing the economic aid to the PA at a sum of at least $1 billion – a move that Israel actually has supported due to the difficult economic situation of the PA.

Among other things, the PMW report writes: "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." Thus, for example, the magazine says: "Since the third millennium BCE, in other words, 5,000 years ago, its Palestinian residents settled it." Of the Jews it is said that they are "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."

‘Worse than the schoolbooks’

The Israeli cities and the entire territory of Israel is described in the magazine as part of occupied Palestine or with the expression "the stolen homeland." Fatah presents itself in the magazine as the one leading the armed and ongoing Palestinian struggle, which will reach its end only when Israel is erased.

"The material we found in the Waed magazine was much worse than what we found in the Palestinian schoolbooks and because of which the European Union (EU) and other bodies stopped their funding to the PA," says Itamar Marcus, PMW director and author of the report, who was invited by parliament members in Oslo to present his findings.

"Here we see Fatah’s worldview in full, and it is built on demonization, war, and destroying Israel. Waed’s ideology fully reflects Fatah’s position before the Oslo Accords: That all of Israel needs to disappear, and a Palestinian state needs to be established in its place; and that there can be no compromise."

According to [Marcus], "It is as if the Oslo Accords never happened. If this is the PA’s education, there is no peace process. PMW calls on all the governments and bodies funding the PA to condition their monetary support on erasing the hatred and encouragement of terror from the education of the PA and Fatah. By educating children with the values of Waed, the PA and Fatah have proven that the peace process is [just] a show.”

[https://www.israelhayom.co.il/news/world-news/middle-east/article/5790653/]