Importance of PMW’s WAED report highlighted in media
PMW’s WAED report
"should have far-reaching political implications"
By: Alex Grobman PhD.
Since 2008, the Palestinian Authority (PA) adopted the Hamas position that this is a religious war noted Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch. Fatah, the ruling political party of the PA, directs a children’s movement called the Lion Cubs and Flowers, which publishes a magazine called Waed (“Promise”) for children ages 6-15. Waed is distributed throughout the PA areas, in PA schools, summer camps, and at Fatah events. Marcus, who published a report on Waed, says Fatah uses this “cultural-educational” periodical and the magazine’s website to explain that the conflict with Israel is a religious war for Islam.
Waed issue 41 states: “Almighty Allah commands that the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings remain under our guardianship forever and ever and that we shall protect it forever and ever. Prophet [Muhammad] prayed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque… We are trustees over this mosque until the day of Resurrection. Therefore, the Arabs always rush to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Zionist thieves, those who stole our land… We the Palestinian Arabs, Muslims and Christians alike, will defend our Jerusalem and our land, our mosques, and our churches, and we will redeem them with our blood.”
Children are assured that “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea,” and the “Zionist invaders will go to the garbage can of history.” They are trained to embrace violence, terror, and “murdering Israeli citizens,” because it is “Our people’s right to wage an armed struggle to take back its stolen homeland, and [We] will fight the enemies until we achieve victory, liberate Palestine.”
In the pursuit of liberating Palestine, the children are taught not to fear prison or Martyrdom: “We do not care how many Martyrs will die,” since “We will die, and Palestine will live.”
With this fanatical commitment to destroy Israel, Marcus asserts this “report on Waed should have far-reaching political implications and must be a wake-up call demanding a reassessment of the PA as a peace partner.”
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