PA TV libel: Israeli national anthem “speaks about killing the Arabs”
Official PA TV program The Supreme Authority
Official PA TV host: “Dr. Ibrahim [Al-Masri], let us focus the conversation on how the [PA] curricula have been directly targeted. There is targeting, there is an attempt to monitor everything that appears in the curricula, there are forgery attempts. If we want, we can also talk about the [Arab] children in Jerusalem who are also forced to deal with non-Palestinian curricula.”
Political science and legal expert Dr. Ibrahim Al-Masri: “Yes, if we are talking about the Palestinian curricula, they essentially meet the needs of the Palestinian students, and the Palestinian students are not required to not know about their [national] cause. This is their basic cause, and they need to know its details because they are Palestinians, and this is their issue and this knowledge benefits them. Therefore, when the occupation comes and wants to forbid me or forbid my children or forbid our children, whether in the schools or in the universities, to acquire this basic and important knowledge- which by the way corresponds to international law and does not contradict international law, and if it would have contradicted international law we would be the first to be committed to these curricula. But it fully corresponds to the international conventions on everything regarding liberation and dealing with this colonialist occupation.
Israel is attempting to influence international public opinion, to convince the Europeans and Americans that the Palestinian curriculum does not meet the basic demands and encourages terror. But this is not true. It is not precise in any way, and for example, they want to remove songs that are religious or deal with religious rulings, a number of Quran verses – which are something holy that we cannot- but this is the religion of tolerance, as everyone knows. This is the religion of love, the religion of good, and the Islamic religion is the religion of cooperation between the peoples! And our curricula revolve around this framework. But a number of Israeli institutions that are supported by the settler Israeli government claim that these curricula are not appropriate, and they fuss over every word and letter. These are baseless claims, and if we pay attention, they are the ones who are spreading civil wars, fanaticism, and racism.”
Host: “In principle, Dr. Ibrahim, can any parties interfere in what any state wants to put into or include in its curricula?”
Ibrahim Al-Masri: “First, the channels that monitor the Palestinian curriculum are channels that are mostly Israeli or Zionist.”
Host: “Right.”
Ibrahim Al-Masri: “Therefore, they are fundamentally racist and they are hiding the Israeli [curriculum’s] contents…
I hope that the Palestinian side and its institutions will establish institutions like these in order to monitor the Israeli curriculum, present it to the world, present its racism, and make this curriculum known. We all exactly know that the anthem that is played in the [Israeli] schools is a racist anthem that speaks about killing the Arabs and killing the Muslims (sic., there is no such statement in the Israeli anthem)…
Even their religious curriculum – the one that is in their religious study institutes – is a dangerous curriculum. It views the Palestinians and Muslims as insects, and I do not want to say what the insects that they speak of are (sic., Israeli religious schools do not teach that Muslims are insects).”