Interview with Itamar Marcus on PMW’s report “Teaching Terror to Tots”
Hear Itamar Marcus explain why:
1- The PA/Fatah are terror organizations; all that is lacking is “designation”
2- The Oslo Accords were fraudulent
3- For Israel which sought peace, the Oslo Accords which caused 2000 Israeli deaths was an overwhelming failure; for the PLO which sought an effective base for terror operations, the Oslo Accords which caused 2000 Israeli deaths was an overwhelming success
4- Funding the PA is bad for Palestinians
Itamar Marcus:
- “The Oslo Accords were a fraud. From Israel’s perspective, the Oslo Accords were a failure, but from the Palestinian perspective the Oslo Accords were a great success because it allowed them to move a terror organization right inside the heartland of Israel, which has enabled them to commit terror”
- “PMW’s report, “Teaching Terror to Tots,” is really all the proof that you need. This is Fatah’s educational magazine for ages 6–15… What we found is that every fundamental that was promised [by the PLO] in the Oslo Accords is contradicted. [Fatah teaches] that the Jewish people have no right to a state in Israel, that they are all foreigners, they [the Jews] weren’t here, not them, not their grandfathers, not their ancestors, they have no history in the land, therefore they have no right to exist in any borders, and therefore when Israel is destroyed that will be justice, and that will be inevitable”
- “You can’t tell the international community ‘We accept Israel’ while you’re teaching a whole generation of Palestinian children that ‘Israel has no right to exist, we have the right to use armed struggle,’ - meaning kill even civilians – ‘in order to achieve our goal, and eventually we will destroy them, and they will not exist.’ That’s the [PA/Fatah] message, and like I said, the Oslo [Accords] were a fraud”
At the recent Christian Media Summit held in Jerusalem, Palestinian Media Watch Director Itamar Marcus presented PMW’s new report “Teaching Terror to Tots” on the Fatah Movement’s children’s magazine Waed and the hate and terror messages it transmits to Palestinian children aged 6-15.
After the presentation, Marcus was interviewed by the Norwegian news agency Verdinytt. Watch the interview here:
The following is a transcript of the interview:
Norwegian news agency Verdinytt interviewer: “Mr. Itamar Marcus, you are director of Palestinian Media Watch, and today you are releasing a new report that you say tells us that the Oslo Accords were a failure.”
PMW Director Itamar Marcus: “I’m not saying that the Oslo Accords were a failure, I’m saying that they were a fraud. From Israel’s perspective the Oslo Accords were a failure, but from the Palestinian perspective the Oslo Accords were a great success, because it allowed them to move a terror organization that was based in Tunisia right inside the heartland of Israel, which has enabled them to commit terror. So, the interesting thing here is that there were two Oslo Accords that were signed: Israel signed the Oslo Accords hoping for peace, the Palestinian Authority, or the PLO actually, signed the Oslo Accords hoping to gain a foothold inside of the land of Israel, what they call “Palestine,” so that they could continue their terror war against Israel from the inside. So, from the Israeli perspective it was a failure, from the Palestinian perspective it was a great success.”
Interviewer: “But how would you document the claim that you could call it a fraud?”
Itamar Marcus: “This report, “Teaching Terror to Tots,” is really all the proof that you need. This is Fatah’s educational magazine for ages 6–15. We studied all the magazines going back 8 years, and what we found is that every fundamental that was promised [by the PLO] in the Oslo Accords is contradicted by this report. This report says [that Fatah teaches] that the Jewish people have no right to a state in Israel, that they are all foreigners, they [the Jews] weren’t here, not them, not their grandfathers, not their ancestors, they have no history in the land, therefore they have no right to exist in any borders, and therefore when Israel is destroyed that will be justice, and that will be inevitable. All of these [statements] are messages that repeat over and over again through the 8 years of education that we’ve been watching, and that’s why the Oslo Accords were a fraud, because they [the PA] tell the world it’s a process leading to peace, [but] they tell their children it’s a process leading to Israel’s destruction.”
Interviewer: “So this magazine that you studied, which is called Waed, it’s published by the Lion Cubs and Flowers, a children’s movement within the Fatah party, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority-”
Itamar Marcus: “It’s not ‘within.’ This is the children’s movement, the children’s youth movement of the Fatah party. It’s run by senior people within Fatah. It’s not a small fringe thing. These magazines are given out in the school system. We have pictures of principals having big events where they hand out this magazine. It’s not fringe, this is mainstream Palestinian Authority and their ruling party, which of course is Fatah.”
Interviewer: “Can you give us an example?”
