PA-associated youth magazine glorifies death: "If you love death... then you're a Palestinian"
PA-associated educational youth magazine Zayzafuna published for the third time a poem glorifying Martyrdom death for Allah - Shahada:
"If you know that you were born with a death sentence, and if you go to your death without caring - then you're a Palestinian!
If your song is the song of Martyrdom (Shahada), and death, for you, is birth - then you're a Palestinian!
If you love death, and you say the Shahada [declaration] (i.e., the Islamic creed: "There is no God but Allah, Muhammad is Allah's messenger.") aloud - then you're a Palestinian!
If you've ever felt that you're an exploding body and that your soul will long one day to be a knight for the homeland - then you're a Palestinian!
If the stone is your weapon against oppression, and if those who hate [you] criticize your struggle - then you're a Palestinian!
If you have watered the tree of the homeland with your free blood, with love, and have offered the remnants of your bodily parts as a bridge for those who are yet to come - then you're a Palestinian!
If you have shattered the chains, and carried the key to the house from which [your] grandparents were expelled - then you're a Palestinian!
If your wedding (i.e., a Martyr's death and funeral in Islamic tradition are a wedding to the 72 Maidens of Paradise) was amidst a hail of bullets between the shoulders of friends [who carried your body], against the sound of tears mingled with joy and the searing pain of separation - then you're a Palestinian, and you're full of pride at being a Palestinian."
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Note: This poem has been published in three issues of the magazine: January 2012, June 2013, and September 2013. Twice it was attributed to an 8th grade student and once to an 11 year-old in 5th grade.
Zayzafuna's website states that the magazine's advisory board is comprised of Palestinian Authority officials and educators, including Jihad Zakarneh, PA Deputy Minister of Education, and Abd Al-Hakim Abu Jamous, Head of Media Department, PA Ministry of Education.
In May 2011, the Deputy Chairman of the Zayzafuna organization Abd Al-Karim Ziyada explained on PA TV that the PA gives "a monthly payment of 10,000 shekels ($2,700) to cover the magazine's [costs]." [Official PA TV, May 9 and 13, 2011]
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