Itamar Marcus: “What they’ll teach for example is that ‘Our people are a 5,000-year-old Palestinian people’ – of course it’s a lie, there never were a Palestinian people until very recently – but they say “We have a 5,000-year-old Palestinian people, and we were invaded by the Pharaohs, by the Hyksos, by the Persians, by the Romans, by the Greeks, and by the Hebrews.” “We defeated all of those occupiers, and just as we defeated those occupiers, we will defeat the current Zionist occupier and he will leave too.” What they say is: In the end all of the Jews will leave “Palestine.” That’s the message, that all the Jews will leave “Palestine.” So there’s no hesitation here, there’s no trying to pretend. They tell it like they really believe, like their ideology is. That’s why I say it in a sense proves that the Oslo Accords were a fraud from the beginning. You can’t tell the international community “We accept Israel” while you’re teaching a whole generation of Palestinian children that “Israel has no right to exist, we have the right to use armed struggle,” - meaning kill even civilians - “in order to achieve our goal, and eventually we will destroy them, and they will not exist.” That’s the [PA/Fatah] message, and like I said, the Oslo [Accords] were a fraud. I believe more what they tell their children than I believe what they’re telling the president of the United States, or the prime minister of Israel, or the prime minister of Norway. Because the international community has not known about this magazine, it is a pristine example of their ideology. They didn’t hide anything, because they didn’t know people were looking. The schoolbooks they try to fix and make them look better because they know the world’s looking. Their media on TV, as bad as it is, they try… Here they thought nobody was looking. Anyway, we found it, PMW found it, Palestinian Media Watch, and now the world is going to know about it.”
Interviewer: “What would you say would be a proper reaction to knowing this from the Western countries?”
Itamar Marcus: “Any country that has morals and ethical values will immediately stop funding the Palestinian Authority. It’s bad enough that you [foreign governments] ignore the political implications [of the messages in Waed], but to actually pay for this, to pay the Palestinian Authority, which gives money to Fatah, which produces this, which will then guarantee that we have war, conflict and terror for another generation or more generations, is immoral. So any decent country will have to stop funding the Palestinian Authority. Beyond that they have to put all the pressure they can - all the political pressure - to have the Palestinian Authority eliminate all of those people who were involved in this hate education, get them out of power, put in new people to run the Palestinian Authority, people who actually accept Israel’s right to exist and want to live in peace with Israel. We have to find those people, the international community has an obligation to find those people, we [Israel and the international community] can’t just keep going on with momentum and supporting a terror organization.”
Interviewer: “Do you think that Fatah should be designated as a terrorist organization?”
Itamar Marcus: “Fatah is a terrorist organization, the Palestinian Authority is a terrorist organization, by international standards. The international community, the UN has said that glorifying terror promotes terror. The Palestinian Authority glorifies every single terrorist. The United States has passed a law that funding terror – the Taylor Force Act – funding terror, funding terrorists, rewarding terrorists promotes terror. The Palestinian Authority rewards terrorists, they promote terror. According to the United States, according to all standards they [Fatah] are terrorists. So, we’re trying to avoid designating them as a terror organization in the hope that they might change, but why? If it hasn’t helped for more than 20 years, for more than 22 years since they started the terror [campaign] in 2000, why do we think that it will change in the next 20 years? So, let’s learn from our mistakes, let’s designate them as a terror organization, let’s see if they [Palestinians] can replace them, get rid of all this terror ideology, get it out of their schools, get it out of their behavior, stop rewarding terrorists. If they stop behaving like terrorists then we have someone to talk to.”
Interviewer: “Having someone to talk to is an argument that is often used from the political viewpoint saying that who else would we talk to?”
Itamar Marcus: “Dialoguing with the Palestinian Authority, giving money to the Palestinian Authority is not helping Palestinians. It’s helping to enrich the upper political echelons of the Palestinian Authority. When the Palestinian Authority uses this money to teach children to be terrorists, to teach them to be Martyrs, to be Shahids, to kill themselves for Allah - if that’s what they’re using the money for you’re not benefiting the Palestinian people by giving money to the Palestinian Authority.”
Interviewer: “Every year you speak to European governments about these subjects, and you’ve also visited Norway and met parliamentarians in our country. How is the level of understanding that you face when you meet European politicians?”
Itamar Marcus: “The importance of Palestinian Media Watch presentations is that I don’t tell them what I think. I let them see what the Palestinians are seeing, I let them see what the Palestinians believe. I show them videos, I show them texts from schoolbooks, I show them texts from reports like this, the magazine Waed, [featured in] “Teaching Terror to Tots.” When people see this, they absolutely are convinced. Unfortunately, what happens is time goes on, then they’ll meet a Palestinian leader who will say, “Oh that doesn’t really represent us, and it’s not this, and it’s not that,” and they’ll accept these ridiculous explanations of the PA. When MPs see the material, we need the government to act on this immediately, because what happens is like anything it dissipates, as time goes on people forget the messages. We need people in every country to follow up with the governments so that they don’t forget what they saw and what they learned about the Palestinian Authority and its connection to terror.”
[Verdinytt, Norwegian news agency, Dec. 12, 2022]